mordorbbs.com

Minecraft - A new cooperative construction effort?

Spider — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:14:59 -0500

Ok, attendance seems to be dwindling on the server, I bet if we had a reason to jump on and do something we could create something legendary (well, perhaps just cool..:-) )

I'm proposing a building project of mammoth proportions, just don't know what or were yet.

Oh, take note that build height in the next release is going to go from 128 to 256, that's right, DOUBLE the current height we have now, take note of that and have a think about what we could make.....

Sharktopus

Psygnal — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:27:44 -0500

There are movies which make you laugh. There are movies which make you cry. There are movies which cause discomfort or disquiet, and movies which inspire, horrify, intrigue, and move you to the very core of your being.

Then there is Sharktopus, made by Hollywood legend Roger Corman.

Roger Corman has a name for making movies on the cheap. It has been said that he could film an entire movie in a day in a phone booth, and pay for it with the loose change from the phone. His movies haven't, however, generally been considered "bad".

Sharktopus is bad.

It's a movie about a rogue genetic melding of shark and octopus, developed in secret for a government project. It runs amok and starts killing people, and a small team of scientists embark on a mission to re-capture it.

A simple story, made for the SyFy channel

The creature itself is CGI, changes size depending on the shot, and gains and loses abilities depending on how the story is progressing. For example, when tracking down a hapless member of the public, Sharktopus is massive, strong enough to snap a yacht in half, and incredibly fast and agile. Faced with a hero who falls flat on his back, it is somehow half its former size, sluggish and can be fought off with a pointy stick.

The acting is pretty dire, but then you're likely watching it for the shark and the scantily clad females... so while there's lots of shark, it seems unfortunate that they didn't capitalise on the scantily clad bit without making it icky.

It seems that the shark pretty much sticks to hot women in bikinis. It certainly seemed to spend most of the movie eating them. In this film, if you see a hot woman in a bikini, it's very likely she will end up being eaten by the Sharktopus at some point.

SyFy seems to have realised how laughably bad this film is. I am of two minds as to whether they intended this to be a film so bad that people watch it just because of it's extreme direness... it is certainly no Plan 9 from Outer Space... though I found that SO bad as to be unwatchable.

Sharktopus is watchable - though you may wonder why you bothered. I don't think it quite manages to land in that vanishingly narrow gap that defines "So bad it's fun to watch". I'm still debating internally which side of the gap it does land on.

In short - if you're after the next Jaws - forget it. If you want "Deep Blue Sea" - forget it.
If you want dodgy CGI, half eaten women in bikinis, and acting so bad you could be forgiven for hitting it with a stick, then you could certainly do worse.

Psyg'

Star Prospector

MrBillwulf — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:54:58 -0500

Star Prospector is a single-player science-fiction RTS with RPG elements from Cryptstone Games, an indie company in Canada. The main character of the game is you and your mining rig, which increases in levels as you carry out missions. At the start of the game, you create a profile, choose a rig, and then randomly generate a galaxy filled with planets waiting to be mined. Missions are goal-based and story-driven. For example, you may be called upon to search for missing archaeologists or destroy anti-air turrets built by the game's enemy faction, the Scavengers, humans who have augmented themselves cybernetically and now don't like the rest of us. In the meantime, you have to build up a base, scout the map, harvest minerals and fuel, and fight off unfriendly native critters.

The RTS side of the game will be familiar to anyone who has played a traditional RTS. What sets SP apart is that between missions you can upgrade your rig and buy new building and robot types (all units in SP are robots). Moreover, during missions there are RPG-style loot drops that can improve your rig's stats or provide healing for units. Your robot soldiers also level up, although you cannot take them from mission-to-mission; only your rig and upgrades are mission-persistent.

After having done some early missions, I find the game quite enjoyable. It's slower-paced than most RTSs, although the latest patch added three levels of speed to the game. Indeed, the developers are doing a great job listening to feedback and incorporating some of it. More features are on their way.

There is a demo, as well as several YouTube videos of gameplay. MrBagalot, one of the game's designers, has several videos on his channel.

The Gruffalo

Psygnal — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:28:07 -0500

You probably need to be a parent to really appreciate this - but the children's book "The Gruffalo" has rocketed up the charts to become one of the most popular kids books of all time. It's simple without being too repetitive, and is a bit more resistant to the whole "If I have to read this one more time I'm going to explode!" feelings that most kids books engender.

It's also full of fantastic pictures which will no doubt fire little kiddies imaginations.

It surprised me to learn that there was a Gruffalo movie. When I found out, I figured it would be a cheapo animated affair, a few minutes long, being read out by some B-list actor who was down on his luck. I was quite wrong.

It's actually quite charming. The 'sets' are painstakingly constructed real miniatures of the forest in which the book occurs. They're not only true to the book's depictions, but they add a real sense of 'world'. The characters themselves - the sneaky fox, the oily owl and the suspicious snake - not to mention the Gruffalo himself - are brilliantly realised in CGI, with famous actors playing each role.

The music is brilliant, and it is extremely true to the book. Where it would take only a few minutes to read the book the movie is 45 minutes long. Rather than add lots of (probably ludicrous) plot, the creators of this movie simply took a phrase like "A mouse went for a walk in the deep dark wood" and actually spent a bit of time having a mouse explore the deep dark wood, giving the kiddies something fun to watch, without spoiling an otherwise fun and simple little tale.

The whole feel of the Deep Dark Forest and the little mouse's adventures with the Gruffalo is therefore detailed and rather enjoyable - which surprised me for what is essentially a 45 minute telling of a five minute book.

It may suffer from the countless re-plays that the kids seem to love... in fact, it doesn't matter how good the movie is - after a few re-runs it will drive you up the damn wall, let's face it... but I think most adults will enjoy their first watch-through - and kids are likely to love it regardless.

Psyg'

Bastion

Psygnal — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:27:18 -0500

Bastion is an Indie game in the (basic) flavour of Torchlight and Diablo. The similarities are tenuous, but it's a fun little game, and I can't think of too many other ways to describe it.

The story starts with your world having shattered. You wake up essentially on a rock hanging in space. As you move, the world forms around you. This is quite a fun effect, as the landscape builds itself as you go. It can be a little irritating when you're trying to find your way around though, as it's easy to miss a pathway that doesn't exist until you get a bit closer to it.

It also implies that the world *really* builds itself as you go - with randomly generated levels for maximum re-playability. This actually isn't the case. Next time you play from the start, the same layout will build in front of you. This is possibly a bit of a lost opportunity.

The graphics are cartoony, and very pretty. The sound is adequate - and oddly a bit Western, given the obviously non-western feel of the rest of the game. The "live narrator" who literally narrates just about every step you take actually adds surprisingly to the game. There's no irritating repetition at this point either, and I've played it for about an hour.

The idea - so far - is to get to and rebuild "The Bastion" - a place of safety where everyone was supposed to go when the world started to shatter. You do this by finding and bringing back diamond cores from various areas within the game. Each one you retrieve lets you build an amenity on the Bastion landscape... an armoury, a distillery, a blacksmith... that sort of thing.

Weaponry is the standard melee, range, magic affair. Controls are smooth and natural, and the only complaint I'd make is that it's a bit too easy to walk off the edge of the world, as WASD is inherently vertical and horizontal, and the landscape is isometrically diagonal.

The game is relatively inexpensive on Steam, and if you enjoyed Torchlight or the original Diablo games, you'll probably love this. In fact, even if you didn't like those games - the comparison isn't entirely fair - and there's a good chance you'll enjoy this charming little Indie game anyway.

Psyg'

Diablo 3

Gawain — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:26:37 -0500

Cruin wrote:Looks like I missed the wagon on this deal. Not that I was super impressed by the original, but the consensus seems that this sequel is an improvement all around.

Oh well, I can't complain. Immersed myself in Diablo 3 this weekend while ignoring most everything else. But that's another topic.

Cruin

Yes, it is another topic.

Oh look! Here comes that topic now!

Now spill the beans!

Some of us are considered too un-American to be allowed in the beta (up yours Blizzard) so we have to wait for others to tell what it is like...

Section 8: Prejudice

MrBillwulf — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:19:20 -0500

I normally don't go in for games like this, but TotalBiscuit's videos on the game piqued my interest--and it's a Steam weekend special. I bought the four-pack, because for a few dollars more I could get three more copies with all of the DLC. So if you have a Steam account and want a copy, let me know. Here's the Steam page for it:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/

Correction: it was actually a Steam daily deal. The weekend deals involve the Warhammer franchise.

Star Trek Online

Psygnal — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:54:33 -0500

When I heard Star Trek Online was first released, I was intrigued - but not enough to buy the game. I'd heard some dodgy things about it, and wasn't willing to spend the money on what could easily have been yet another bad game in the Trek franchise.

Star Trek Online has just been made Free To Play, however - meaning you can download it and play it for no cost at all - and pay money in microtransactions periodically to get special bits and pieces as you level.

Firstly - I have no idea whether Microtransactions are required to get far in the game. If they follow the LotRO model, they'll be desirable but not absolutely necessary. If they follow the Dungeons and Dragons Online model, you simply won't be able to proceed without dropping money on something in the game.

I've played for about six hours, and here's my take on the game so far.

It's OK. It plays like a single player game so far.
I've seen people, and there are definitely lots of other player's ships around... but all of the missions I've done seem to be instanced solo-play. As for what the game is like - regardless of whether there are other players around... well it's very reminiscent of Knights of the Old Republic in that regard.

Missions are split between ship and ground based. Ship based is pretty standard fare. Turn to ensure you've always got a shield between you and the baddie, and spam your phaser and photon buttons when the weapon arcs are pointing in the right direction.

Ground based is more traditional shooter material. Not twitch based at all, but certainly not something you can sit down and ponder about before making a move.

The missions have certainly been better than the World of Warcraft "Go here, kill five wild boar, and give me their spleens" material. My first trip sent me into an asteroid field to locate a missing freighter. I found it being bombarded by Orion pirates, and had to fight them off.
Then I got to beam over to the ship, and use my mad science skillz to shut down plasma leaks and locate the crew. Occasionally, some Orions would beam in and have to be dealt with.
Finding the crew, it was time to escort them out of a radiation hot-zone so they could be beamed aboard my ship... at which point, a cruiser warps in and starts causing havoc, so it's some more flitting about trying to balance my shields and draw a bead with my photons.

Once you've done the missions, I can see them perhaps being rather dull to repeat, but in six hours, I only had to repeat a little bit due to being disconnected part way through a mission.

Ship combat is a little onerous. It can be hard to identify a target if there are a few of them, and if there are a lot of people planetside, finding the one you're looking for can be a little on the dull side.

Combat is - so far at least - substandard on both the ship and the planet's surface.
Point, click, wait for cooldown, rinse, repeat.

I was hoping for more.

My zippy little light cruiser steers like a pregnant cow, and my chap on the surface has a disturbing tendency to fire his phaser whenever I try to open a door - but that might just be the Minecraft skills leaking in to mess me up with a miss-timed right-click when I should be pressing "F".

You'll need decent screen resolution. This game opens so many windows and panels that if you're running at anything less than 1600x900, you tend to be peering at the universe from behind a bunch of GUI interfaces.

To cut to the chase - graphically OK. Space isn't great. Planet surfaces are pretty good, but don't expect to be able to explore. You've got your mission area, and that's it.

Audio - much as you'd expect. Lots of recognisable Trek music.

Controls - A little cumbersome, but they seem to do the job. The GUI is a bit naff, but not as bad as some games I've played over the years.

Gameplay - If you liked Knights of the Old Republic, you'll probably like the planetary stuff. For space combat... don't expect Eve Online. Or even Freespace for that matter. It's rather tired.

Over all - I wouldn't buy this game, but now that it's free to play, it's probably worth a look, just in-case it does appeal to you. I'll keep playing it for a while, certainly - at least unless the Freemium concept gets in the way of the fun, or the missions/storyline becomes too repetitive.

If I had to choose between two free games - this and LotRO, I'd go LotRO every time. Perhaps not fair to compare two such different titles - but when it comes to feeling like you're playing a better engineered, more complete and fluid game, LotRO has it in spades.

Psyg'

Mordor BBS Minecraft - Mod Spawns

Wolf — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:44:01 -0500

As we've all noticed mob spawns appear to be very low on the 1.1 map - this has also been reported in the MC forums. Apparently it's not the hardness level or world key, the same amount of mobs are supposed to be spawning, its just that the new map generation code builds lots more underground structures, caves ravines etc - to an overkill extent.

This means that the same number of mobs now spawn over a vastly increase area in many cases initially inaccesable to the player - small caves wth no surface entrance etc and so are encountered far lesss than before.

Can't be "fixed" except through mods but can be improved by lighting up as much of the underground as possible which will force mobs to spawn in restricted areas so that they can be encountered more.

Wolf

Kerbal Space Program

Psygnal — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:49:54 -0500

Thank you @MrBillWulf for introducing me to this game.

While Kerbal has big dreams, at the moment all you can do is build rockets to try to get into space. You have a limited number of bits to help you do this - namely a couple of different types of thruster, some fuel pods, stabilisers and so forth.

You string them together, launch the construction, and watch your poor little space-mo-nauts flash-fire on their way back through the atmosphere once you realise you've miscalculated the fuel consumption.

The game will eventually allow you to do so much more - but we're talking very early alpha stages here, so all you've got is a rather fun little rocket builder.

My record to date stands at around 345,000 meters, which is probably not great. I have not achieved orbit, and certainly am not anywhere near attempting a moon-shot. I'm not even sure it's possible with the limited tools you have in this very alpha piece of the game.

I can recommend this as a fun little passtime. And I'd certainly recommend keeping an eye on the http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/ website for updates.

Psyg'