Unicode Unicorn

Trackmania is a game I have played for years. I remember picking the first version of the game at a school book fair and I fell in love with it. It combined the modular building capabilities of legos with the fun of driving. I sunk many hours into it. I also bought the sequel, trackmania sunrise. When a new version, Trackmania Nations was released (for free) I jumped onto it and played it for hours. At least until Left 4 Dead came out, this was the go-to game during freshman and sophmore year of college. I forgot about it for a while, until recently.

It was nice, hopping into a server and being in the top third, finishing first or second in many matches. I downloaded a custom car (A volvo 240) to drive around it. And for a while I had the “just one more” rush that I haven’t felt in a while.

And then today, I was reminded why I left.

Most of the matches are time events, who can finish the course the fastest. Players have a set amount of time to get a good time on the track. The game becomes less about racing and more about precision driving, matches become bad enough so that one ends up restarting dozens of times because they didn’t get the first jump or turn right. If you continue then you’ll be behind on every other checkpoint, and end up with a time that won’t raise your rank, so it’s a wasted run. It makes more sense to just restart every time if the run isn’t perfect, since it’ll be wasted time. During this time you see other players go faster than you, and your rank decreases, and there’s nothing you can do because you can’t hit the first jump JUST right in order to get a PERFECT run. It’s frustrating.

And, sometimes player created levels are just cruel to players. Dead ends, blind turn jumps, and other awful design decisions make the game harder to play. One one map there was a spot that was impassible unless players drove along the edge of the wall enough to tilt the car onto the higher platform. One had to force their way through. Not every map is this way, but it’s apparent every once in a while.

On the good side, there are some brilliantly made levels that are always a treat to drive on. Some with custom themes. These are, unfortunately, few and far between.

I think I’ll keep playing Trackmania, as I have no racing game with such an active online community that is also free. I dabbled in sim racing with Race 07, but I found the online experience lacking. One of the problems with Race 07 was that people would quit if they were losing, leading me to be the last one on the track along with the drivers who were perfect. Another problem is that it’s three goddamn years old and nobody plays it.

I also have Forza racing, which I should put more time into. I spend all my time on the computer so time spent staring at my TV feels “wasted” and “unproductive” (Like this is any more productive) but also my little router died (netgear! fuck) and I’ve been to lazy to buy a new one.

Racing, while not the most popular genre among gamers, feels like the most primal a thing to do in a computer game.

Comics are going to be semi-weekly, since this semester is becoming such a grind.

Sandbox games. Yup.

The main component of any sandbox game is the transportation. Planes, trains, automobiles. How else are you supposed to get around the game world? Prototype and Infamous tried to do away with “driving cars around” by making the game world fit into a city, and make getting around “fun” or something. I guess it worked. people liked it. There’s also the issue of making the game world interesting and dynamic enough to make hanging out in the game fun. By hanging out, I mean going on rampages, driving around, and generally jerking around the map.

Just cause 2 makes this “jerking around” the focus of their demo. You basically get 30 minutes to screw off in a large section of land. I’ve played it about three times, with only one session that was really fun throughout. I’m having issues duplicating this “fun” session. Basically: it ran smooth. The game sorta switches between 30fps and 60fps, and it does this no mater what you’re doing in game, and it’s a buzzkill. When it doesn’t do this, and you have a good controller, the game is fun.

Although, it’s hard to gain perspective from the demo of the real game. You’re in an isolated island nation (complete with desert, tropical, and mountain areas…odd) and I guess you have to assist some rebels overthrow the government. So: bay of pigs, but with one guy. And you’re invincible. I guess the game assumes that “blowing shit up” is going to be the player’s main reason to keep playing.

You know. the US probably gave this fictional island nation all of it’s guns and shit. It’s like Iran Contra, or shit like that. What is this country’s main export? I guess that’s why it’s military dictatorship. Where is the public transit? Why are there Tuk-tuks in the middle of the desert? I assumed those were for urban areas but oh well. Why are there so many taxis in the middle of the desert?

Okay; at every town there’s, like, a roadblock. A military roadblock. Fairly realistic. Occasionally there will be a bunch of civvies in the “Oppression position” while the guards…wander around. And they shoot at you when you shoot at them!

So, your character is supposed to save the whole country, probably by himself. In order to do this (in the demo) you have to cause “chaos” by destroying infrastructure. Like water towers, gas stations, and power stations. But wouldn’t this just make living in the country worse? You’re basically a revolutionary prankster, except you’re killing everyone instead of egging people’s cars.

But, I guess that’s what gamers want. I guess the developers realized most gamers are infantile sophmoric dumbasses (Have you READ kotaku? or destructioid? no wonder Roger Ebert doesn’t consider games an art) and decided to play to those impulses with the game. It’s very polished, very impressive, and it’ll probably sell a lot of copies.

I had the most fun tooling around in cars. The physics are a treat, as well as the graphics. I giggled as I ramped my car off of curbs and hills, making it tumble across the desert. Exploration and transportation are things the game does well. I don’t know why I haven’t picked up the game “Fuel” as driving around is that game’s main goal.

So yeah. I’m probably not going to buy it, unless I get it to run on my system without it going to 30fps.

Finished Stalker, after about a month of on-and-off play. It is a really well-put together game, the graphics aren’t stellar but they’re convincing enough, the story is confusing and weird, and the gameplay is buggy at worst and forced at best. Like Counter Strike but with weapons that misfire at inopportune times.

Props must be laid down on the level design, that is this game’s strongest element. They modeled Pripyat as accurate as I would imagine, and i would say it looks better than Pripyat from Modern Warfare. Not only that, but you can mostly explore it, as it’s not a totally linear affar. Beyond the power plant and the town, everything else is sorta made up.

Most of the missions involve going into some complex, fighting your way to the bottom, finding the Mcguffin, and fighting your way out. Usually these complexes are science facilities with some kind of funky soviet-era shit at the bottom.

The game is scariest when you’re deep in one of these complexes and just waiting for someone to attack. The 2nd to last complex, a radio station that was blocking the path forward because of “PSI energy” (?) only had three monsters on the way down, but when they did show up it would give me a good scare.

Your enemies drop stuff, so often you’ll scrounge around for something you need via enemies. On more than one ocassion after single-handedly slaughtering dozens of enemy NPCs I will; be weighted down by the amount of ammo I found.

Guns. Yes guns. Pistols are pretty useless after you get your first SMG or AK. You can attach scopes and rocket launchers to these guns. Make them your own. They misfire, which is something I’ve never come across in any game, and it’s rather annoying in the heat of battle. There’s also different ammo types, and it can get confusing unless you commit to memory what ammo works with your gun. I ended up hauling several guns that each took different bullets, so that I could have a backup weapon in case one ran out and I couldn’t find ammo. Early on, I would waste a lot of ammo trying to take someone down that was far away, with an underpowered gun. On more than one occasion I would actually knife whole squads of enemies because I was tired of the Misfire, reload, misfire, reload deal. This is a valid strategy, knifing everyone to death. Another strategy is to run past everyone, this works well too.

The game is an asshole. It’s nintendo-hard in spots. The last conflict/battle in the game pits you against some super troops who are all bunched together. Most of my deaths were attributed to them sneaking up on me and shooting me in the head. The AI was very good at this.

The progression in this game was something I wasn’t used to. It was touted as being an open world, but most maps are either a dead end or a 2 way route. There are no shops, only bartering, which got frustrating because there was no reliable way to find ammo/guns. Although it’s kind of cool that you, the player, start out with a pistol and a hoodie and end up with some super-exo suit and a sweet gun.

I bought it for 5 bucks at Half Price Books. It has brought me hours of enjoyment. Great ROI if I’ve ever seen it.

Someone at GDC tipped me off to the “Experimental Gameplay project” where you make a game in 7 days. It’s a monthly thing, and you get a theme. March’s theme is 10 seconds, so I’m trying to make a 10 second long driving game.

There is a serious dearth of indie racing games, most of them are sims and they’re terrible.

Also, P-dub from reddit has probably found my site. All I need now is Look of disapproval and we can have a reddit hootenanny up in here.