The Dancing Poodle

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Played the Darwinia demo over the weekend. Bizarre graphics (see the screenshots), but incredibally addictive! Download the demo and see what you think… Oh, it’s available through Steam.

Installed the first-person demo of F.E.A.R. last night and had a quick play. Noticed the ratings were pretty severe - Gore, Intense Violence and Coarse Language. Yep, it had all that, and that was just in the intro sequence!!!

While I didn’t actually get to any action bits (I think I’m about to, but since it was getting late and I was alone in a dark room (and am basically a coward at heart), I thought I’d stop for the night before I got scared. Anyway, to my first impressions…

I guess it’s inevitable to compare any new FPS game with Half-Life 2, whether it’s a fair comparison or not. F.E.A.R. (just FEAR from now on - I get sick of doing all the ‘.’ strokes) is, graphically, a little bit darker that HL2, reflecting more of the thriller / horror flick genre (compared to HL2’s action). As indicated above, there is a lot more language and blood, which means it probably won’t go on my most-played list (especially with two impressionable boys running around my house). Gameplay is similar to HL2, although it would be nice if there was a standard keyboard layout for all FPS games: W, S, A & D control movement as always, but crouch is C (really difficult to strafe right while crouching without shifting your hand), and CTRL (crouch for HL2) seems to start up a bullet-time mode.

Ah, bullet-time! Max Payne made such effective use of you, yet HL2 lives without offering your abilities…

Where was I? Oh yeah… One nifty feature is the way ladders are used. In HL2, you just walk up to a ladder, and you’re climbing or descending. Except when you miss the ladder at the top and start falling (still, it’s descending in a way, I suppose). FEAR requires you to deliberately mount a ladder (using F, rather than the slightly more accessible E key), but then moves through a very cool animation as you move onto the ladder (eg turning around and coming down backwards, etc). And it seems that you slide down ladders rather than actually climbing. Not sure how all this will work in the middle of a firefight, but it seems cool for now.

One last nifty feature is the addition of a config program (in the main program directory) that you can run and set up monitor resolutions, etc, before launching the program - very handy when you accidently select an incompatible display mode and your screen goes black every time you run it (as happened to me).

Anyway, I guess I’ll play a little more over the weekend so I can continue this first taste of FEAR (or would it be a second taste?). All I ask is, “Don’t hurt me!!!”

Glenn asked about a Quality mic & headset. I was just in Thick Dick’s, and saw what he might be after. Glenn, have a look at this. It’s USB 2.0 to boot!

Oh, and they’ve also got give-away copies of the First-Person Demo of F.E.A.R.

Weebl has just posted a review of Wipeout Pure on a PSP. Must say, the screenshots are amazing - they look just like the last mobile phone I had after I sat on it.

While you’re at it, check out Magical Trevor’s latest adventure. Funny stuff!

The Half Life Saga Story Guide is an interesting insight into the history of Half-Life. I finally found it for you, Glenn!

Another GameDaily article.

Christian Games Gaining Popularity

GameDaily has an interesting interview with Valve’s Gabe Newell regarding next-generation games development for Xbox 360, PS3, and even Windows Vista! Who said computers get easier as time goes on?

Clicky clicky…

1up have a story regarding a Halo Movie for Summer 07

Maybe they’ll just use Red vs Blue rewrites?

Now this looks awesome!! Why wasn’t I told about this earlier? A car rally game based on the Half-Life engine, with a new version based on the Source engine in the pipeline. Initiating download now…