if the fucking stupid store will actually let you buy anything.

Thanks valve! 

why not go and, er, maybe no. wouldnt want to start a flame war..... 

It's been a couple of months since I've played a full game, having kept myself busy with Half-Life mods. Most of which were fairly average, but of course the engine was designed in 1996. I read a review for Vietcong which mentioned the game being only marginally better looking than the high-definition updated Half-Life. So, as usual, I wasn't expecting much, but Vietcong definitely delivered. The visuals were great, albeit outdated by todays standards. But compared to it's competitiors of the time; Medal Of Honor and Call Of Duty, Vietcong looks just as good. But it's hard to compare because most of the battles in Vietcong take place in lush jungle and bush.

The waterfalls, rivers, rotting trees and bush everywhere creates an atmosphere I have not yet played in game. The levels were also quite big, some of which you can easily get lost in. Although there is a fairly linear path, you often need your teammates to guide you through because it doesn't always look linear.

Which brings us to another aspect that Vietcong suceeded at compared to most other first person shooters - team mates. You team mates don't really get in your, they don't get stuck or lost, the aren't complete idiots that run into bullets. Your pointman also shows you the way, although at a snails pace. You don't have to wait for them, they won't hold up your progression, but if they are around in a gunfight it's certainly helpful. There are a couple of levels where you're fighting with another team charging up a hilll towards some ruins full of Vietcongs, so you've got at least a dozen team mates charging up with up - a neat feeling.

The game does have some flaws though. The biggest being limited quicksaves. You can only use quicksave five times on normal difficulty - and with the instant deathtraps and when a single bullet can slash your health in half, you need unlimited quicksaves. Fortunately, you can get unlimited quicksaves on easy difficulty. But easy was actually still very fun, certainly not so easy that you can play with your eyes closed.

The other annoying thing was the limited amount of ammunition and weapons you can carry. One handgun, and one normal gun, but often you have to drop your weapons and pick up an enemies gun because you've run out of ammo. Actually picking up ammo is a timely matter, as is making countless radio calls in the middle of battle.

Vietcong was not a long game, probably ten hours max. But maybe it just felt short because I was having so much fun with it. Everything is very realistic, even killing your enemies as you need to hit them pretty well or they'll recover and keep shooting. Great graphics for 2003 and fun gameplay means I'm looking forward to playing the official addon pack and sequel. It's a pity the creators, Pterodon & Illusion Softworks, haven't done much else in this genre. But, how will this hold up against Men Of Valor, the only other successful Vietnam-based game released a year later... 

http://www.zachtronicsindustries.com/alchemy/alchemy.htm 

is like the best coop game ever. I doubt there are still any servers up, but I used to play online on the hardcore servers and it was totally ace. Probably on par with left 4 dead, just not as polished.

Hidden and Dangerous 2 Sabre Squadron has nice coop too, if anyone fancies revisiting old classic games with their mates to play coop. 

try being a radio man in vietcong... you actually have to use the map when calling in an airstrike, and as the map isn't full of detail and markers showing where stuff is, it's not impossible to miss the enemy completely or even blow yourself and team up. A neat touch. 

http://www.foddy.net/Evacuation.html

Unfortunately, some of hte random levels are stupidly easy, but you can move on quickly to a harder one. 

You just killed my productivity. 

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc7/Gus_gt/6xvs6e8.jpg 

Kek, lovely. And tasteful.

May I suggest here tho JPL; http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=porn&btnG=Google+Search&meta= 

Played the dawn of war 2 beta on steam?

I loved CoH. so I have high expectations for this game, please tell me its not shiiite :( 

Only played 2 really short matches, in which I was thoroughly thrashed. Not really sure at all what to make of it tbh. It's a lot different from Dawn of War, but I haven't played enough to know whether it's good or not. Haven't figured out how to play, and there's no real tutorial, so I'll prolly need to play a lot to figure it out. 

Okay so I just played through Firestarter, an old 2004 Russian FPS. Oh and Vondur was a level designer on it, lol. Vondur I bet you did that big Empire level with the hole in the middle? That was my favourite of the game.

The levels were all really good, it looked as good as Doom4, albeit a little more cartoony and not as good lighting. The gameplay was also all pretty good, monsters entertaining, weapons decent. This would have made a pretty good multiplayer game actually. But it seemed to be marketed as a single player game - which is a bit disappointing. You play in 16 arena's, where various parts get unlocked as you kill more baddies. Much like my Chanthood Quake map, actually.

I reckon it could have shown a lot of promise of being a good shooter if only there were proper, linear single player levels rather than deathmatch arenas. Oh and no quicksave is lame. 

Okay so what game shall I play next from 2005?

I've never played a Tom Clancy game, are these any good? Are they action games or just strategy crap?

I'm thinking one of the below games:

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (2006)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown (2005) 

but I have got it and I didnt mind the last one I played (Pandora Tomorrow).

Never liked the Rainbow Six series.

Currently playing PoP: Two Thrones, this series is just a whole lot of fun. 

I've got it downloaded but haven't had chance to play it yet.

Apparently you need a GamesForWindows account.

What is G4W? A mailing list, DRM, some other wankery?

The demo is coming from Steam, why do I have to fuck around with other 'helpful' systems?

Will post once I've had a look at it. 

Its not so bad. It solves problems like the dates on savegames getting fucked up. You might get an online gamerscore or whatever.

GTA4 uses it, I dont really mind. Its not so hard to fix it up. I've only ever recieved one email from them I think and that was on signup.

I think more and more games will use it, probably anti-piracy measures..... 

So I've got to play the game between two slices of DRM bread.

Fuck it.

I don't mind Steam, and I probably wouldn't mind Windows whatever either, but both together is too much of a ballache for me - it's not like I don't have other stuff to play.

When are the high up fuckwits going to realise that you need to make it as easy as possible for the customers to buy your product.

GamesForWindows + Steam = sale -1 

GTA4 is rediculous!

G4W, Rockstar Games Social Club, .NET Framework, Visual C++ (!!!?&%#$!!@!), NVidia BETA Drivers (which crashed my comp)

Sigh.....

Atleats you dont NEED Steam for DoW2 (do you?) 

I didn't buy GTA4 either.

DOW2 I can buy in hard copy, but if I have to do that just to circumvent their DRM systems (considering I'll probably have to find a nocd patch anyway) then I'm not feeling like a valued customer.

I just mentioned being a valued customer and hacking a game in the same sentence. I can say something like that because it's my ~$50 you want me to part with. 

Today the British government (a) decided 3 strikes was unenforceable and, more importantly, (b) suggested increasing ISP's prices to cover a mandatory fee to 're-imburse' the music industry for users piracy.

I think this legally obliges me to steal media now... 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article5586761.ece

If my blurred rambling didn't make sense. Heavy weekend ;p 

I got it - the three strikes thing threw me because it was introduced when I was outside blighty.

The music industry has long being going down the tubes since they want to hang onto hard formats - that being the only way they can squeeze a profit.

How much longer are cd's going to be a viable format?

And if you can fit thousands of songs onto most other forms of media then hard formats become obsolete.

Not much to do with the topic, or pirating music, but;

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/01/16/valve-pirates-are-underserved-customers

Criminalising your customers a bad idea? It's mind-numbing how slow most of the industry CEO's are, considering games are supposed to be the new media. 

there seems (to me, anyway) to be a downward spiral at the moment where more people are pirating because of stricter drm 

of course, i realize it's not *just* because of that. nothing is that simple.