Benie's Games Blog

Blog is back after just under five days of downtime due to my host moving servers. It took this long as they didn’t just have this site, but lots of others that needed to be moved over.

Anyway, now I can freely post about what I’ve been doing in Far Cry 4 so far. First off, what I’ve seen and done so far;
-uPlay can be told to close. It claims it might do adverse affects to the game, but it doesn’t.
-Why is there no Load Game option when ingame? Not even a way to quit to the main menu. Your only option is to quit completely.
-The Grenade Launcher is awesome(and hilariously OP) as a Sidearm, especially when using the Buzzard(the Gyrocopter). The best use is ariel-bombing Royal Guard/Army patrols.
-There are no vehicles outside of Utkarsh(it’s in northern Kyrat). Who the fuck in Ubisoft thought it was a “great” idea not to provide the player with any means of transport?
-There’s a Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon reference with the ‘VHS Tape’ item that you might randomly get for looting chests. It mentions how “this is going to be the best goddamn cyborg-commando-fights-dragons-with-laser-eyes movie ever.” With the ‘movie’ being a game.
-Speaking of references, there’s also two well known annoyances of Far Cry 2, referenced with the ‘Malaria Pills’ item. “Starting a firefight with untreated symptoms can be as dangerous as a jammed weapon.”

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Also, I get so annoyed at myself when I can’t pull off either a No Detection/No Alarms or a No Detection/Destroyed Alarms.. to the point I let them kill me to reset the encounter. Yeah I’m using a trainer, but fuck you, haters. 😛
And also, the fight with Yuma was rather interesting. I had a feeling she was going to play tricks on me, especially when I entered this abandoned mine. The fact it was so quiet, I knew there would be a trap. She reminds me of that bitch in Far Cry 3; the one that was like a black widow spider.
Thankfully I managed to kill her. And now I’m faced with a very challenging decision I must make. It will determine the leader of Kyrat once Pegan Min is defeated. But only one or the other can have this title.
What makes things worse on me, it involves a young girl caught in this mess. She is to be made as the “Tarun Mataua”. In other words, she will be forced to marry against her will. Yet… she’s OK with this. Why? It’s the only way to stop these two from fighting.
I want them to stop and have me focus on defeating Pegan, but as I said, I must choose a leader. What’s worse, the leader will then want me to kill the other. The reason is currently unknown, but maybe it’ll be explained.

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EDIT: I have made my decision. I chose to go to Amita. Mainly due to she wants to end the way Kyrat was raised on. One of them is allowing women to choose when to marry. We got laws about that shit in the US. But I’m many miles from home.

When I first sat down to this game, I had one hell of a sinus headache. It made it very hard to do the prologue, as you could imagine. Still, I tried to not let my pounding head stop me from checking out this game. Took some Sudafed and that helped majorly (can still feel it, but it’s not as bad).
Already, there are two things I don’t like;
-Unskippable intro (though use of the -skipintro launch option in Steam fixes this).
-Going in Borderless mode with 1024×768 doesn’t work. It spans through both of my monitors. The only thing that will make it stay in one window, is Windowed mode.

Other than that, I like how setting up your controls shows a visual view of a standard 101-key keyboard (and showing what keys are bound and what aren’t). More games need to do this. It’ll make it a lot easier to set up custom keybinds.

So what’s to say that hasn’t already been said about this game? I guess I could spare you the details. Basically, you play as Ajay Ghale. You’re arrived in Karat to fulfill your mother’s dying wish, which is to spread her ashes at a place called “Lakshmana”. But on your way there, you enter a fierce civil war between two factions; The Golden Path and The Royal Army.
You must join The Golden Path to have even the slightest chance of heading north to Lakshmana to do what you came here for. However, you seem to be no stranger to using a gun.

After Act One of the game, you must make some really tough decisions to extend the Single Player campaign; called the “Balance of Power”. Two would-be leaders of the Golden Path, Sabal and Amita, they both want to liberate the people from Pegan Min’s rule. However, they have different, yet legit views of doing so. You must literally play politics and help one side or the other to eventually have them be the leader of the Golden Path. What you choose will put a major impact on your story.

Both choices lead you to the same area, but your choice determines what happens there. For example, of going to a camp. Will you get the Intel there to help the path, or help your fellow Golden Path members who are in need of assistance? The choice is yours.
However, to see the outcome for both sides (via two saved games) is impossible, as Ubisoft thought that it’s a “great” idea to force the player to replay the entire game and miss out on 100% completion, to extend the life of the game… instead of allowing multiple save games.

It seems Ubisoft thinks this game is an MMORPG instead of a Single Player game (in the terms of saving your personal progression). Where you have to create a new character (aka a new save game) to see what you’ve missed.
I don’t need to tell you how stupid of a decision this was, as a lot of people have already. Anyway, time for the review;

Good:
-Praise Karat for a -skipintro option in Steam!
-The Auto Drive system for vehicles. Works best when you have a waypoint.
-The game starts differently from Far Cry 3. It doesn’t have you get to a radio tower.
-No stupid “tatau’ on your arm.
-There’s two ability options instead of three. The Rhino is your Damage/Takedown trees, and The Elephant is your Healing tree.
-Sleeping from Far Cry 2 has been brought back. Even though it’s not really needed as the day/night cycle is pretty quick.
-Safe House interiors look really clean and welcoming, unlike Far Cry 3’s.
-The lip syncing is perfect (for some characters).
-The “Outpost Master” option allows you to (attempt to) undo your botched stealth attempt of liberating an outpost. Welcomed challenge here.
-Riding on an elephant into an outpost is ohh so fun.
-Having the enemies actually attempt to re-take an outpost you liberated is a welcomed challenge.

Bad:
-Not multi-monitor friendly.
-Don’t really get why the choice thing was a good idea, especially the fact you can only have one save game.
-Pegan Min isn’t a badass villain like Vass was.
-Don’t get why the “help fix my car!” sub-quests, they don’t get into the car and drive off. They just walk aimlessly around, like “here’s your money, thanks.. but we never needed that car.” Feel like the next time I see this, I’ll get into it and run them over! Fuck the Karma loss. 😛
-Don’t try to snipe with the Hunter’s Bow unless the target is pretty close. Wait ’till you unlock the Recurve Bow for sniping(with the attached scope).
-Eagles are annoying. Their constant need to “spread freedom” with their sharp talons.

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Final review: Like Far Cry 3, I’ll be playing this to completion(hopefully when my head stops feeling like it’s in the clouds at times). Call me kind of curious of the ending. I imagine there will be free play.

So, Black Mesa was $20. Immediately I thought “Hmm.. does this mean Xen is done?” I mean surely, it has to be. There would be no other reason for them to charge money (since Black Mesa Source was free).
Unfortunately, this never happened. Still no addition to Xen. It’s the exact same as it was with Black Mesa Source(except it now costs money). The devs are silent. No news. No concept art. No anything. All I see are the occasional fixes (and stuff that doesn’t even need to be “fixed”).
Some say “it’ll never happen because Source can’t support Xen”. Others say “the mod version couldn’t support Xen due to the Source engine being an old version”. Me? There’s really nothing I can do but wait until Half-Life 3. By then, we’ll have Xen. Either that or Portal 3.

In ways, I don’t see why the holdup. Plus, seeing absolutely nothing from the devs(about this) isn’t comforting. It makes me wonder, if my $20 that was supposed to go to the future development of the game got pocketed by them. Even if it did, I have no proof.
I can’t even get that $20 back, as the refund policy clearly states… if you play a game for two hours or more, they’ll assume you’re OK with it. It’s not Valve’s fault I didn’t look at the Black Mesa forum before purchasing and seen that Xen is still unfinished. If I had done so, I could had avoided a costly mistake.
Well, I shouldn’t really care as it wasn’t my normal money; it was birthday money. Still… it stings when I don’t get my money’s worth. All I got is a paid for version of the same thing I downloaded two years ago. There was a different model for the RPG, but that was it.

Let this be a lesson. When buying a game on Steam, always check for reviews outside of Steam (or check their forum) before purchasing.

Ahhh… the long-awaited “ultimate mod” to reboot Half-Life 1 into the Source engine. I remember it was like yesterday, when I got to play an Beta version of it. Seeing my favorite level, Surface Tension in Source, I had taken a picture of me holding a highly-detailed (and really huge) RPG in my hand.
And at the time of video gaming in the 21st century, this was the only TRUE Rocket-propelled Grenade Launcher in a game. Where the rocket pops out, then fires following that delicious red beam. And ohh the fun I had doing acrobatics using rockets.

Right here is my favorite part in Half-Life 1. Climbing out of that pipe, and seeing that gorgeous view of New Mexico (in all its pixelated goodness). And now.. it looks better than ever.
The only problem with the beta, they never finished Zen. As soon as you managed to survive protecting yourself from all the zen creatures, you had to jump through that portal you’ve been waiting for the past 5 minutes for it to power up.

This game is just like those days back in… I forgot what year it was. I think it was 2011 or so. Been awhile. It still has that Half-Life 1 feeling to it, but really beefed up.
The major changes I’ve seen are where you get the crowbar, when in Blast Pit the Oxygen/Fuel access is together instead of their own wings, and in “We Got Hostiles!” the maze of ducts are removed.

It would be kind of pointless to do a full review on this game (what I liked/didn’t). If you love the Half-Life series, get this. It’s only $20. This standalone mod was made with lots of love and attention to detail.

Been playing the game for awhile now. And what I can say, it can get quite intense even on the easiest (Bitch) difficulty. Mainly, trying to get every word right as quick as possible. Getting a typo can cost you your life.

Thankfully, that’s not really an issue. When you die, you got a credit system that you can pay to come back to life. And apparently it’s infinite. So yeah, dying isn’t a big deal.
Though you’re not supposed to really see it like that. This game is supposed to teach you how to type quickly. Yet my typing speed hasn’t improved. Plus I average around 74% accuracy after every level.
The game is still pretty fun, yet I try to focus on the next word or words that are shambling towards me more than the jokes.

So what is the game? The plot is this guy called Ceaser who’s really sick in the head, is playing Mother Nature and mutating people. So, it’s kind of like Sin. That’s the main plot. The first part are these two guys who are assigned by the government to clean up the infected (with bullets).
To do so, you must type in the word either above or below a zombie to kill it. If you take too long to type, the zombie hits you and you get damage. Some zombies can lob bottles or other things at you. To destroy it, you must hit the required button. But you have to finish the word before you can do it (if you’re in the middle of it and the object gets thrown).
There’s boss battles. And they increase in difficulty as you continue into the game.

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So, time for my review;

Good;
-Cool typing mechanic that goes well with the “on rails” FPS.
-Some boss battles are quite challenging to do.
-Infinite lives (a must for me).
-At the end, the game shows how well or poor you did your typing havoc on the mutated.

Bad;
-Why are there mouse/console controls available (and why don’t they work)?

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Final Review: I really like this game. I knew I would when I saw it. The reason I didn’t get it sooner is I was waiting for Steam to do a sale. They actually did last month, but I didn’t have the money.. sadly.
I think this is a game Dan (or his father) should try out. I think they’ll really like it too.