Me and the League E-sports

Over the last few months I've been playing a few games of League of legends. Now if your PC gamer you've probably heard about this games and yes I'll be honest the community has its nastier sides but that's only if you play like an idiot. Kill stealing, Feeding and AFking can often lead to torrents of abuse from players who take the game just a little too seriously.Now i'm not going to do a review since that would just pointless since its and ever changing game with a meta game that changes like the tides instead I'd like talk about its growth as an E-Sport.

Quite recently Riot the developer relesed spectator mode and this has opened the game to be a real  e-sport. Now games such as Starcraft 2 already have a thriving E-sports scenes with guys such as Husky and Totalbiscuit  doing an excellent job at casting top tier games of StarCraft. for me however I don't care much for StarCraft having never played it and not having a history with the game. DOTA like games such as LoL and Hon  seem to me to be a perfect choice to the E-sports treatment due to their high skill threshold to be a top player, the team set ups affecting all and the way every match can turn out down to one or two kills at the right or wrong time. Quite recently Lol had a show at MLG and this was a joy to watch to a Lol player such as myself as it was top tier teams fighting for real money in a way I enjoyed to watch. With the intro of spectator mode I now have the option to watch a game any time I choose to do so. They're are some issues with this mode but its still only in a Beta phase so most bugs can be over looked. The mode allows you to watch a custom matched between 2 teams trying to knock the living shit out of one another and calling each other Noobish cunts to prove their big men! This mode for me as a noob is a great way to learn my own mistakes as player.

Of course like most E-sports there is a problem for people who are new to the game not getting a lot of the technical subtly that take place in a high level tiers of game play. Something that makes E-sports so different from real sports is that we can all appreciate the athletic talents of a footballer who runs around a pitch for 90 minutes but with a E-sports we can't (with out looking out for it) see all the work and skill that goes into the average high level player. Games Like LOL and Hon have a high level for the their skill ceiling.

My plans for this blog

Content I know has been a little sparse of late, that's partly due to my moving to London and a new found social life (Lynch mobs were the most common thing to happen to me in Bristol) and the arrival of Onlive which has opened my eyes to a lot more big titles of late. This being the case I'm going to start moving from doing game reviews and articles and start doing more creative works such as flash fiction or short stories. I will still be a gamer however so I will being doing reviews and articles when the mood takes me. At the moment I'm writing an article on the popularity for apoclyptic games right now which should be finished soon if my schedule allows it sleeping, failing to get with girls, drinking and of course gaming (and some studying) all take up a lot of my time and I find myself being rather burnt out of ideas for new content.

O who am I kidding no one reads this I can say anything I like: George Osborne shot and sodomised my dog. He didn't but hey no ones going to read it and UK libel reform should be coming soon (or is it defamation since I wrote it?) any way hope you enjoy reading and that your sexual prowess peaks while reading my stuff........... I'll write literally anything.

Onlive is frankly brillant.

The title honestly says it all frankly, if you've been on youtube and before you watch the dancing child or annoying tween singers you may have seen adverts for "Onlive" a new cloud gaming services that honestly blows my mind with how futuristic, here's a quick sum up of what Onlive actually is and does:

Onlive is a free service that allows the user to buy games and play games, that's the normal part that we can all relate to with steam and such like. The mental part of this is you never download the game and once you've bought it you can play it instantly! how is the possible you ask? well from what I can gather Onlive streams the game via a video stream straight to your screen and then lets you play. I know that explanation is a little crap but that's beside the point since I'm not a tech guy and all I know is that it works.

When you launch Onlive after signing up at at the website (Link in the notes) you can instantly play loads of free 30 minute trails of quite a few triple A titles such as Mafia 2 and Assassins Creed 2. games are add to the system quite often with various Pre-order options for new games such as Batman Arkham City, Saints Row 3 and L.A. Noire that reserve your place to play them. with most pre-orders you can get a 30% discount if you are a PlayPack subscriber (more on the playpack later) and also a free £5 code off to use on any future purchases.

The PlayPack is one of Onlive introductory offers that allows you to play a large range of games that vary between Indie and big budget games such Batman AA, Borderlands, Just Cause 2, Saints Row 2, F.E.A.R 2 and way more than I can list. The playpack requires a £6.99 per month subscription fee that with so many games really makes the the money worth it really.

The social aspects of Onlive vary right now. you have a friends list that you can add and view what your friends are playing but right now there is now way of joining or inviting friends to games right now. another aspect of the social scene of Onlive is the Arena which allows you to view random peoples games and then choose to give people a Thumbs up or down. So far when people watch my gameplay I kinda of get quite nervous about what their thinking since i'm terribly shy and I don't need my gaming critiqued as well. I've found when people are viewing your play they fall into to two categories the 1st will be quiet maybe give you a thumbs up if you pull off something cool and then leave after a few minutes and the 2nd will go nuts with the thumb options, yell down their microphone that your a useless C*** which if just lovely.

I'll be honest if you've got a Xbox or PS3 Onlive may not be for you, but if your running a slightly older PC or Netbook at you miss being unable to play top tier games I'd say give it a go and like me you may be pleasantly surprised.

http://www.onlive.co.uk/?

Looking Back Through the scope: Borderlands.

Ok first things first: this retro review is possible due to the service ONlive which in my view is the best thing since the blowjob. I could write a entire article on how good onlive is and never do it justice so i'll just leave a link at the bottom and you can check it out for yourself, add "Cynical hunter" if you fancy a game some time.

Borderlands has to go down as one of my favourite games of the last generation: its a great shooter with the best parts of the RPG genre with a great art style and a sense of humour that has me crying some times. That's it *walks away from screen.... returns to screen at the command of man with pump action shotgun pointed at my head* fine I'll write more.

Lets start with the shooting shall we: Borderlands was released with the boast that it had over a bazillion guns to use to rain down death on the inhabitants of Pandora and you know what? THEY WERE RIGHT. The only time i've seen the same gun twice is when they are drops from certain bosses such as Sledges Shotgun which at the level of attainment can be stupidly over powered. Every gun has its own maker and specs which makes choosing a weapon not just which one does the most damage but which ones handle right for you. one gun may have loads of recoil, high fire rate and a large clip while a other will have no recoil, slow fire rate and small clip making choosing a gun for you if a case of trail and error honestly, which some may like while others don't. Guns sadly can't be modded which was a fact that surprised me but with so much choice already isn't a big deal. The shooting it self is great fun as any class and with any weapon, be it a automatic pistol to acidic rocket launch.

On the RPG side of things; there are 4 different character classes to choose from: The soldier who leads the fights with turret ability, the siren who can phase through different dimensions, the hunter who acts as sniper and commands a hawk to attack the enemy and the berserker who smashes foes with his fists. All of the classes have there distinctive strengths and weaknesses, that said I've honestly find the soldier to be the most well rounded for both team and solo play due to his turret pet just being overpowered in certain cases. As you go through the game you can customize your skills by choosing from a variety of different skill trees, meaning that in teams of 4 of the soldiers there will be some difference in play styles between each of them, which can be handy but I'll explain during the multiplayer section. All characters can equip grenade mods that change the way grenades act for example a transfusion mod will steal health from the enemy and give it to you, this combined with class mods can make each character different in how they approach the situations at hand.

Multiplayer is the surely the main piece of the Borderlands ensemble with up to four people blasting their way through changing environments, picking up loot, killing midgets (there are a lot of them), driving across the wasteland, killing more midgets and getting your ass handed to you by Crawmax the secret last boss. Each member of the group scales the difficulty up so it doesn't become too easy, this scaling of difficulty becomes more noticeable when you have people who aren't similar level; For instance I was playing with a group of 3 mates all around level 17 when a level 47 entered the server, this made the enemies stupidly hard and the three of us quickly wiped while the new guy just griefed us before we learned we could kick him and make the server private. There is a slight bug I've noticed on the steam version of borderlands that makes on of the first quests of the game always appear on the quest log as incomplete which quickly becomes annoying when it becomes apparent that the quest is almost viral in its nature and anyone who comes into contact with your character becomes infected as you did making it some quest based STI.

Borderlands is a blast of a game and well worth a look at if you haven't already. Borderlands 2 is on the horizon in 2012 and if it comes to Onlive i will most certainly be picking it up and hope to see you on Pandora.

Looking back through the scope with Cynical Hunter : Batman Arkham Asylum

To express how I truly feel about Batman Arkham Asylum, and to get the whole game of the month thing going I decided to write a plagiaristic poem.

Gunmen are red

Detective vision is blue

Harley Quinn is fit

 Don’t you think so too?

Wasn’t that fun? Now own with the review.

Batman Arkham Asylum. Where do I start? At the beginning I don’t hear you cry out since this is coming from the past.  Batman AA starts on a dark and stormy night. Batman has brought the Joker to Arkham. As you (as Batman) walk through the corridors of the asylum your ears are burning with little snippets of story bait. Has Batman has won against the harlequin hoodlum. BAM KAPOW CRASH and the Joker has broken loose. So we have the setup to the brilliant story ahead of us. With guest appearances from your favourite villains. This surely promises to be the caped crusaders darkest and finest hour.  

First a little bit of history and context: We’d all waited years for a superhero game that truly delivers on the promise of making us feel like a superhero; there are a few games that made me feel like a one of the all powerful: Spiderman was well realised in Ultimate Spiderman and Spiderman 2. Superman had his dignity pounded over a barrel in his game outings and the X-men just decided to beat the crap out of each other in their games. Batman has had his fair share of video game outings with his first being all the way back in 1986. In recent years Batman got a movie tie in game based on Christopher Nolan’s film Batman Begins. He’s appeared in the DC vs Mortal Kombat and even appeared as a LEGO character in LEGO Batman (if your surprised by that I advise you see a doctor). But none of these gaming outings have ever made me feel like the dark knight.  First announced in 2008 by relatively unknown developer Rocksteady;  Batman Arkham Asylum played its card’s on the table with its first teaser trailer; gone are the camp “holy hotdogs” of Adam West and Joel Schumacher’s pun based crime against humanity that is Batman and Robin. Here we had a game that was faithful to the source material of comics. It’s clear to see elements of comics such as The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum woven deep into the games DNA. Of course the cartoon show inspired a lot of the game’s character. A lot of voice talent from the cartoon is carried over to the game and it sure helps; with Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Kevin Conroy (someone) returning to their roles of the Joker and Batman respectively. Thats the nasty lesson out the way on to the game!

First let’s start with the graphics and ting. Batman AA was made using the Unreal 3 engine, the same one that was used for Mass Effect and Gears of War franchises. It’s hardly surprising then that most of the character models look like they are steroid abusing junkies, but in world of where Killer Croc can exist I think we can overlook that. All Major and named characters look pretty good. In some of the lesser characters such as Guards Cash and Boles the faces look a bit odd, but since I bought the game to look at Batman and the Joker I don’t really mind. The model for Batman looks very good, with the model becoming beaten and battered as the night goes on, which adds to the idea that this is Batman’s worst night every. The environments are great looking with both wide open and indoor areas looking very detailed. As the night progresses the island of Arkham does change with *SPOILERS* huge plants trying to kill you (the Bat-weed killer would be an appreciated gadget.) and all these changes are well realised with previously easy sets of terrain now becoming perilous hazards (the insane inmates being a particular nuisance). All the environments are littered with Riddler challenges, which give you a great reason to explore for little references to Batman characters with visual clues hidden all around. Aside from the wonderful little Batman lore snippets, another role of the Riddler’s challenges is to give you XP to level up your Batman to do all sorts of crazy stuff, which in my world leads us nicely to the next topic.

Combat in Batman AA is sort of divided into two main sections: predator mode and badass bar room brawler mode. Predator mode is the stealth section of the game. When the henchman have guns and a direct “your mumma so fat” approach will end in buckshot in the frontal lobes you go stealth mofo on the bad guys. When entering predator mode it’s usually wise to grapple to handy gargoyle (even the sewers have these) once up on your perch, detective vision is the next wise course. From your vantage point you can survey the area and plot your how to take each of these henchman in the most efficient/badass way. As the game progress the foes you face will become more fiendish, making old tactics useless for instance: putting proximity mines on the gargoyles is clearly the result of a diseased mind. Due to the henchman AI every foray into predator mode is different with some travelling in pairs or running off on their own in fear. The second section of combat is the brilliant ‘Free-flow combat system’ which works with the player to allow you to pull off huge combos (my Record combo is 89) . Combat starts simply with one button punching, another counters and that’s pretty much it to start with, however very quickly you can do special moves with your cape to stun your foes, you can throw them at their chums or simply break their arm and snap their shins in twain. Most of the gadgets you attain during the campaign can be used during combat, while some are more useful than others it can be fun to use the line launcher for to do a flying drop kick right in a henchman’s in the face. By the way if anyone found a way to comatose a baddie using the sequencer gadget I will award you a leg of your meat of your choice.

I don’t think I can go any further without mentioning detective vision. Detective vision was basically Batman’s way of identifying where henchmen are, Riddler challenges, points of interest and more. This mode is your most useful tool and when the game was first released reviews would often say that detective vision was too useful and it was possible to have it on all the time. I personally found DV (I’m tired of typing detective vision) really not to be that much of a problem. I can see how DV could be seen to be a pest but to me it was just another tool designed to help me kick ass.

After you’ve finished the game you can continue travelling around the island to hunt for Riddler trophies or you can do challenge mode which is made up of predator or combat challenges. Each different predator challenge map has certain special objectives that increase your score such as “Beat thug old cold using a shoe” (more realistic examples are available. In combat challenges you score points by building up a massive combo using as many different techniques as possible, in this mode you get the more points for never getting hit by thugs or by keeping the combo up the entire round. Each challenge has an extreme mode that makes things very difficult but very satisfying indeed. By the way anyone who managed to beat ‘Shock and Awe’ on extreme is a Witch and will feel fiery justice in hell.

  Batman Arkham Asylum is my all time favourite superhero game (sorry Ulitmate Spiderman and Prototype) I’ve yet to play Arkham City but from what i’ve read and seen i’m sure it will deliver on my hopes for more Batman goodness.

And now for something completely different.

As you may not know I'm doing a creative writing course at uni, this being the case I'm having to practice a lot of different types of writing aside the crap reviews and articles, so here goes a little bit of flash fiction.

I'm playing with my toy soldiers when dad comes home from the pub. He gives my men an artillery strike with his boot, then slaps me with the back of his hand. Mum does nothing.

I'm lying in the long grass with Marie. I know what we've just done is a sin but I feel too good to care right now. Marie starts to cry, I hold her close and tell her I love her. Were married in three months and I'm conscripted in one month later.

I'm being discharged this morning. My Dr claims I'm in good physical health but and mentally a little weak. will be good to see Marie now, she's been pregnant for 6 months now.

I'm walking away from the car accident, so does Marie, My little girls don't though.

I'm sat in the porch watching Marie is moving to her sisters in Bournemouth. We signed the two nights ago, may go to the pub tonight.

I'm fly fishing near the reservoir for the last time. I pull out my old service revolver and that's that.

Stand back. This is going to look so cool.

Remember the good old days when people used to just jump in a vertical fashion? It was wonderful. A man (or woman once they got the vote) would be able to just leave the earth and escape gravity’s dickish hold on them for a few brief moments only to be sucked back to the ground. This process was not cool but it was functional and that’s all that matters really. This simple world of jumping was first tarnished by the ancient Greeks with their triple jumping nonsense and then some to add insult to injury some wise guy added a stick to the process and invented Pole-vaulting. Though out history jumping at speed had only been done so someone else could measure the distanced travelled and assign you a chunk of shiny metal. Over the last 30 or so years various young people started to run and jump for the hell of it. They would jump over bike racks and statues just because they could. This craze goes by many names but the most popular are Parkour or free running and as with most popular actives the media started to show it as something cool but dangerous activity that only bad boys did. The most famous example (I can think of, this is on the internet so doubtless there are thousands more examples) would be the opening chase in the Bond movie Casino Royale. But cinema isn’t the only one trying to get in on the free running craze Games are now one of the best places to do Parkour without the ever present threat of breaking your leg by tripping over a pigeon.

Assassins Creed, Infamous and the like have shown gamers there is a new, fast way of travelling around an open world without having to resort to carjacking. But is this new way of travelling just style over substance? Or is it really the future of traversing an open area? The first notable example of free running like motion maybe the Prince of Persia series whose main protagonist would be adept at acrobatic feats in order to get around a 2D level, as the series became more complex and the characters abilities had to grow with the environment around them so the basics of wall running, ledge grabbing and like became the norm to most platforming games. Prince of Persia was originally owned by Brodebund Software Inc but in 2001 Brodebund was in financial difficulties and sold the IP of Prince of Persia to Ubisoft who released their first version of it in 2003 of Prince with Sands of Time, it was Ubisofts Montreal studio that did the programming for the Prince and it clear this experience helped when coming to one of the biggest series of the last decade.

Assassins Creed came out in 2007 and totally changed the way a character travelled around the a open world setup. Previously in an open world you either grabbed a car or walked slowly as in the GTA series or you would be a superhero such as Spiderman and you would swing around skyscrapers or fly like the boy scout in tights that is Superman. In Assassins Creed your character was certainly mortal and his abilities while farfetched but it was possible to suspend your disbelief because it looked so cool. A large part of the game play was built around your acrobatic abilities either to infiltrate enemy strongholds or to run away from the enemy when said infiltration goes wrong. When Assassins Creed was being shown at various games expos in 2006-7 I remember watching the footage of Altair and being impressed by his animation quality but the audiences who were there at the live event they clapped and cheered because they could see how free Altair was in a beautiful open world that was breath taking at the time.  But Assassins Creed wasn’t the only game of 2007 with touting the use of Parkour as a selling point. Free Running the game (Be honest you never heard of it) came out and was also made by Rebellion and published by Ubisoft. Free running the game was to most an embarrassment and in a sick and twisted way made AC look even better at what it was already doing pretty dam well. 

 In 2009 Assassin Creed 2 was published and improved even more on the formula but in the expo footage there was much less cheering, now why was that? Had the worlds gamers grown used to free running and were already expecting brilliance and were much less impressed when they were given it or had free running based games flooded the market? In the 2009 three more games containing free running were published; Mirror Edge, Infamous and Prototype. Mirrors Edge was a first person game with free running and was noted for its clinical and stylised art style and the use of the Parkour was pretty realistic and the character was only human which helped separate it clearly from the other two major free running releases of the year. Infamous was a visually impressive Ps3 exclusive that had a protagonist who’s travelled across the open world by a mixture of free running and electricity based moves. Prototype had a similar superhero premise but was far more over the top in its execution, with its parkour inspired movement that could have you jumping over entire city blocks. All these games were fun and enjoyable but do we have the issue now that most developing houses now want to emulate this style and having various degrees of success. For instance in 2011 Brink was released to mediocre reviews, getting a 68 on Metacritic. One of brinks main selling points that differed it from COD and Battlefield clones was the use of S.M.A.R.T  (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) a system that was meant to reenergise the stale genre, it was a good idea with good thinking behind it but the develops forgot one rule of the genre; If you leave cover you die. For this article I’ve watched a lot of game play footage and I never found a player using the SMART all that often and when they did go for a good run they were gunned down before they got the pace going. Brink could be compared to Mirrors Edge for its first person perspective on free running but the key difference was that while Mirrors edge was a platformer first with light gunplay that could have been totally avoided, Brink was a shooter with platforming elements that could be totally avoided in all honesty.

Parkour based games are proving to titans at the tills with Infamous 1 being the best selling new IP for the PS3 and the Assassins Creed series selling over 20 million copies. The future of free running is surely bright with AC2 Revelations and Prototype 2 on the horizon. Mirrors edge fans will be left waiting a while for sequel as it appears to be in development limbo with EA being cagey about details of a sequel, which is certainly a bad thing with Mirrors edge leading the first person genre in Parkour which can only be a good thing once its execution is perfected.

As with my review of overlord this was first made for publication on the midlife gamer website

http://www.midlifegamer.net/