The first thing I have to point out is, this is a mod. You have to take it at face value, its not a retail priced game with a complete 8 hour campaign using a brand new engine with a plot set to scare even the most manly men. It’s a free mod, so as you would expect it’s rather short and relatively typical of the Source Engine. There are some things I will talk about later  in the spoilers section that I feel could have been expanded upon that would have increased the games length.

The overall difficulty is not that hard. There is a limited amount of action when compared to the amount of supplies you get. On my first time round I found there was an over abundance of ammo, and while I tend to be fairly accurate it still seemed excessive even if you have poor accuracy or get relatively trigger happy. It might just have been my usual survival horror instincts kicking in causing me to be very conservative with my ammo, opting to use melee when possible. Medkits were also overly common, however since the majority of the game is in a hospital, I am willing to overlook it.  On occasions you will find flares that you will need to use due to the typical survival horror disease known as; Random Flashlight Malfunction. However. There is always too much of these flares. Each flare will only last for a short period of time. But it is more than enough to get where you need to go on a single flare. I found myself returning to grab a second flare after throwing my first into the darkness ahead, purely because I was expecting there to be none in the area ahead, however to my dismay I was greeted by a large red box full of them.

Still on the topic of  lights. The flashlight only seems to exist so that the game can then take it away to try and add to the atmosphere. The flashlight seems to last quite along time of non stop use. But the regeneration rate is enough so that depleting the energy completely, will still cause it to recharge within a few seconds.  A large portion of the game has reasonable lighting so when you tend to want to use your flashlight you normally get Random Flashlight Malfunction and some flares tossed at you. Personally I would have opted for the Battery system used in The Suffering whereby your flashlight doesn’t recharge on its own but you instead find batteries which are used when the current battery is depleted. Overall the lighting does add to the atmosphere but it seems a bit too bright for the flashlight to be overly used but at least it doesn’t suffer from the Doom 3 problem, “Turn your gamma up so high you get ill from radiation just so you can vaguely see where your going”.

At a few sections you have to pick up keys and fuses. This would be great if there was an inventory system in the game. You can carry multiple weapons and a large amount of ammo for each. Yet you have to put away your weapons in order to carry a simple key or a fuse. You can throw it down when you need to kill something and pick it up again once your done but it’s just an inconvenience. I wouldn’t mind so much if you could still use your melee weapon while carrying a key since you hold the other weapons in two hands. But having no room to put a key in your pocket, yet somehow you have the space to carry a few extra weapons and some boxes of ammo for them makes little sense.

The weapons in the game are your usual survival horror load out. A melee weapon, in this case,  an axe, a pistol, a magnum,  a shotgun capable of single shot fire and firing two shots at once, and an SMG. These do have fairly good models which I was very impressed with and found they were certainly a welcome addition to the game, mainly since I dislike the standard Half Life 2 models and the overly used Counter Strike: Source models for the weapons. At some sections in the game you find yourself without your weapons, however you literally find them 2 seconds later ( Hence why this point isn’t in the Spoilers Section ) which effectively removes the atmosphere of suddenly finding yourself unable to defend yourself which would have been a welcome twist that could have been created. The weapons felt relatively balanced as well;  however the magnum seemed ineffective despite having a very limited supply of ammo ( You can only carry 3 full clips of 6 shots at once) and typically rare ammo tends to mean a stronger weapon.  As in most games in the genre, you tend to stick with the shotgun if you have it, assuming  you have a comfortable supply of ammo for it.

The enemies in this game are not very varied however at the games length, any more would have started to become overkill. There is your generic zombie that goes down after a few hits. A zombie in riot gear that takes quite a large amount of bullets to take down and can move relatively fast. A larger, slow zombie which is only seen a few times in the game and takes only a few shotgun shells to kill and finally a zombie with increased speed and a decent health pool. Some of these, mainly in the prologue, have your generic Half Life 2 Zombie skins. However, during the hospital sections the Zombies have fairly good models with decent animations as well, I noticed no random clipping in the models and there was certainly a lot of attention went into detailing these models.

Since it is a game based on the good old source engine, which Valve prides with its realistic physics, it was a shock to find there was minimal use of the physics. Not a bad kind of shock, since the Half Life 2 series seems to love throwing random physics puzzles at you. But it was a nice surprise not having to make some sort of See-saw mechanism which seems to regularly appear in the Half Life 2 series.

The AI of the friendly NPC’s is also fairly good. I experienced no friendly fire and no Left 4 Dead 2, conga lines off of high platforms that could cause them to plummet to their deaths, this may because there wasn’t really any ledges to fall and die from but still. The AI was certainly very consistent throughout the game and didn’t have me pulling my hair out in frustration, which is a good sign.

In terms of fear, the game tends to follow “The Suffering” style of psychological fear whereby you frequently have hallucinations. However these hallucinations tends to be relatively predictable and don’t seem to create any real sense of danger. For example you will often hallucinate when walking down long hallways, the hallways will seem to get longer and often have some gore laying around or a ghostly woman appearing.  But it is often a simple case of, walk to the door, open it, and your in the room you were heading to. Whereas in The Suffering, you would frequently have brief hallucinations of horrifying imagery which tended to contribute to the plot of the game, and often had some enemies showing up shortly after. This tends to make these hallucination sections of Nightmare House 2 seem to just drag on the game rather than really contributing much, albeit for people who don’t regularly play survival horror games, they will seem fairly intense.

The character development is poor, finding very little emotional attachment to the characters and finding almost no reason to care whether someone lives or dies, only really attempting to destroy the Core because you are almost forced to.

*Spoilers start here – Don’t read this section unless you have already played the game, have no intention to, or don’t mind if the plot is ruined for the sake of learning more about the game*

Onto to plot.

The majority of the game takes place inside a hospital with only the prologue section being in an actually house, despite the name. Although the exact same could be said for the entire Resident Evil series.

The prologue opens with the nameless player wandering around after crashing their car in a forest, you then come across a house ( Le gasp! ) you wander briefly through the house dispatching some zombies here and there while some objects are thrown around in rooms to add to the haunting atmosphere of the house. Eventually you make your way back out of the house to a moderate wave of zombies attacking you as you try to reach your car.  When you finally reach your car a ghostly woman suddenly appears and then the screen fades  to……credits for Nightmare house 1?  shortly after random credits you awake in a padded cell in a hospital, beginning the hospital section of the game.

Near the start of the hospital section you are directed by a scientist who tells you that both you and him are the only ones left alive ( Shocker! ) the scientist is kept nameless until near the end of the game but helps your character through the first part of the game by remotely unlocking doors for you.  After he’s done you are partially guided by the hospitals automated voice system that seems to have gotten a bit out of control. Slightly reminiscent of HAL from Space odyssey, but instead tries to help you in subtle ways, for example, informing you that there is a Zombie behind on one occasion. You eventually meet up with a swat team consisting of 4 members that slowly get killed off as the game progresses, no surprises there. One of them starts experiencing  hallucinations and eventually tries to kill another member of the team, again no surprises here. You kill him before he can shoot his teammate, however if you shoot to early the game ends with one of the swat members shouting at you telling you they could have calmed him down.  However, any impact of this happening was quickly nullified by the fact that the game restarted from an auto-save, just as you encounter the hallucinating SWAT member, removing the tension of the situation completely. Eventually you and one surviving SWAT member have to Get to the choppa, which briefly adds some tension and a sense of urgency. Shortly after you get to the helipad and… This is where the plot pops up to say “hi.” 2 hours into the game.

Time for another survival horror cliche. You guessed it, the pilot started hallucinating and crashed the choppa, killing the last SWAT member in the process.  However, before he dies he informs you that he will no longer be able to complete the mission. What is this mission you ask?  To kill the evil scientist of course! Which turns out was the guy who was helping you at the start. You go down an elevator where you are given the choice between leaving the hospital or descending deeper into the hospital to kill the scientist. Huzzah, a branching plot point? I quickly saved and prepared for a critical decision. I was sadly let down.

If you choose to wander around near the exit you will encounter a corpse at a computer terminal, you then hear the HAL like voice telling you not to look at her when she is like this. If you try to leave you hear a female voice telling you to go back. If you continue to leave shortly thereafter you once again see the ghostly woman who kills you. The end credits then roll.

If you choose to descend into the hospital, you find the room the scientist was camping out in. It contains a brief diary documenting the scientists efforts in mad science that lead up to this. You learn that some woman had been protecting you and you learn of a woman he feared, coincidence? I think not.  However he built a machine called the Core which could repel this woman. You find his small living quarters with pictures of a woman, who, appears to look exactly like the ghostly woman you’ve encountered many times beforehand. This all creates some plot holes.  The scientist you met at the start, never revealed his name. The dieing SWAT member told you the name of A scientist, not specifically the scientist who helped you. If this scientist was able to remotely open doors, elevators, stop the elevators. Why did he not stop the elevator from taking you down to his ‘lair’. For that matter, why did he give you the option to come and fight him if he knew you would die if you tried to leave, you never actually found out he was below the hospital until he told you one minute prior to killing him. I feel having him try to inhibit your progress after you found out he was evil would have actually contributed a lot to the plot as well as providing a perfect chance for some character development.

30 seconds later, your at the Core, which is essentially a mind control device that looks like a mine from Minesweeper. Encountering the source of the zombie outbreak this quickly after learning of its existence negates any sort of dramatic tension that the Core could have created, which could have been an effective plot element throughout the game, but seems to be tacked on as a generic plot device. It would be like playing Resident Evil 1 if all the notes and dialog was removed and getting told the outbreak was due to an Umbrella created virus 30 seconds before you fight the Tyrant.

This is the only real ‘boss fight’ of the game. It consists of regular spawning of enemies, specifically 2 of the fast zombies which can be easily dispatched and you trying to destroy the core. You turn an obvious power source off which stops the Core’s shield from functioning. The core will then regularly emit a wave of energy that causes minor damage and knocks you back. You then have to hack at support beams with your axe that are keeping the Core suspended in the air. Each time you destroy one the scientist causes you to experience another hallucination in which you are saved by the ghostly woman. Surprise surprise, the ghostly figure he feared was the same one protecting you, and the same one that  would kill you for trying to leave, she clearly could communicate with you, why did she not simply tell you when you try to leave “look, go down there and kill the scientist so this can all end” instead of brutally murdering the last hope of killing him? Why did she repeatedly injure you over the course of the game instead of just telling you what was going on?

After all 4 support beams are destroyed the core falls down and knocks you to the ground. The scientist then comes down from his bulletproof control room and explains to you that the core can still work, and that he will then kill you. And as expected, the ghostly woman shows up and kills the scientist by throwing him around at some walls before ripping him to pieces, which is strangely satisfying considering  the players feel little attachment to either of these characters. She says “Thank you” and then the credits roll.

*spoilers end here*

To summarize, despite the plot, or lack thereof it is still a fairly good game. Providing some good scares for people relatively new to the survival horror genre, but regular fans on the genre will find it lacking and cliched. While the difficulty is relatively low there are a few intense encounters in the game which can keep players on their toes. The graphics are a welcome change to the generic Half-Life 2 / Counter Strike: Source models seen in a lot of mods as well.

While my points seem to make it out to be a bad game, it’s not,  I have to point out the pricing again. It’s free. And for a free game, it’s certainly above average when compared to other free games that are around today, and even a lot of retail priced games going around today as well. It’s easy to see there was a lot of effort put into this game, and would gladly have paid 5-10 bucks for it. However it succumbs to the effects of the survival horror genre and almost all games in it. There is a lot of predictability, and minimal replay value as once you know something is going to pop out and scare you, it never has the same effect twice.

Overall out of 10 I would rate it 4/10 compared to other games in the genre, or 7/10 just comparing to other free games.

Thanks for reading

- Devil Kirby

Fortressbusters will be exhibiting a similar format to the show by Australian producers”Beyond” known as “Mythbusters” incorporating segments filmed to camera explaining the myths and, eventually, talking about the results. Other sections in the Fortressbusters show that is proposed is having a similar format by plowing through Steam forums and common server folklore in order to find acceptable myths for use in the show. During this, the myth will be explained, we’ll have a brief outline shown in the Source Engine game “Garry’s Mod” and will mix in-game footage with live action footage by way of behind-the-scenes work and bluescreen. There are various technical issues related to this that I would like to explain.

The show was never going to be easy to make. This was originally going to just be an internal community show that was made for fun for the Control Point community at deadworkers.com/tf2 and we would at least get a link. During this time, we haven’t had adequate equipment in order to facilitate the technical ideas we want to put on film. This is only made harder by the complicated nature of having a cross-Atlantic project with a host/director/producer in Birmingham, a title maker on the Isle of Wright, a narrator in Oregon, U.S. etc. We have hardware breakages, hardware that isn’t sufficient to our needs, game updates that break demos (which has now been somewhat alleviated by a recent update from the creators of the game, thankfully) and many other problems. We also have to contend with hosts that are never in the same room together. However, we have managed ways to get around this problem and are willing to work with the problems in order to deliver an entertainment product that is sufficient to the wants of the public. We don’t want to produce a piece of entertainment that is substandard for the reason that we rushed it. However we can say that we are confident that, as soon as we get the right equipment, work can start on the project in full time.

In terms of technical information, we are looking to produce 15 to 20 minute episodes to be released weekly in series. Each series will have approximately 20 episodes before the show takes a small break for the production of further series. We are more than willing to consider other related games if the need arises (such as “Counter-Strike” or “Half Life”) but we will attempt to stay faithful to “Team Fortress 2″ as much as we can. The show will be released first on blip.tv on the Fortressbusters channel (most likely release will be on Fridays or Saturdays) and will be then released on Dominant Miscourse; the video site for Concerned-ish, linked on Twitter and also mentioned on the Dead Workers Party forums. We would like to take this moment to say that we aren’t affiliated with the Dead Workers Party in any way, but they are old friends of ours and we think that this would interest their community of Team Fortress 2 players (especially as the community members often assist in Fortressbusters-related works such as assisting). We will regularly need test subjects to help test bigger myths and this will be promoted on Twitter (@fortressbusters) and on the Dead Workers Party forums at deadworkers.com/community. As for the problems delaying us right now, we are waiting on problems with equipment. We are looking to releasing episodes soon. Keep looking at the Twitter feed for more information.

(Note, this may easily come off as a Steam advertisement.. I hope it doesn’t. :/)

Steam. Some people know it as the gateway to PC gaming, others see it as an unnecessary step in DRM. Me however? I see it as more than just a viable alternative to buying CDs: I see it as the new wave of internet relationships.

We all know AIM, I hope? If you don’t, you need to get out of the hole you dug for yourself and wake up. AIM basically is a chat client. Now, picture AIM.. but with games. Steam is that. Not to sound like a Valve advertisement, but Steam is THE one stop shop for PC games. There really is nothing else like it on the market: You can download straight from their servers, without having to mess with CD keys/crappy other forms of DRM, and you can connect with friends easier than ever before. Not only that, but Steam allows you to have the easiest and most streamlined multiplayer service on the market. You can easily find servers, click and play. Basically, in summary, Steam is the shit.

About 2 years ago, I found out about a little game called Team Fortress 2. If you know me at all by this point, you will know now that this is one of my favorite games of all time, and my favorite multiplayer game of all time. Now, I’m willing to admit, since it’s way behind me now: At first, I pirated TF2. (insert DUN DUN here) I met up with a lot of cool guys on Pirated servers, and we had fun playing together. Nothing real deep, just a community of players playing a game they love. In about May of 08, I found a little podcast called Control Point. This was a TF2 podcast for the ages; it was funny, informative, and just overall awesome. In fact, it just ended its run with its 100th episode early this year.. and ended on a high note. Anyways, later, around maybe August of 08, I finally bought the game. The first thing I did was play on the Control Point servers.. and I had the best time in the world. The comedic effect of the podcasts was the EXACT same thing as it was on the servers. It was truly one of the highlights of my internet life. Later, I found myself befriending many people in the community. And the biggest guy that I became great friends with was ZionCleric. He seemed just like the kind of guy I wanted to be around.. he was funny, a little crazy (no offense intended, Zion :3), and overall an awesome dude. Later, I noticed that we started joining the same team in TF2, and started making injokes with each other. We became almost best buddies. Soon, this became the same with many other guys: Gehn, Mint, SlaughterMelon(AKA AyasakiMidori), Krewl, Leia, Ganonslayer, and the list goes on and on.

Now, some of you may know this already, but I was diagnosed at an early age with ADHD and Aspergers Syndrome. Both of these are personality disorders. Growing up through elementary school/middle school, I was.. well, lets just say I was that kid who sat in the back of the class and doodled all day. I’m a mediocre student. I’m not very shy, per say.. but I hate meeting new people. At an early age I didn’t have many friends, and was for the most part a loner. I was teased on a LOT by the kids in my school.. which is the norm for the nerds around here. I was grown in a semi-black community.. and lets just say they don’t take kindly to kids who aren’t jocks, assholes, or just in general not like them. Not to get personal on you all of a sudden, but many times I came home crying, knowing how alone I was. I wanted to be liked.. but I knew from the start that I didn’t want to change. I was who I was, and fuck it, I’m not going to change because I want to be like some jock kid who takes showers with other men every day. In any case, I went through life being alone, playing Mario and watching television. At times I thought how I never had any real friends from school come to birthday parties or what not. I was a loner.. and I was grown around it, so I grew to enjoy it. It’s not that I don’t like people.. it’s just I have a hard time meeting new people and getting along with them. For the most part, I just was never a fan of talking face to face.

But Steam changed that. Steam has this direct, but indirect form to communication. With the Steam Community, you could meet a person online, without having to actually see them, and strike a conversation. You can go on a game server, meet some guy you’ve never known in your entire life, and suddenly, BAM, you guys get along like you knew each other for 5 years. I guess this just goes for the internet in general.. it’s changed the way we communicate. Think about it. If it wasn’t for the internet, I’d probably still be alone, in my basement, playing video games in the dark and living through life alone and with nothing to show for myself. The internet, and for the most part Steam, changed my life. I get to have friendships that I’ve never been able to experience before. I get to meet all new people, strike conversations, and create a bond with each other. I can share secrets, tell jokes, and have a good time. Having Aspergers Syndrome and ADHD definitely makes a problem for me socially. The one thing that my psychiatrist always stressed: Eye contact, eye contact, eye contact. And to this day, I still have trouble with it. It’s not that I don’t want to look at the person I’m talking to, it’s just I can’t. But, with Steam, I don’t need to worry about things like that. I can have deep, personal conversations with friends that I’ve never had, and I’d also contribute a lot of my rise in maturity to it (mostly thanks to Mint for that one). It’s like Steam was the third parent I’ve never had. Simply put.. if it wasn’t for Steam.. I’m not sure where I’d be. Would I be the same guy I was before; a hard to talk to, loner nerd with no friends? Would I have matured as well as I have in the past 2 years? Would I still be alive? I ask myself those questions from time to time. But, in hindsight, I just have to say: Steam, and the friends I met over it, have changed my life forever. I’ve grown up, got pubic hair, and am semi-on my way to my first real relationship. And I, to be honest, would have to accredit that to my friends on Steam, and the games it provides. Thank you Valve for Steam, and an even bigger thank you to Control Point, who gave me access to some of the greatest guys/girls I’ve ever met, and helped me grow socially. I can’t thank you enough.

First off, let me say this: I’m not an Apple fanboy, but I do like their products. I have an iMac G4 and an iPod Touch 2G. And, as I’m sure a lot of us do, would like an iPad/iPhone 4/iWhatever. However, this is part of my problem with Apple. Apple have this thing going, which even some experts don’t understand. It’s this sort of wave of hype that goes over people when an announcement is made and no other company manages it quite like Apple. Steve Jobs will appear on stage and basically say “What we made 6 months ago is most uncool thing to possibly own. Forget the fact that last time we said the last product was a revolution, or that the last thing was the most exciting thing we’ve ever done. This thing, out does everything ever in the world, again.” Despite the fact that you just wasted about £400 on phone which is still perfectly fine, and does what it’s supposed to do, you will go out and buy the slightly faster version. You thought the phone you just had was perfectly acceptable but along comes Mr Jobs to tell you that it’s not. Nothing ever will be. Then, there are the people who keep waiting for the next version. These people are worse then the normal people, because they basically wait for Steve to tell them what they have is inadequate.

This is my next issue with Apple:

Recently, out of curiosity and the ability to say I had done it, I jailbroke my iPod using JailbreakMe. Apple (and possibly Microsoft, I’m not sure, but who cares, it’s just Microsoft) is the only company that locks down their iOS products. You can only get approved stuff and everything else is either extremely hard to put on or is illegal (Of course, the US has declared jailbreaking perfectly legal. However, other countries’ governments probably don’t give a damn).  No other phone considers installing a theme illegal. In fact, some phones actively encourage some extent of modding. Plus, Android phones let anyone develop apps for it, not just approved ones. Steve has said things like “We don’t want porn on our platform” as excuses for not putting certain apps in the Store. Isn’t that what a browser’s for? Apple, why not go the whole mile and restrict Internet usage? Only approved websites can be viewed? Or even restrict looking at Stocks, so people can only look at approved companies? We paid £500 for our own device which we can’t even do everything we want with!

To summarize, what have we learnt? That Apple does things that no other company does, but manages to get away with selling ridiculously high-priced devices because it know people will buy them regardless of the price. Desirability > Functionality. Now, I really need an iPad…

Since blogging is becoming quite big I’ve wanted to start, though my English skills are not that good, My knowledge of the gaming world is and this will be what I focus on. Obviously tech and gadgets catch my eye   (Seriously, how can it not) it has not always been a e part of my life. I mean sure computers and televisions are but I am not in a rush to go crazy with robots and other such developments. With the money I will be receiving after starting college though I’m sure my room will be buzzing with electronics and other useless stuff I wont need but it will still have its place.

I am an Xbox gamer and have been for the past few years. Brought up on the Sega Saturn, my younger years were dedicated to  Sony’s PlayStation one, A very happy Christmas brought me upon the PlayStation 2 and a few birthdays ago the Xbox 360 now has the dominant place on my shelf. This is what my blogs will focus on but still I have a tendency to look into Pc and playstation gaming aswell. Although I wish the war for the best console will stop but Im sure that will make an excellent next blog.

I must admit Ben has brought me into the this buissness and has being doing in the past when I was a following his podcasts and advancements on Breach but that seems too have stopped. I must thank him as this is my first attempt at Blogging and I’m loving it already and hope Ben can help me progress further.

Please Tell me if you think I’ve started well or any other comments.

SO – In honour of Toast actually keeping stuff up for a year and not breaking it, we’re running a competition just in time for the holiday season (I mean Winter, not December). How would you fancy getting a Christmas present for your lovely wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/pet hamster? Does 2kg (yes, I mean kilograms) of lovely Dairy Milk chocolate sound good? If it doesn’t, what the hell is wrong with you.

Entry is simple – we’ll run it in a raffle style event, which means you buy tickets, I pick a number, and depending what number you were, you may or may not win. The more tickets you buy* the more of a chance you have to win!

* -’Tickets’ is used metaphorically. You will not actually recieve a ticket. You will be entered into a database of numbers with your name next to it depending on how much and when your amount of tickets purchased. The grammar in the last sentence is inexcusable, I apologise.

TO ENTER:

1. Click the donate button at the side. People who have already donated are already assigned a ticket (Ubertoast is excluded from this draw).

2. For every $1 you send, you get a ticket. For example, sending $2 will get you two tickets, $10 will get ten tickets, etc…

3. Any un-rounded amounts will be considered donations. For example, sending $1.54 will result in you being given one ticket, and the 54 cents considered a gift. If the same person then sends another 46 cents, this will NOT be added to the total.

4. The drawing will take place at 8pm GMT, September 2nd. Winners will be notified and should then send their address in an e-mail. Failure to respond within 48 hours will result in a re-draw, and your tickets will be void.

So, what are you waiting for people? Get some of that lovely chocolate!

So, I login this morning and get a bit pissed off that I havn’t been payed yet. Oh well, he has 4 days before I can get angry at him. Head downstairs for some coffee, watch Takeshi’s Castle and Star Trek Enterprise, come back up, and – oh, what’s this? A message from the buyer? Bemused, I open the message, and this is what I get:

“hi sir, please send me your contact number and address i would like to come and pick up.”

… oooh dear. Now, I’m not an expert on eBay procedures, but this makes me feel a little uncomfortable – firstly because I don’t particularly want strangers knowing where I live or how to contact me (I use my mobile number for a reason – I can block callers), and I don’t want to wait in for someone to come pick it up. Why do I have to inconvenience myself to save you a couple of quid, Mr. Buyer? What if I want to go out with friends, or go and get burgers? Surely, as the seller, I have the prerogative to decide how my items are delivered? Especially when “local pick-up” was NOT on the list of delivery methods?

You people are more experienced than me with eBay, most likely – am I right? Is the buyer allowed to back out of the deal because I said “no pickups”? Is he allowed to leave me negative feedback? Leave comments and let me know your opinions or any informations you might have.

So yeah, I’ll start updating again. However, I have college coming up, so people who want to write here as well are more than welcome too – just register, login, and write. In the meantime, I’ll try and get the forums in a decent state, as well as Dominant Miscourse and the Podcast mini-site.

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“Oh, for crying out loud…” the disgruntled man said, punching the console in front of him. “Stupid Gallente ships can never shield tank properly…” The man was Havelle Cridemotte, and he was the captain of one of only a thousand Gallente ships that hadn’t been built with capsuleers in mind.

“Sorry sir, my fault. The armor nanites are still running, they’re using all the power. I’ll shut them do-” began his engineer.

“Don’t bother. Just get us to the Jita stargate. The sooner we dump whatever this crap is we were asked to pick up, the better off we’ll be,” Havelle interrupted, punching a few buttons on his console to shut everything but the engines and shields down. A few seconds later, there was a faint hum, a clanking sound and finally a sonic boom as the ship glided at warp velocity best the pale, yellow sun of the system they were in, a beautiful blue plume refracting off their slipstream.

Havelle was startled by the voice that awoke him from the slumber he had slipped into over the twenty jump journey. Bolting upright, he went to grab the pistol he kept with him at all times, before calming down as he realised it was just the ships computer letting him know they’d been allowed to dock at the Jita IV, Moon IV Navy Assembly plant.

“Thank god… hurry up and get that guy on screen… what’s his name… oh, you know the one,” he said, slumping back, glaring at the shadowed image that flickered onto his screen. “We’ve done what you asked. Money. Now.” The figure behind the screen smirked.

“Well, it certainly looks as if the… cargo… is authentic. Tell me, which ship was it in?”

“It was in a god-damn Paladin. You didn’t tell me I’d be up against a Marauder, you bastard… I lost five good men and women to do this. So you’ll forgive me if I’m not too pleased with myself.” Havelle spat back at the man. The man bowed his head slightly.

“Thirty Million ISK has just been sent to your account. Quite acceptable, is it not?” the man said. Havelle growled before shutting off the screen, and slumping back in the chair.

“Get us out of here, back to Luminaire,” he said. He closed his eyes, ignoring the glances from the crew. “Should’ve been a miner…” he whispered to himself.

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You see, I don’t particularly like to play online much – hell, even with MMOs such as Star Trek Online, or EVE, I always tended to disable grouping functions and ignore everyone, to play on my own. Alien Swarm would appear to be the one game I can’t do this on.

Why? Simple – Valve ive you a ONE level long single player campaign, and that’s it. Now, call me bias, but unless I have to (say, for a job or something) if a game doesn’t have a good single player story, I won’t even bother with the online stuff. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I mean, sure, it’s free – but the 5GB harddrive space it took up for me could be used for something else.

On the brightside – the graphics are good, and it uses the Left 4 Dead Source engine, which is pretty well optimised and even runs fairly well on my laptop. But hey, it’s a free game – go try it for yourself.

And now, I’m tired, and there’s something I want to finish off.