Rainbow Six - Multiplayer gameplay example

With Ubisoft on my boycott list, I have been reminiscing about some of the games that I would no longer be playing. In particular, I think I'm really going to miss Rainbow Six as it was a really good game and I had lots of fun with it. In the past, I've posted some gameplay examples taken from the singleplayer and co-op experience but haven't really posted any multiplayer gameplay examples which is interesting as one of my strongest memories of this game is actually from the multiplayer side.

This particular game was a match of Retrieval on the casino map. The casino map itself has 3 levels. The top level is the roof which is where the attacking team spawns in. The middle level is the main casino floor and has a spawn room for the defending team. The lowest floor is the control room of the casino and, along with another spawn point for the defending team, is where the server room is located. The objective for the attacking team is to retrieve a hard drive from the server room and then extract to the roof to escape by helicopter. It goes without saying that the job of the defending team is to prevent the hard disk from being extracted.

In this particular match, I was on the defending team along with a friend and two strangers. The attacking team consisted of around 4-5 people as well so it was an evenly matched game. When defending on this map, my friend and I had a general system where he would defend the server room while I defended the main casino floor. Basically, I was the first line of defence while he was the second.

I had setup the match so that all weapon options were available (for some reason, a lot of people disabled the tech gadgets or explosives in this game). Just for kicks, I grabbed some frags and the GPS locator which, when activated, shows the position of enemies on your radar for a short time provided that the enemy doesn't have a GPS blocker.

For reference, here is a quick drawing of the map layout based on my spotty memory.



As soon as the game started, I activated my GPS and found that nobody on the opposing team had a GPS blocker. I had a general idea of how to defend this map and what options the attacking team to breach the casino floor from playing this map before. I also had a sneaky idea which I wanted to try out.

Taking advantage of the initial extra setup time that the defending team has, I made a dash for point A on the map. As I hunkered down into cover behind the slot machines, I activated my GPS again and sure enough, I found 2 enemies who were getting ready to breach into the room via the windows at point B. When I heard the tink of the windows being broken, I threw a grenade to point C. The timing was perfect as the two guys got there just as the grenade went off. I managed to get two easy kills with one very satisfying grenade.

As I sat there chuckling to myself, I wondered if they had noticed me. If they hadn't, it would be a great opportunity to get another two easy kills so I decided to hang around. After a short countdown, I activated my GPS again and noticed two guys getting ready to breach into the room via the windows at point B again.

Alas, it was too good to be true. They had actually spotted me and this time, they made a beeline straight for my position. R6V is the kind of game where even a couple of bullets will kill you so I have to admit that at that point, I thought I was toast. Still, I blind-fired half a clip as they were approaching and by sheer luck, managed to kill one of them as they were closing in although I did take a bullet in the arm. As the other one came in for the kill, I leapt out of cover and strafed left while emptying my remaining clip in his general directi9on (yes, I admit, this was a desperate move - sue me). My screen went black (indicating I was almost dead) but the message flashed up on screen "Jokemeister killed xxx".

I couldn't believe it! Although I almost died, I managed to fend off two attackers. At this point, I beat a hasty retreat and moved to point D on the map which was my secondary line of defence. Point D is a good place for defence as you can't get flanked from that position unless the attackers go all the way through the server room and come at you from behind.

From that point, I managed to hold off a steady stream of attackers. However, one incident sticks out in my mind. In one case, there was an attacker at point E hiding just behind the archway so I couldn't shoot him. Unfortunately, the git threw a flash bang and blinded me which really left me with limited options. I could either retreat and hope my vision recovered before he stormed up and killed me or I could take a huge gamble.

As the motto goes - who dares wins! I popped out from cover and rattled off some shots in the area where the attackers head would be assuming he had popped out of cover to try and shoot me. The message flashed on screen - "Jokemeister killed xxx" - and I couldn't help but scream "Yeah" which got me a nasty look from the missus for disturbing the peace.

After fending off a few more attackers, I was actually starting to run out of ammo in my assault rifle. I was down to my last half clip when I heard one of the strangers on my team ask, "Where the hell are the attackers?" (which caught me by surprise as up till then, the two strangers on the team had been completely silent).

Before I could say anything, the other stranger answered "Yeah, there's one guy upstairs in the corridor holding them all off."

Taking this opportunity, I flicked on my mic and yelled down the line, "and that guy needs help as I'm about to run out of ammo!". I can't remember but, in the heat of the moment, I may even have thrown in a swear word. Maybe.

Thinking about it now, I actually feel an immense amount of pride at how well I had been doing. However, at the time, I distinctly remember thinking "What the f#&k have you guys been doing if nobody has been attacking the server room?"

Anyway, one of the other guys immediately heads up to help defend the corridor so I head out to the main casino floor to pick up an assault rifle from one of the dead bodies (it wasn't one I normally used but it was better than having to use my pistol). It was at this point that I realised that there was nobody around on the casino floor which meant the attacking team had finally given up on breaching the corridor and was now trying to reach the server room via a different route.

The game ended soon after this and suffice to say that the defending team won. By the end of the game, I had 15+ kills with no deaths (I can't remember exactly how many kills I had but I know it was 15+ as I got an achievement for this). I was also, far and away, the best player in that match and it felt really good when, in the lobby afterwards, some of the enemy players commented on how good I was.

Good times.


Addendum
I should add that the above is one of those freak occurrences when everything just clicked. I was extremely lucky in a couple of situations not to die and it really was by sheer luck that I managed to do so well. The reality is that when I jump online, I am generally in the bottom half of the rankings and have come last on more than one occasion.

Still, it feels great to have pwned everyone.
:D

Aladuchar - Arl Eamon

With the death of the silver dragon atop the mountain, the remainder of our quest for the Urn of Sacred Ashes passed with relative ease although a couple of encounters remain memorable.

While inside the temple, we were accosted by the spirit of my deceased brother. I have to confess to a pang of guilt as I recalled the events leading to my exile from Orzammar and how I had treated him. Despite our differences, he had some sage advice for me. I have to wonder though - did I judge him too harsh or is he simply eager for me to exact vengeance on his behalf?

In the end, it is irrelevant. We parted on good terms and although I swear to the Stone that Bhelen shall fall before my axe, it will be for my own vengeance and not for my brother.


Trian, my dead brother, makes one last appearance

The second encounter was truly memorable. Just before we reached the Urn, we came across an impenetrable wall of flame. There looked to be no way through and I was beginning to think that our journey had been in vain when Leliana spotted some writing on a stone dais. I cannot remember what the carving said but it appeared to be some kind of riddle.

I have to admit that the riddle stumped me and it was Leliana who was able to read some meaning into the words (in my defence, she is a bard!). She told us that we would need to strip naked in order to cross the flames safely.

I took off my armor eagerly. What a shame that neither Leliana nor Morrigan decided to join me (now that would have been a sight worth dieing for!). I tried to reason with Leliana, tell her that if she expected me to have any confidence in her solution to the riddle that she should strip off as well. Alas, she was resolute and in the end, I made the journey with just Alistair as company.


Alas, this just serves to remind me of missed opportunities

In the end, Leliana's intellect was proved as we made it safely through the fire. The guardian of the ashes showed up as we passed through which signalled the end of our quest.


The Urn of Sacred Ashes

With a pinch of the ashes in hand, we made our way back to Redcliffe Village. Despite my initial doubts about undertaking what seemed like a quest for fools gold, I was now pretty certain that the ashes did indeed hold some kind of mystical healing power. There was no other explanation for the amount of difficulty in obtaining them.

And sure enough, the ashes did not disappoint. We melted the pinch of ashes into a bowl of water and fed it to the Arl who immediately stirred and recovered from his malady. Unfortunately, the Arl himself was less impressive.

I had hoped that the Arl would take command and lead his troops against Loghain. Instead, he proposed to put Alistair on the throne. Ha - I almost fell over laughing! Can you imagine Alistair as a king? In any event, Arl Eamon intends to call a landsmeet to try and force the issue.

Truly, these humans are fools. The land is under siege by darkspawn and all they do is sit around and talk. Do they not realise that this is the time for action? If it were not for my exile to the surface, I would gladly let these fools talk until the darkspawn knocked down their doors.

But the only action that will be taken is by myself and my band of warriors. While the Arl prepares for the landsmeet, Alistair and myself will travel the lands in search of an army to take on the darkspawn. I guess those treaties we recovered in the Korcari Wilds will have some use after all.


Alistair is "happy" to learn of the Arl's plan

Still, at least I will finally have a chance to return to Orzammar.

Mass Effect 2 - impressions

Mass Effect 2 was recently released and you know what that means. That's right - the bitch is back! Unfortunately, Liara is no longer a playable NPC so I had to pick someone else to round out my bitch brigade but my femshep is definately back in business and kicking ass!

Anyways, some quick impressions below before I go back to the adventures of Aladuchar next week.

The Good
Combat much improved
BioWare clearly listened to a lot of the complaints about combat in the first game and really went all out in making this game a much better shooter. The action in this game clearly kicks it up a notch compared to the relatively poor shooter action in the first ME. For ME, my comment was that the gameplay was better than I expected. However, for ME2, I can honestly say that the gameplay is actually quite good. Admittedly, its still not as good as some of the dedicated shooters, like Gears of War, but the story and RPG elements easily make up for the difference (although this would clearly depend on your personal preference).

As an aside, there is a very interesting article about this on The Escapist which talks about how shooter games should copy the story elements from games like ME2. Worth a read if you have time as I would love to see more games like this.

Characters
The characters are also a good mix of interesting personalities. Although its subtle, I think the characters in ME2 are a bit better than those in ME. This is no surprise though considering that character and dialogue have long been one of BioWare's strengths.

Having said that, I still would have liked more conversations with the characters as it seems that they run out of things to say a bit too quickly.

Continuation of Shep story
I love the fact that this is a direct continuation of the Shepard that I developed in the original ME. A lot of the decisions that I made in the first ME game are reflected in ME2.

What makes this element stand out though are the quests which arise directly as a result of decisions made in the first game. There are a couple of instances where I ran into people from the first game and they had a quest for me which would not have been available had I made a different decision in the first game. At times like this, you really start to feel like you are playing a personalised trilogy with your character as the main hero (or heroine as the case may be).

BioWare humour
I bet you didn't expect this.

This game is hilariously funny when it wants to be. There are a couple of spots where something is done for comedic effect and surprisingly, BioWare was able to pull it off really well. I'm not going to give any specifics here as the humour in this game has to be experienced (any retelling of it by me just wouldn't do it justice). Admittedly, ymmv depending on the type of humour you enjoy.


The Bad
Storyline
With all the praise though, I have to admit to being a little disappointed with the story. Maybe it was because I just finished playing DAO which had a similar theme in terms of you going around getting allies, but the bulk of the story in ME2 revolves around you going around the galaxy putting together a team who can take on the Big Bad. After getting the team, you then go on a (optional) mission for each team member which makes that team member loyal to you if you resolve the mission in a satisfactory manner.

This just didn't feel very epic especially compared to the storyline in the first ME and makes the game feel like it lacks intensity. In fact, the game only really ramps up in intensity when you take on the main storyline missions in pursuit of the Big Bad. In defence, the end missions when you finally take on the Big Bad are frakking superb and really left me leaving this game on a high and looking forward to ME3.

Mission end screens
One of the things I really didn't like was the mission end screen. At the end of every mission (be it main quest or side quest), a screen will pop up telling you that you have completed the mission. This mission end screen details the key decisions you made during the mission (just in case you forgot what you did 5 minutes ago) and also tells you what swag you collected during the mission (just in case you didn't notice the huge pop-up informing you of this at the time).

The mission end screen also serves to remind you that you are playing a game and that you aren't really Commander Shepard. Thanks BioWare.

Planet scanning
Yeesh - where do I start with this! Just in case you didn't know, BioWare introduced a planet scanning minigame which you have to go through in order to get enough resources to research upgrades. You have to do this as you can fail the game if the Normandy (your starship) isn't upgraded enough to survive the final battle with one of the Big Bad starships.

The problem is that the planet scanning minigame is so tedious. On the X360, you have to move a cursor slowly over a planet looking for a spike on your resource radar. While moving the cursor, you have to pulse the left trigger (as the left trigger starts the scan). While scanning, the cursor moves at a snails pace. Hell, even without scanning, the cursor moves at a snails pace! Even on my first playthrough, I was getting bored to tears after scanning several planets.

Why can't an aide do it? Or the onboard AI? I mean, I'm supposed to be the Commander of the Normandy, tasked with saving humanity, and I can't get someone to scan a planet for me?

As an aside, the comments by the OP in this thread are hilarious in how true they appear to be.

Helmets
Another incomprehensible decision here.

In the buildup for ME2, one of the things that BioWare put emphasis on was how much effort they put into building facial expressions for characters. Instead of just relying on words, they were now able to express emotions with the faces. And in many cases, this is true - my femshep spends a lot of time scowling at people. Great idea which really adds to the RP right?

Bearing in mind the above, you have to wonder which moron approved the game mechanic design around helmets in this game. In ME2, you have customisable armor which allows you to mix and match your armor. The headpiece, chestpiece, arms and legs can all be mixed to give you different bonuses. Unfortunately, if you pick any helmet which covers the head, that helmet doesn't toggle off for cutscreens (something which they did for DAO). This in itself isn't a big deal as you can just forgo the minor bonus for the helmet.

However, BioWare then decide to inflame the fan base even further by releasing loads of bonus armor. All of the bonus armor to date are designed to look really cool but aren't customisable in any way (apparently, this is to avoid clipping with the models in game) which is no big deal as the bonus armors have special bonuses of their own anyway. The real kicker though is that the helmet is perma-on and cannot be removed. So your choice is to have a nice looking armor with some minor bonuses or instead, you can actually see your shepard talk to people.

In case it isn't clear from my bitching, all of my bonus armor went straight back in the cupboard (although I may pull them out for the insanity playthrough).

The thing is, I just don't understand how you can make such a fuck up in game design considering that the facial expressions was one of the things that the designers themselves spent so much time on improving.

Lots of decisions only result in news or email
My last nitpick with the game is that, although a lot of decisions from ME carry over, most of them only have a minimal impact on the game. For example, in most cases, you hear about the impact via a newscast or an email which you might receive. I would love for more quests to be dependent on stuff which happened in the first ME as, for the occasions where this did occur, I felt really invested in both the character and the game.


Overall
Despite it looking like I have more complaints than praise, you have to realise that a lot of the complaints are a bit nitpicky. The reality is that ME2 is a great game and, in my opinion, a noticeable improvement over the first ME. To be fair, this may depend on your own preferences as BioWare streamlined a lot of the common RPG mechanics in order to make the gameplay flow better and faster. Ultimately though, I found it really difficult to put this game down and go to bed at night (or in the wee hours of the morning as was usually the case).