You Found a Secret Area!

Author: beverly jane

Diving into the Windows 10 Marketplace with Modern Combat 5: Blackout.

For a while, I wasn’t going to upgrade to Windows 10. But then a friend convinced me of a few cool features, and I decided to finally take the plunge since it’s free as of this writing. Since my current PC was on Windows 7, I missed out on all the cool apps that came out during the Windows 8 era. After perusing the store, I found a few interesting games. Boy, I wasn’t expecting this…

It’s time for STERN MILITARY SOLDIER POSE

Modern Combat 5: Blackout is probably the most generic title for a game ever. This is the product of Gameloft, a French-based development studio known famously for their mobile phone and handheld games. Naturally, this is a “port” from iOS/Android devices, supporting cumbersome touch screen controls.

While I haven’t played the previous entries in the Modern Combat franchise, I am familiar with it. One of the games, Modern Combat: Domination, made it to consoles and I remember Giant Bomb covering it once. At the time, it looked like a mish-mash of Call of Duty 4 with a pinch of Counter-Strike‘s elements. By default, I go into any new game I play with mild skepticism and low expectations just so I don’t hype myself up for disappointment, so I wasn’t expecting much here.

This is a hell of a way to start a game…

You play as Phoenix, a mercenary for works for some corporation. With the help of a bald marine named Bull, you two storm through San Marco, escaping from evil terrorists, and eventually escaping a helicopter in a boat chase sequence. Pretty exciting for the beginning of a Call of Duty clone.

Is this some spirit animal allegory I’m not aware of?

Afterwards, Phoenix wakes up in Japan, taken over by raiders during some terrorist attack or something. I’ll admit, I barely remember the story of this game, and that’s coming from a guy who played through Battlefield 3 and 4, which had really unremarkable generic campaigns. But from what I gleaned from a wiki for the series, it’s basically double-crossing between various factions, and a surprise plot twist that the CEO of the Gilman corporation is also a mercenary soldier who caused the double-crossing. Hardly oscar-caliber story writing, but I got what I paid for. (Nothing.)

Something I noticed while playing was that a lot of the voice actors for this game are familiar to me. They’ve voiced characters in the Pokemon anime, mostly as minor characters. However, there is one voice I was surprised to hear: Jason Griffith, once the voice of a certain blue hedgehog, voices a minor character in this game. How the mighty have fallen, I guess.

One of the many classes you can choose from. You get Recon to start, and the rest require you to either grind levels or pay up to unlock.

Modern Combat 5 has a leveling system and unlockables. There’s a create-a-class option, weapons can be upgraded by using them in the game to unlock attachments and better weapons, and each class has special skills that are upgraded using SP. SP is gained between some missions, leveling up, and between events Gameloft put up. One thing I liked is how the rankings persist between both single player and multiplayer, which I wish more games did.

There are seven tiers of each weapon. While all the weapons are based of real guns, somebody at Gameloft thought that Tier 7 should be future-looking versions of old guns. The SMGs get a futuristic Thompson called the “Bromson,” Sniper rifles get a modernized Lee-Enfield called the “BSW 77,” and the pistol gets a future space Luger called the “Mrager.” I am not making this up. This is so ridiculous that I had to get screenshots of them:

Multiplayer is typical military FPS in a post-Call of Duty 4 world: You have perks, you have a powerup you can use, there’s killstreaks like recon drones and EMP strikes, and you get XP for kills. There’s the common FPS gamemodes: Free-for-All, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and an unusual TDM variant called VIP where the VIP is always visible on the minimap and killing them rewards more points than killing other players. Fun, but a VIP kill is 5 points and the scorelimit is 50, making the matches go by faster than expected.

My dad once said that combat drones will be the future of combat. I guess he was right.
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March 10, 2016
Aftershock for Quake: The most terrible pun name ever?

PC gaming in the ’90s was a real wild west affair. When games like Doom took off, everybody started making shovelware compilations of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of levels. Most of them were downloaded off BBSes without crediting people, which is pretty scummy in itself. But if you had no internet connection, this was a way to get levels with ease.

“Direct from the Internet.” Kinda rude to take those without permission, you know?

After a few years of this, companies like WizardWorks started making their own unofficial expansions for games like Quake, Descent and Warcraft II. While this was an improvement – level designers could actually license their stuff for commercial use – the internet was really starting to bloom in the late ’90s, making these unofficial “expansions” obsolete.

Today, I’m gonna look at one of these unofficial expansions for a little game called Quake…

This looks like something I’d see on some pick up artist’s vlog channel.

Forgiving the groan-worthy punny title, Aftershock for Quake is one of several expansions made to capitalize on Quake‘s success. Published by Head Games, this featured “advanced levels”, adding three episodes and a bevy of deathmatch maps.

Unlike the official expansions – Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity – these have no new monsters, powerups or weapons. These are vanilla Quake levels, designed to run with a registered copy of the original Quake. The episodes are drastically shorter than vanilla Quake, only having five levels for each episode.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t get the installer to work on my PC running Windows 7 64-bit since it’s a 16-bit application. Thankfully, all I had to do was to copy the /AS/ folder from the CD into my Quake folder and I was off to the races.

The blood on the logo looks rather ominous.

There isn’t much of a story to these maps. Considering Quake‘s story was already bare-bones to begin with, this is relatively par for the course. With the exception of episode three, there aren’t any credits to who made this. It’s unfortunate, because I was hoping to see someone who would go on to later claims to fame in game development, as a “before they were stars” moment. Kinda like how Viktor Antonov worked on the infamous Redneck Rampage as an art designer before crafting out the styles of Half-Life 2 and Dishonored.

By the way, there’s no new music in this. All of it is recycled from Quake, with the exception of one level having no music whatsoever. It would’ve been nice for them to go all out, but I’m glad they even bothered to even assign music tracks. Makes me want to put in a music CD to get a different feel to it, like when I wrote about Red Book CD Audio a couple years back.

Wonder why they put both a knight and an ogre as if they’re equal threats? One has a grenade launcher, for chrissakes.

Episode 1 has some interesting design. E1M1 starts you with an ogre, a knight, and a pool with armor in it as a secret. A later level has you hit a hard to see switch to move a boat across to grab the gold key, otherwise you die in hot slag.

Better get that quick save key ready. I shudder to imagine trying to do this with keyboard only.

A lot of the level design for Aftershock feels very amateur. Lots of precarious platforming over death pits, unclear instructions, and rather plain-looking level design. A lot of the levels are simple, poorly lit, boxy, and have no sense of balance. One level starts you near a rocket launcher, but then drops you into a trap room with two shamblers, a few fiends, and a couple of pentagrams and megahealth to aid your fight. A lot of these levels have several “kill all the enemies to progress” rooms, and it’s a bit frustrating.

I dub this image “myfirstquakemap.map.”

Granted, this was around 1996-97, and people were still trying to figure out this fancy new 3D engine, but if you’re selling this level set for money, you gotta make sure it can hang with the big boys of the official product and its expansions. And the first episode gives a rather less-than-stellar impression.

On the bright side, the makers of the mod didn’t seem to know how to strip the player of their weapons upon completing an episode, so if you’re playing the episodes in order, the later episodes can be a breeze because of a full arsenal.

I’m sorry but what the hell is this

Out of all three episodes, episode 3 is the one that feels more fleshed out. With more custom textures, and even proper credits — the whole episode’s made by one Greg MacMartin, who’s still in the biz today working on Consortium and the Homeworld games — this is the best of the stuff on display. Though he did have a fascination with putting the gold key in death trap areas…

This is rather cruel enemy placement for a key.

While I didn’t have any strange bugs while playing, I did experience a rare game crash. When I finished E3M5, Quakespasm, the source port I use, crashed with an unusual pushwall error. I was worried that this was an issue with the source port, but surprisingly I could not recreate the error after that. If there’s anyone reading who’s Quake-savvy who could explain what a pushwall error means, let me know in the comments.

That’s about it on the single player front. Aftershock for Quake also comes with about 13 deathmatch levels also made for the expansion, but most of them are simple box levels or have gimmicks, such as the two LAVABOX levels.

Since Quake multiplayer was in its infancy, a lot of these were likely made for 1v1 skirmishes. None of these maps are anywhere near levels of DM3, but when you just wanted to frag your buddies, you were happy to get whatever maps you could get your hands on.

Now who the heck would want a pool full of hot slag?

You think that’s it, right? There’s enough there to give you something to play around with. Remember when I said that these were made when shovelware compilations were extremely common? Hidden on the disc is a level creator, called Thred, and a bunch of levels that come with it separate from the main Aftershock campaign. Though, the back of the box calls it the “Aftershock 3D Level Editor,” which sounds like a fake program I’d hear on a TV show.

There isn’t anything outstanding in this collection – no Iikka Kiranen levels or anything cool like that – and some of these levels are merely tutorials for how to do things in the Quake engine. Most of these levels are freely available online through places like Quaddicted, but you’re probably not missing out.

Dare you walk down the ramps of death?

Aftershock for Quake is not an amazing expansion. Episode 3 and the various DM levels are the only reason to check this out, the rest of it is shovelware fodder that was prevalent during this time. I only spent a few bucks on this, so I don’t feel cheated out of this, but I got at least an hour or so of fun playing what Quake‘s community maps were like in 1996, so there’s that.

As far as I know, this is abandonware. Head Games no longer exists, and there’s probably no penalty for pirating an unofficial Quake expansion over twenty years after its original release. While not as outstanding as some of the other expansions, it’s a cool curiosity from years past. These kind of shovelware expansions should be documented more, there’s probably some interesting stuff about them we’re missing out on.

Demon Gate cover courtesy of Mobygames. Aftershock for Quake cover courtesy of the Quake Wiki.

Updated 8/1/2020 for paragraph changes and some updates.

February 22, 2016
Mods and Maps: Classic Doom for Doom 3, A Combination of Two Classics.

Doom 3 was a pretty cool game for 2004. I replayed it recently since it had been several years and I was initially down on it, but after replaying it, I have some newfound respect for it. While not as groundbreaking as Half-Life 2, it was still a good game. Though it’s hardly a “masterpiece of the art form” as the box quote says.

I still have that PC Gamer issue. They were actually god damn serious with that quote!

Alas, from what I gathered, the Doom 3 modding community was sparse compared to classic Doom, even compared to its competitors like Half-Life 2. But one particular mod stood out, and it’s not surprising it exists considering id Software’s legacy:

It feels like 1993 and 2004 combined into some freakshow.

Classic Doom for Doom 3 was one of those hyped mods in its heyday. Boasting a small team of developers at Flaming Sheep Software, these guys aimed to remake the 1993 classic on a modern engine. Of course, what better way to show off the modding skills of Doom 3‘s engine than with a remake of the original Doom?

So much for doing a UV-Max run…

There’s only four difficulty levels in this one, similar to Doom 3‘s skill levels. Alas no Ultra-Violence, but I’ll play on Hey Not Too Rough, the equivalent of “Normal” difficulty.

A gold star for originality, I guess.

Surprisingly the development team made an intro to explain why you’re going in. It’s so corny, filled with amateur voice acting and really jerky animation. Basically they give a reason for Doomguy to enter Mars and kill demons, eventually fending for yourself. Granted, the intro can be skipped, but it’s fascinating to put a story on why things went to hell. It’s a sight to behold.

Wouldn’t be a re-imagining of classic Doom without the starting area and that iconic music.

Then you’re thrown into E1M1: Hangar, with just a pistol, just like the old days. A remix of At Doom’s Gate starts blasting through your speakers. It’s time to kill some demons!
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January 31, 2016
Invaded by the January 2016 Loot Crate.

Hey, guess how long it’s been since we last had an article about some stuff I got in a box? Precisely one month! And guess what showed up on my doorstep?

Yep, still a black box. Not much else to say, here.

Yep, it’s another one of them Loot Crates! To kick off 2016, the theme they went for is “Invasion,” which means this will likely be full of sci-fi and other assorted goodies. They also seemed to change the shape of the crate again from last month. It makes it more difficult to keep them neat and even with all these inconsistent sizes every month, but as long as they can stack, I’m not bothered.

Let’s open our space rock of a crate and see what’s inside…

The Fifth Element replica multi pass

“Leeloo” is such a dumb name, my god

This is a replica of the ID card from The Fifth Element, complete with a fake ID for Milla Jovovich’s character Leeloo. I’m honestly amazed that name went through without lots of checking, because that sounds less like an important character and more of a bit I’d see in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Despite that, this replica item is a nice treat for fans of the movie.

Admittedly, The Fifth Element is another one of those movies I’ve never seen. Maybe it was because it was critically panned upon release, but also because most sci-fi doesn’t do much for me unless it involves time travel. I’ll throw The Fifth Element on the “to watch someday” pile…
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January 25, 2016
Super Mario 3D Fruit Gummies: Holiday Edition!

For regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed a drastic increase in posts about edible video game goodies over 2015. You’re not the only one. I’ve blogged more about fruit snacks and Red Bull tie-ins than actual game stuff, and that’s not counting my yearly Mountain Dew Game Fuel roundup. It’s actually interesting to see more of this stuff than before, this wasn’t much of a thing over the past ten years. Either that, or I wasn’t paying attention back then.

I didn’t think I’d be making another one of these to start 2016 off. But I thank my mom, my #1 fan, for finding these out of the blue. Or in this case, red:

Mario with the best kind of gift: CANDY!

It’s more of those Mario 3-Dees gummies. I wrote about these last year alongside Plants vs. Zombies 2 fruit snacks, and it seems they’ve taken a holiday theme this time around. I probably should’ve written about these before Christmas, but hey, better late than never, right?
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January 18, 2016
Exploring the galaxy with the December 2015 Loot Crate.

It’s been a month, so it’s time for Loot Crate to come my way once again. I already wrote about last month’s Loot Crate, and I thought that I might as well write about them as I got them. Since Loot Crate is probably one of the more popular things in terms of nerd culture, this is more of a personal archive for myself, since most of the stuff inside is already well known on the web.

I almost didn’t get this crate, as I found it in the trash. My dad had accidentally threw it in there, thinking it was just an ordinary package. Thankfully there was no signs of damage or smells on the box, so I was able to recover it before it would’ve suffered an untimely demise. So let’s tackle this month’s Loot Crate, of which the theme is “Galaxy”.

I mean, these look so generic-looking that I’m not surprised that it was almost in the trash.

Oddly, the box is in a different, more box-like shape this month compared to last month’s, I wonder why that is. After cracking the Loot Crate open, I start to find out why…

Halo 5: Guardians ammo crate container

But I thought we already finished the fight…

Hey, it’s a box within a box! Xzibit would be proud. More specifically, it’s a box shaped like an ammo crate that features the logo of the UNSC, the main military group of the Halo franchise.

My experiences with Halo involve playing a leaked beta build of the PC port many a year ago, and co-oping through Halo 3 with a friend, which had a rather interesting tale that might be a bit much for this kind of blog. Since I was mostly a PC gamer by the time Halo hit the scene, I never really found much interest in the franchise. It wasn’t terrible, but I never got sucked into the cultural zeitgeist of it all. A shame really.

There’s also a code for some unlockable items for the then recently-released Halo 5: Guardians, but alas I’m still stuck in the Xbox 360 world, thus I don’t think these items will ever get redeemed. That’s okay to me, because I can’t imagine that game being any good.

One day I should give Halo another chance. Either through Xbox or on PC. I bet those games are really fun in co-op.
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December 23, 2015
Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza: John McClane on a budget.

It’s the holiday season, and what better way to celebrate than playing something Christmas-related? How about a game based on one of the best damn action movies of the 80s, Die Hard?

I don’t care what anyone says, this is a Christmas movie in my book.

Okay, I may be stretching it a bit here. But it’s better than trying to find some Christmas-themed game involving Santa Claus. It’s also appropriate, considering Die Hard‘s legacy.

There have been many Die Hard games over the years. There was the top-down action game for the NES that’s been featured by the Angry Video Game Nerd and Games Done Quick, the multi-genre Die Hard Trilogy, even the Sega brawler Dynamite Deka which was rebranded as a Die Hard game when it hit stateside. But we’re gonna be talking about a little-known budget shooter that featured our old pal John McClane, Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza.

Love how they don’t try to give a Bruce Willis-like face for McClane.

This game had an interesting history. Starting out as a “Die Hard TC” for Duke Nukem 3D, it eventually made the leap from the aging Build engine to the new GoldSrc engine in 1999. Development on Nakatomi Plaza went silent in 2000 as rumors went around 20^th Century Fox sent a cease and desist on the project.

Eventually the game got re-announced the following year, now with the proper Die Hard license. Since 20th Century Fox had their own games publishing arm (at the time), the game got one more engine change: the fancy new Lithtech Engine. The engine that was used in The Operative: No One Lives Forever a year prior, and would be the primary engine for Monolith Productions’ stuff for years to come. The engine was also fairly cheap to license, which meant Lithtech powered lots of budget games I’ve actually talked about before. We’re talking stuff like CTU Marine Sharpshooter, Vietnam: Black Ops and…

This damn monstrosity.

But enough about the engine that powered a dozen junk games. Let’s get into the game itself. Nakatomi Plaza is a loose retelling of the original Die Hard‘s story. If you’re reading this and you’ve never seen Die Hard, stop reading this and watch the film. NOW. Alternately, you could read the book the movie’s based on, Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever, which I heard is actually a good book. If you have seen Die Hard, then continue. Preferably read this while listening to that GuyzNite song about the Die Hard franchise.

Since this game’s hits all the famous parts of the original movie, I won’t go into a play-by-play of the game, only for what the game has changed from the film itself.

The game starts out exactly the same as the film: John McClane arrives at Nakatomi Plaza thanks to Argyle the limo driver, meets up with Mr. Takagi, Ellis and Holly Gennaro, before Hans and his terrorist buddies come in and wreck stuff, leaving John barefoot with his 9mm Beretta.

It’s weird to be playing an FPS with a left-handed protagonist. What is this, Counter-Strike?
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December 16, 2015
Unboxing the November 2015 Loot Crate.

Ever have that feeling where you wake up and find out something surprising? That happened to me a while back as I was combing through my scant emails while watching stuff.

I won a free year of Loot Crate. I’ll admit, I was shocked. I rarely win things. I envied a friend of mine who usually stumbled upon getting free stuff all the time. I don’t even remember what contest I entered to win this, but hey, I’ll happily take free Loot Crate for a year.

For the unaware, Loot Crate is a simple subscription service where every month they send you some geeky goodies based on a theme. It’s usually $13/month, though you can go for longer subscriptions that’ll save money in the long run.

A lot of their crates involve a lot of the pop culture geek ephemera that you’d expect. Figurines, shirts and occasional Good Stuff. I’ve had friends with subscriptions to the service and they seemed to enjoy the things they got on offer.

So simple and mysterious… I wonder what’s inside…

The theme of this month’s was Combat, based on various ways to fight the world. As I only casually followed Loot Crate, before I wrote this post, I didn’t even know the stuff that would be in each monthly crate was based on a theme. This is pretty neat, as it gives me a hint of what’s inside the box. The downside is I might get a Funko Pop, which I’m not a super fan of.

But enough about that. What was in my first monthly Loot Crate?

Blizzard Entertainment “Cute but Deadly” blind bag

Somehow realizing I could also find these at Hot Topic or Blizzard’s online store killed the sort of uniqueness this item could’ve given.

Ah yes, the wonders of mysterious toys in sealed bags that may or may not have something interesting in them. Blind bags are fascinating as hell to me, mostly in part due to Ashens’ videos on it. While I’m not a cheeky brit with a mangy old brown sofa, I am a bloody yank with a stained TV tray, so let’s go and check these out.

All of these are based on various Blizzard franchises: Starcraft, World of Warcraft, that sort of thing. I’ll admit I don’t follow much in terms of Blizzard games. I’ve dabbled in a demo of Diablo or StarCraft years back, but I never really followed their stuff like Hearthstone or World of Warcraft. But whatever, the franchises don’t matter, it’s mystery of the blind bag that intrigues me. Let’s crack this sucker open.

I guess there is truth in advertising…

Oh wow. This is the rare orange Murloc advertised on the back of the box and in the Loot Crate booklet for the month. I honestly expected to get the more common Arthas or Kerrigan in the set, but this is a treat. He’s tiny enough to fit well on the shelf of my desk without being too much of a bother. He’s also damn cute, so there’s that.

I wish my luck was always this good. If it was, I’d play the lottery.
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November 24, 2015
Need for Speed Carbon on the Game Boy Advance: Time to Own the City!

There are many things that I’m always fascinated by, and one of them is portable versions of big console games. It’s surprising to see studios small and large try to squeeze as much power out of handhelds and hopefully make a good game out of it. I collect these on a rare occasion, and thought I’d dig one out of mothballs I bought awhile back and give it a spin.

As opposed to what, Own the Parking Lot?

Let’s hop in a ride and drive the mean streets, because we’re checking out Need for Speed: Carbon – Own the City for the Game Boy Advance. I mentioned buying this in an old “I Bought Stuff!” post from a year ago, and I wanted to see what a racing game looks on the ol’ GBA.

This is an EA Canada product, and came out on the GBA, PSP, and DS as the spinoff portable title alongside the main game on the bigger consoles. Usually the portable version is different in some ways than its console brethren, so let’s check it out.

The story’s fairly silly: You were in a race alongside your brother Mick, and a multi-car pile up by some unknown assailant caused the death of your brother and caused amnesia in you. What follows is a typical revenge plot as you work with Sara and Carter, Mick’s former crew members, as you climb your way back to the top and dominate districts and “Own the City,” as it were.

So let’s take a look at how this looks on the Game Boy Advance…

If you think it looks bad on a screenshot, imagine this in motion!

Oh. Oh dear. I’m not a graphics snob by any means, but this game looks pretty bad, even by GBA standards. Screenshots really do not do this justice, it looks like a blocky mess of a world on a platform that shouldn’t be running stuff like this. Feel the thrill of going 100 mph while feeling like you’re going half that speed!

Now I know the Game Boy Advance is not a 3D powerhouse, but something is really wrong when even playing it at top speed feels like a casual drive through a city than an actual racing game.

It doesn’t help that I can barely see anything. It’s very hard to see what’s ahead of you, and most of the roads are made of 90 degree angles that make it difficult to make good turns with slamming into the buildings. It doesn’t help that this perspective also makes swerving past traffic and opponent racers difficult.

Playing one of the Hunter races. One of the few modes where being in first isn’t guaranteed a win.

But enough about how it looks, here’s how it plays. A accelerates, B brakes, L activates Nitrous – provided you’ve unlocked it, and R is handbrake. There are four race types: Circuit, Sprint, Elimination, and Hunter. Circuit and Sprint are your standard races. Elimination removes the last place driver at each lap. Hunter is a strange one: Every skill or trick you do fills up a health bar, but hitting anything or stopping loses health. It’s less about finishing first and more about finishing with style.
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November 6, 2015
Mountain Dew Game Fuel: CODBLOPS III Edition.

It’s that time of the year again…

You know it’s time when you see the ol’ kitchen stove…

Mountain Dew gets buddy-buddy with major game developers and makes a fancy Game Fuel dedicated to a major game. This year, Activision gets the choice for the second year in a row, this time for Carl on Duty: Black Cops III – Revenge of the Urkel- er, Call of Duty: Black Ops III.

At this point, Mountain Dew has made the Citrus Cherry a standard flavor. No longer seasonal, you can get the stuff at any time anywhere. I noticed this as I found bottles of the normal Citrus Cherry at a Safeway, rather than the 7-Eleven like I usually do. Since this change, they’ve had various game-related promotions with Game Fuel this year, such as items for Batman: Arkham Knight and Warframe.

At first, I thought Mountain Dew retired the seasonal flavors, which would’ve meant an end to what has become a yearly tradition on my blog. But thankfully that wasn’t the case, as I found the new special flavor in the usual locations.

I’ve written about Citrus Cherry every single year since I started this. It hasn’t changed in taste whatsoever. It’s got a cherry taste with a citrus-y tinge that reminds me of Squirt or similar citrus-heavy sodas. At this point, I’m not even gonna bother talking about that flavor, and skip ahead to the new special flavor for BLOPSIII.
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October 22, 2015