The Case Of The Missing Posts

I've been wanting to post about a lot of stuff, so why haven't I? There are three reasons: Far Cry, Metal Gear Solid and Doom 3. A week and a half ago I finished Far Cry. The gaming experience was good (if not excellent), the graphics were phenomenal. Like Filipe pointed out, the view is often breathtaking. I even got to hunt (translation: pick off helpless animals with a powerful rifle - and I don't mean the mercenaries or trigems). The sound (both sound effects and music) contributed to the almost perfect atmosphere the game created. And tough the game was long, (Filipe disagrees) it never seemed repetitive in spite of the fact that it boils down to 'clearing' a small area with enemies and moving to the next area - possibly thinning their numbers on the way with the help of a scope-equipped rifle. I begin wondering if a well written elaborate storyline instead of the simple one would've made the game better (more enjoyable) or worse by complicating something simple. Since the best example of a good elaborate story I've ever seen in a video game is that of Metal Gear Solid (which I consider the number one game of all time) and MGS 3: Snake Eater is nearing its release date, I decided to play the original MGS again (for the... herm... 8th? 9th time? probably more - I lost count). It is amazing to see how much progress games made in the last 5 years or so. I remember considering the AI in MGS impressive (like everyone else) and know I find it lacking and the genetically enhanced soldiers are incredibly short-sighted. Sure the mercenaries duck and call for help (it would've been nice seeing mortally wounded enemies beg for their lives but I guess not everyone is a sadistic bastard) but as you can see here, game AI has a long way to go. Here's two examples of what I would like to see:

- While shooting at mercenaries, I was usually ducked behind a rock or shooting from a corner, to that i could take cover while reloading or when they fired back. Since I was usually outnumbered, a simple tactic would've been for them to keep my position under constant fire by alternating fire (while one fired, the others reloaded) while one (or more) of them approached my position unseen, unhurt.
- The image I posted also shows a typical case of the lack of intelligence in games. I had already killed three or four enemies in that placed when they started coming in carefully (showing that they were no longer sure I was there). I still managed to kill a few (four perhaps) more in precisely the same way. What they should've done (and I'm no military or swat expert) since they saw me entering the building and saw their fellow mercenaries die would've been to throw a flash bang (smoke grenade or any other type of grenade) and then enter and to enter the building from both doors simultaneously. Alternatively, since the building was made of material that was easily permeable to the bullets, fire a few rounds at the places in which I could be hidden before entering - again from the various entry points available instead of just the front door.
- Use Team Tactics - it feels better killing something that is acting intelligent.

The first is relatively easy to implement compared to the second example which would be somewhat more complex - for a good implementation in a game such as far cry that is.

Moving on to a different subject, I've also began playing Doom 3. So far the game is much less hardware-intensive than far cry even tough the graphics are more detailed. This is due to two reasons: far cry plays out in extremely large shinny open spaces with a lot of freedom and those spaces are often filled with dozens of enemies - with a few rather large battles occurring occasionally between mercenaries and trigems. On one of such battles (near the entrance of the volcano) I noticed the game slowing down significantly after using the binoculars to mark the position of the bad guys. Doom 3 on the other hand is claustrophobic, dark and your rarely face more than three or four (big) enemies at the same time (or so I've been told and so far I can confirm this). I'm still at the beginning of the game (comms tower or something like that) but it seems to be building up a nice plot and I like reading other people's email (I'm gonna buy one of those "I read your e-mail" T-shirts). This might also explain why I've never been allowed to perform a software installation (as root) in a chefax server unsupervised. That and a few 'incidents' with root alias, backdoors & stuff...