Act of War news and discussion

act_of_war @ 2005-10-09T22:17:00

2005-10-10T05:08:02Z

pie

Unabashed greed.

2005-04-02T05:17:23Z

Okay, so it's been a while, and I DO plan on doing soem more reviewing, however, my life has taken a turn for the painfully busy, so if you want to hurry me a long, you can send me a dollar. Or ten. Ten is better. Or however much you want. So I've set up a paypal account to accept donations from you, my wonderful fans. That, and I'm a greedy bastard and will take whatever you give me. Please, think of the children.

And yeah, mission 4 post coming some time next week. Sooner if you all bribe me. ^_^

-AGT

Running Total

2005-03-26T07:44:11Z

RUNNING TOTAL: +1

After mission two is mission three!

2005-03-26T00:51:55Z

That's right folks, after mission two is mission three! What a suprise! Again, screenshots and spoilers, so here you go!

So, we pick up right where we left off. We've founf the car of one of the oil executives, with the dead bodies in the trunk. And now we're going to go hunt down the executive himself, courtesy of his GPS watch! But of course, we're not going to WALK all that way, so the CIA provides us with some blingin' wheels!

But then the embassy gets attacked, so we all have to run off to defend it, while at the same time looking for the oil company executives. Long story short, we get a barracks to build marines. Yay marines! It was at this stage that I discovered the intel screen, which gives you information on bits and pieces. Oh, and the CIA armoured vans have machine guns, because machine guns are neat. So ehre's the screen, which tells you about things:

So you run to two of the locations, while simultaniously defending the US embassy, which was truck bombed. Oh, and you get an ambulence to heal your guys, which is nice, because they tend to get hurt while they're getting shot at. So after checking out two of the locations, and killing a bunch more goons, you get a ride to the third location, because, well, it's a long way away. It's honestly not that far, but I'm not complaining, because I got blackhawks.

Yay blackhawks! =D

I repeat... Yay blackhawks! WOOSH!!

Oh, and the blackhawks come courtesy of the SAS, who also gives you a couple of SAS snipers. Yay snipers! Yay SAS!

SAS snipers: +1

So then you have to get into the building, but snipers are handy because they snipe people out of windows, so it's not nearly as hard as they make it sound. So then you storm the building, and you get another fmv. Yay fmv!

Yay entry team!

Look! One of the oil executives! He jsut shot the guy he was standing next to, even though it didn't look like they struggeled much for him to steal the gun...hmmm... I wonder... Well, he tells the TFT soldier that he's the oil exec and not to shoot him and that he's the good guy.

The other guy isn't looking so good... =\ He was drugged or soemthing. So then, afterwards...

Mr. Evil makes a phone call, and there's some kinda creepy dialogue, turns out this guy isn't following orders from someone higher up, and that person is very disapointed, but Mr. Evil. doesn't care. I forget Mr. Evil's name, btw, so I'll just call him that until I remember. The plot is getting intriguing, though, so...

+1

Aaand...that's it for mission three. Yay mission three!

Mission three total: +2

I lost a bunch of screens from mission four, and I'm not satisfied with the ones I *do* have, so I'm going to play those missions again and take more pictures. Oh what a pity, huh? ;)

-AGT

IVR

So. Time for mission two.

2005-03-26T00:29:59Z

Sorry it's been a while, folks, to call the last few days "busy" would be an understatement! So here we are witht eh mission 2 storyline review, again, chock-full of spoilers and screenshots, so it is, once more, lj-cut.

Right, so after our little adventure in Libya, mission two takes us to...

That's right, London! Wait, that thing says Houston. Well it turns out that this one big-ass refinery in Houstons gets exploded, and there's a guy on a cell phone there and yeah, it blows up. Whee. So then we go to London, because there's an energy conference there, and we have to make sure nothing bad happens. so, we start near the conference site (buckingham palace), and tehre are protestors.

LOTS of protestors.

Lots and LOTS of protestors.

And more...

And...

Whew, finally...

And here we are at the palace gates!

Look! Palace Guard!

And then we get a cutscene! Yay cutscene!

Uh-oh...

Also in that cutscene were a bunch of people shooting at each other and all hell breaking loose and protestors dying and all sorts of things. Plus you being ordered to hold your ground because you're there to protect the confrence attendees, not the protestors, then you go "fuck it!" and shoot the bad people.

While all hell was breaking lose, two of the oil company executives got high and wandered off in their limos. Well, SUVs. Black ones, of course. But anyway, you have to go and find them. So you wander around London looking for them, and your hot assistant finds the car by using satelites and stuff.

Look! There it is! Quick! run around that wall to go see whatsup!

It turns out that the security guards are in the trunk. Oh noes! Well, they're dead, and in the trunk.

And there's your hot assistant, helping you with finding the man and all sorts of other bits and pieces. mmm...assistant... Hot assistant gets a point.

+1

So then your hot assistant tracks the GPS signal from one guy's watch. Oh noes! Look!

JAMMING!!! *gasp* But it's okay, because your hot assistant is smart, too, and uses differnt satelites and generally is a 1337 h4XX0r. So she tracks him down, and tells you that he's in one of three locations. I suppose the fact that she doesn't know where he is precisely does make a bit of sense, because it's possible that she could only get a lock from two satelites, rather than the three needed to pin his location down... except that that would yeild two locations, not three. You see, GPS works by the reciever detecting three timestamped signals, and by using math to triangulate its position from space. If it can only find one satelite, it can give you a big ring, and you're somewhere on that ring. If it can find two satelites, then it can make two rings, and if you think about it, two rings intersecting gives you two possible locations. But if it has three satelites, then it has three rings, and it's only where all three rings intersect that it can tell you where it is. so, if your hot assistant can't find three satelites that aren't being jammed, and she can only find two, then she should only end up with two locations, not three.

HOWEVER! And this is important, if the geography is messed up enough, then it's possible to have the rings stretch into all sorts of funky shapes, because the rings are acctually just points not equidistant from the center, but equidistant from the satelite, which means that they can be mucked up by altitude. But, being from London myself, I can assure you that there are no mountain ranges running through it, so that just can't be the reason. So tehre's no reason for it to be mucked up like that. So a GPS muck-up means...

-1

And that just about wraps up mission two, because instead of running off to those three places now, it skips it up to mission three, which picks up pretty much right where you left off.

Mission two total: 0

-AGT

For some good reading...

2005-03-20T07:02:48Z

If you want some intelegent reading on gaming (including a recent post on game journalism), check out http://www.gamegirladvance.com/ . It's got a lot of neat little tid-bits, and has some really good discussion. For example on the journalism post, a discussion has started over what game journalism is and what its place is in the world. I'm not describing it well at all, but it's cool. Go look. It's neat. =)

And no, I'm not trying to put off writing the review of the next mission. You shut up.

-AGT

The story begins...

2005-03-20T06:06:31Z

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, nothing particularly interesting was happening. And now for something completely different.

In other news, in the near future, life is going to start to SERIOUSLY suck. Like, big time. Oil prices will soar through $75/barrel, gas will cost over $7/gallon here in the USA (Which is still less than what it costs in Europe anyway, because they tax the stuff like mad and it pays for their roads and trains and such), our economy will be on the brink of colapse, and the oil companies will make loads and loads of money. So basically, like right now, only worse. Maybe we can blame it on Bush 3? Nah, the president in this looks like he knows wtf he's doing, not like good ol' monkey boy. But I digress.

The year is [soon], and the oil execs are telling us that we can't do without oil until 2025, at the absolute soonest, 2050 more realistically. Which if you ask me is a load of crap because according to the learned authors of all my favourite magazines, we'll just just about out of the cheap stuff by 2020, and so we're going to have to get our shit together on hydrogen or some other magical new technology, or we're completely fucked. They estimate that hydrogen will really get going in 2030, leaving us with 10 years of having life suck. So the premise of the whole story, while somewhat realistic, has been taken a bit too far. They could have thrown us a bone and said that something dreadful happened somewhere else, or something, like Saudi Arabia got blown up underground or who knows what. So, it's a little shaky getting going... plus I think at $7/gallon the government would step in, and we'd have the 1930's all over again. So, a point off for realism, but not to worry, it'll be back soon enough.

-1

So, in this super-shitty future, we're introduced to our main characters, in Mission one...

The story begins in Libya, where the men and women of Task Force Talon are hunting down some big-cheif terrorist man who apparently sucks. We don't know much about him, just that he's a bad bad man. Our boss, the National Security Advisor (on the right), has sent us off to kill him, under the command of General whatsisface (on the right), so we get to have a little fun in Libya.

Here's Major Jefforson, with Binoculars. He's something like Tanya in Red Alert, he's your super-soldier on the ground.

And here are some soldiers, who Jefforson is leading to go catch Mr. bad-terrorist-man, whose name I can't remember and don't care enough to look up.

So those last few shots were from the sweeeet first mission intro movie, which is so cool and well put together it gets a point. No, two.

+2

Now you get your first taste of playing the game!

Neat, huh? It's a really simple mission, you're supposed to go in and catch Kazim (I rememebred his name! =D), so first you have to kill loads of goons:

Then you find him, and he starts running:

Then apparently some stuff blows up, though I honestly have no idea why.

Then you capture him, and some helicopeters fly in to pick you up...

And then you all go home.

But of course, you can't just leave the base standing. oooh no. This game sets itself up reaally early to be chock-full of explosions. So after you chopper out you get to see...

Yes kids, that's right. That's a B2 Spirit! And it's very angry with the naughty terrorists. So it blows them the hell away!!

BANG!!!!

Weeheehee... awesome! :D Over the course of that mission, there are a couple of in-game screen-corner videos, showing you this that or the other, which really adds to the environment, which is sweet. However, for this first mission there's no breifing, no "here's what you're going to be doing", any of that stuff. You're dumped straight into the game, and while usually I'd be screaming bloody murder at being thrown straight into the game like this, in this case it's not that shoppy at all, and you can pretty much work out what the hell's going on. After all, it's not exactly a very complicated mission, you just have a bunch of soldiers and then you kill a bunch of their soldiers and then you capture their leader and that's the end of that. Pretty straightforward. Nothing too fancy. And you get rewarded with those awesome explosions at the end. =D So, no pluses or minuses for the overall. That means that the total is...

Mission one total: +1

Next, mission two! I promise I'm not quite so screenshot happy. Maybe. <_< >_> <_< >_>

^_^
-AGT

Hey d00dz!!

2005-03-20T05:12:14Z

I just found a sweet new site, http://www.gamedreamz.com/, I'm going to sign up and show off my awesomeness. If you see any posts by me, do me a favour and vote 'em up! =D

So, tonight I'm going to start to dig in to the storyline, and have a bazillion spoilers and give the whole damn thing away. But I'll cut it so that you don't all hunt me down and kill me. It'll also be reaaally screenshot heavy, so anyone out there on dial up... I'm affraid you're shit outta luck.

So it'll all start tonight... and folks, it's gonna be a mess. You'll love it, I promise.

And strat giving me some feedback! If you think I'm full of crap, comment and say so!

-AGT

Patch Alert!

2005-03-19T09:23:46Z

Yes, there's already a patch. Let us hope that this is not an omen of things to come... releasing a patch on the day the game goes gold is hardly inspiring...

Here are some download links:
http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1096481220/
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/36152/
http://www.gamearena.com.au/files/details/html/15743

This patch adds NAT negotiation, which is handy. Plus apparently it fixes a couple of gameplay problems, though to be honest I haven't noticed anything yet. =P

-AGT

Installer and system specs

2005-03-19T04:03:13Z

Okay, this is the technical stuff, and the instalation experiance. First off, the installer itself.

The installer was an instalsheild installer, you know, standard fare, nothing special... Not like RA2, which had an awesome installer, but still acceptable. However, I was shocked and suprised by one aspect of the instalation... when it started to copy the files, I was busy reading some webpage, when all of a sudden... BAM! FULL SCREEN VIDEO. I sat back in shock, this is FAR from standard fare. At first I had no idea what was going on, but that only lasted a moment, because then I was watching a TV news show featuring two cheif oil company executives. This video ran for a good... shit, I dunno, five minutes? And when it was done, the installer was almost done. I suspecft if my machine was a bit faster it would've been done. This is a REALLY sweet thing to do, and because of it, The installer gets a coveted +2! Yup...

+2

So, then there's the system specs. Ouch. Okay, the MINIMUM specs: P4/K7 1.5ghz, 256MB RAM, 2x DVD-ROM drive (Yes, it comes on DVD), 64MB video card with T&L support, DirectX9 compatible everything. AND SIX FUCKING GIGABYTES OF HARD DRIVE SPACE. SIX. SIX. W.T.F. If it comes on a damn DVD, can't it run the movies off the DVD? I mean, shit, SIX FUCKING GIGABYTES. WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY NEED THAT MUCH FOR?!?!?! And if anyone says "FMVs!", I'll kill them with my bare hands. Those can stay ON the damn DVD. Those do NOT need to be taking up precious space on my HD. Do you have any idea how much pr-n I had to move onto other computers just to install this? Heaven forbid I might acctualy delete some... =P So, that HUGE requirement is definitely a -1. Awesome game or not, that's just unacceptable. they should look back at some of their ooold games, which, you know, were for machines without hard drives. Now THAT's some good programming. Just because 80GB drives cost $60 apiece, doesn't mean that we should have to buy another one just to install this damn game. The rest of the specs are high, but understandable, because the game is pretty damn sweet. So...

-1

Hmm... I think I'll also include the opening video, too. Becasue that sorta falls under this category. Luckily, this is a short one. There isn't one. Which means another -1, because if you're going to have this much video, you gotta at least have a neat thing when you load the game. That's just standard fare. So...

-1

Installer, specs, and intro total: 0

So, there's the whole pre-game experiance... soon I'll start working on reviewing the campaign, which means, of course, that it'll be chock full of spoilers, so as a courtesy I'll lj-cut everything. =) I have to finish assembling my (300 so far) screenshots, and picking the best ones to use. We're gonna have us a ball with this one, folks!

-AGT

IVR

Packaging!

2005-03-18T12:46:13Z

That's right, folks, even the box counts. when I said comprehensive, I wasn't kidding. this doesn't just include the box, this also includes the manual and the disk and anything else they throw in there. My digital camera is out of order, otherwise I'd take some pictures for y'all to see. Maybe if you bug me I'll add them later. =P

So, first off, the box. The box is one of the new, small boxes. Right off the bat, that's a hit to the game's awesomeness. You CAN'T fit an awesome game into a small box, becasue you CAN'T fit an awesome manual into a small box, and a manual is one of the most important parts of a game. Homeworld (Game of the Year edition), for example, came in one of the good old big boxes. It was a satisfying purchase, because that thing was HEAVY. For starters, it had the game CD and all the odds and ends they throw in there (ads and product catalogs and the like), but then it also had the manual, and the Prima strategy guide. Prima makes good strategy guides, good wlakthroughs, and plenty of insight into the game. But that manual... that thing was as big as the strategy guide! And it was PACKED with fluff. None of this "Here's how to install, here's a list of units, now go play kthxbye". This hefty book, yes, book, had the entire ancient history of your people on Kharak in it. You knew EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING that there was to know about your past. And you sat in AWE of the scale of what was being discovered. But I'm getting away from myself. So, based soley on the principle of small boxes sucking...

-1

Now, the random crap they throw in there. Nothing special, it's jsut random crap. Well, there's a little laminated tech tree guide in there, which is nice. However, I EXPECT that, so it doesn't earn any points. EVERY game should have some sort of a reference card. However, these days many games don't, and thus lose another point in a hurry.

So now, the manual. Well for a start, the game HAS a manual, which to be honest is more than I've gotten out of some games lately... but this is teh way it SHOULD be, there SHOULD be a manual. Only truely awe inspiring manuals get bonus points, like homeworld's which got +2. Best. Manual. Ever. Well, Cataclysm's manual was sweet too. But anyway. For starters, it's a small manual. Because it came in a small box. That's bad, so there's a point off. However, the manual is pretty good, including a full unit listing with descriptions and these neat little icons that show everything a unit can do, like if it can run people over, it gets this one icon, if it can snipe, it gets another one, if it can shoot down planes, it gets another one, and so on and so on. It's a nice touch. That almost warrants a +1 to offset that -1. But not quite, due to the fact that there simply isn't enough fluff. For those of you who are not aware, fluff is the storyline and character development and lore that goes along with a game. Warhammer 40k, for example, has fluff coming out of its bloody ears. Extreme Paintbrawl, on the other hand, has no fluff whatsoever and frankly deserves none. Act of War's manual has the bare minimum of fluff, ust enough to vaguely let you know what's going on, but not nearly enough to properly involve you. Probably because it simply isn't big enough because it had to fit in the small box. And that means that..

-1

So, then there's the disk itself, which is nothing really special. It comes in a nice sleave, with a neat picture of a jet, but there's nothing good or bad about it, really.

Oh, and the box, which likewise isn't really anything special.

So, there's the packaging. Act of War is off to a poor start, with -2! However, MOST games these days have shitty starts, some reaching as low as -5, though that particular game shall remain nameless. It did, however, come in a small box. Which is pretty much an instant -2. So.

Oh, and no overal adjustment. 'cause there's no reason to have one.

Packaging total: -2

-AGT

The huge review.

2005-03-18T12:09:43Z

Okay, now begins a whole slew of posts about every aspect of the game, stretching across the next couple of days. I'll be reviewing all aspects of the game, from the box to the nitty-gritty of multiplayer. Needless to say, I will have to engage in rigorous playtesting, but for you, my fans, it's worth the effort! Just show some love with the comments. ;)

Okay, so before I begin, I should say that I am a VERY harsh grader. For example, I failed Generals. And that was a pretty good game. Zero Hour scraped together a pass. Homeworld 2 bombed, and I barely played it. Homeworld: Cataclysm passed, getting by solely on its phenomenal single player campagin, which garnered it enough points to offset the really, really, REALLY shitty multiplayer. Homeworld, however, WON. It passed with flying colours, due to its phenomonal everything. =D

I use a very simple point system. Anything which is good gets +1, anything which is bad gets -1. Anything mediocre gets neither. On very, VERY rare occasions, something can get +2, but that's only for things which rank at the very top of their league, like a "Best in class". I try to be pretty fair with my grading, and by fair I mean if something sucks I'm going to call them on it. But if they really, really, really tried to make something weird work and they didn't quite pull if off, I might not give them a -1, just because they tried so damn hard. And at the end of every sectionj, I add it all up, and throw in an "overall", which takes into account all the things I can't quite put my finger on. That ranges from +3 to -3. Acctually, Homeworld got a +4 for overall campaign gameplay, because there were enough things that I couldn't quantify which made it all the more awesome. But anyway.

Here we go, folks. Look forward to a good week or two solid of posts. I'll probably only have time to do the box and the installer tonight, but that should keep you lot amused at least until tomorrow. =)

TO THE SKIES!!!

-AGT

w00t

2005-03-15T20:11:01Z

Wll folks, today's the day! I'd say that I've been up since the wee hours waiting in line to get Act of War as soon as it came out, and that I've already beaten it by now, but I'd be lying. In truth, I just woke up and totally forgot that today was the day. But this afternoon I'm going to go get a copy, and then I'm going to play it all the way through and tell you guys about every little thing. Look forward to a million posts this week. :D

-AGT

Nuclear bombs 2, revenge of the nuclear bombs!

2005-03-14T01:31:58Z

So, as promised, here's RA2, Generals, and finally Act of War.

In Red Alert 2, they nuke finally got a bit mroe realistic. As well as a nice big explosion, which leveled bases and incinerated light vehicles, it also coated the area in radioactivity, which killed off any infantry, and stuck around for a good minute or two, during which time the ground glowed green and infantry died outright. It also dealt mediocre damage to light vehicles, while leaving Tanks almost unharmed. This pretty much reflects how real life works, people exposed to high levels of radiation die quickly (though hardly painlessly). Light vehicles like jeeps and trucks offer a modicium of protection, but still, exposure for an hour or two will kill the people inside outright. Tanks, however, offer good (but not great) protection from radiation, due to their thick armour and filtered ventilation systems. As such, in RA2, tanks driving through the affected area took only a small amount of radiation damage. The explosion didn't look half bad, either. Here, look! Notice the glowing green areas, that's the radiation. :)

Then came C&C: Generals. I won't get into my opinion of the game as a whole, but I WILL say this for the nukes: FUN. Finally, some nukes that worked the way I've always wanted to. Not only did they vaporise all but the most heavily armoured structures in one glorious blast, and kill any and all units in the blast radius, it had a glorious explosion that showcased the true might of nuclear arms, and left a huge radioactive mess which took many minutes to clear up. And, finally, you could send off more than one nuke at a time, quickly and easily. So you could completely anihilate the enemy base in one glorious maelstrom. =^_^= I loves my nukes, yes I does! Here, look how pretty! :D

And now on to Act of War. Finally.
Acctually, if I told you anything about the big guns in this, I'd have to kill you. (Okay, I admit it, I don't know if and how nukes are done in AoW. But the games comes out in two days, so I'll just beat it real quick and tell you then kthxbye.)

And you haven't been good so I won't tell you how to build your own. ^_^

-AGT

Today we're going to talk about nuclear bombs! :D

2005-03-09T10:52:00Z

That's right kids, today we're going to talk about nuclear arms in all their glory!

NOTE: This entry keeps refusing to stick, so I've already had to rewrite it twice. I'm too tired to finish it all tonight, so check back tomorrow for the exciting conclusion!

From their primitive beginings as weapons of mere "mass" destruction, nuclear arms have terrified generations of world leaders while enthralling nut-cases like me with the awesome devastation that they can unleash. In 1945 the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a mere 11-13 kilotons, the biggest and bad-assest that we could build. These days nukes have a MEGAtonnage of up to 500! That means that they're somewhere in the area of 45,000 times more powerful. That's right, kids! one of those old bombs could only vaporise a downtown area, whereas today's hydrogen bombs can vaporise all of Los Angeles, and decimate the landscape for hundreds of miles in all directions. These mammoth bombs can rain fallout over an area hundreds of miles wide and thousands of miles long.

However, in games, you rarely have such realistic problems. Usually a nuclear attack will simply kill a whole lot of everything and then just go away. From back in the days of red alert, which had these little things:

Okay, so that looks really impressive... but for those of you who remember playing Red Alert... the only things you could kill with a direct nuke strike were power plants and barracks. Oh, and infantry. But seriously, who made serious use of infantry in Red alert?

Here's a little picture of the Red Alert's 'splosion:

So then Starcraft came around, and nukes became a new shiny object. They now had to be guided to their target my a laser designator, which was only available on the ghost, which, though cloaked, was not exactly a well armoured unit. Then the nuke itself had to be built at vast expense over quite a long amount of time. Then the ghost had to remain in position long enough for the nuke to hit, hopefully remaining just outside the blast radius. However, this was a risky buisness, because as soon as the enemy saw that little red dot on their building, they rushed detectors to the area to find and kill that ghost, causing the nuke to be wasted. These nukes were POWERFULL, though, capable of putting a SERIOUS dent in an enemy base, taking out several of their weaker structures and massacaring their units in a large radius. So Starcraft teaches us an important rule for real life. "Nukes are hard to use but worth the effort". Here's a pretty picture of a starcraft nuke.

Next up is Red Alert 2, and then Generals, and then real life and Act of War. Check tomorrow afternoon, or something. Oh, and if you're good I might just tell you how to build your own nuke! :D

Oh, and here's a guide to what to do (and not to do), if you get nuked. It's handy reading, good to know.
http://www.thewavemag.com/printarticle.php?articleid=21967

-AGT

Video Clip

2005-03-02T21:48:45Z

Here's a neat-o video clip.

Okay, so. Here goes. First off, the video clip is, in the immortal words of Bender: "Neat".

First off, the B-2. There are a couple of things wrong with it in this clip. First off, there's no way in hell a B-2 would ever be flying that low. It can precisely hit targets from altitudes of 50,000 feet. There is no reason for it to be flying at about 150m like it is in this video. Also, it's moving extremely slowly. I realise that flying wings have a low stall speed, but that B-2 looked like it was really, REALLY slow. Like, crash and burn slow. So there's no way it could have been flying like that. Unless it was acctually going faster at a much higher altitude, far away. But then it wouldn't be so big. So they lose at being. Had they really wanted for this clip to make sense, they could have had, say, a formation of US attack helicopters.

Next, the (presumably) consortium forces.

Well... this is where I've run into a bit of trouble. The video appears to shows a tank resembling a T-62, however T-62s are currently only in active use in a handfull of third world countries, as most countries have replaced it with the newer T-72. And in Act of War, no one fields ANY russian tanks. The US using, obviously, US tanks, while the Consortium uses various high-tech mercinary tanks, none of which seem to exist in real life. It also shows some sort of SAM launcher, which I have as yet been unable to identify. It is nothing like any of the units in Act of War, either. Then there are the helicopters. Give me a few minutes and I'll try to have them identified.

Okay, I believe that the helicopters are blackhawks. At least it looks like one. However, that makes even less sense. Why would the Consortium have blackhawks? So, maybe it's not the consortium. But who else would be shooting at a B-2? And in England, no less? (For those of you who weren't aware, that building the B-2 flies over is the English houses of parliment, in London.

So. I'm starting to think that this has nothing to do with the game. I think that it's cool, but acctually something completely different. So. There we are.

Nemesis is working on the site at the moment, collecting screenshots and the like. The site that's up now is still only temporary, we have a better version that we're still troubleshooting. Here's the link for when it's ready, give it a couple of days. =)

*EDIT* In adition, an expert friend of mine says that the soldier at the end is wearing US camo, and that those are Navy Seahawks, now blackhawks. But I was close. :P He doesn't think that the SAM launcher exists at all, that it's entirely fake. So there you go. The opinion of an expert. :D

-AGT

IVR

Today's Unit: RQ-4 Global Hawk UAVs

2005-02-21T01:53:38Z

Today we're going to talk about the UAVs that Strike Force Talon gets, the Global Hawks. And by we I mean I will talk about it and you will sit down and shut up until I'm done. So, off we go!

Like most of the toys that Talon gets to play with, the Global Hawk is an acctual USAF (U.S. Air Force) plane, used for reconisance and, on occasion, blowing shit up. The USAF Global Hawk fact sheet provides this information:

Global Hawk, which has a wingspan of 116 feet (35.3 meters) and is 44 feet (13.4 meters) long, can range as far as 12,000 nautical miles, at altitudes up to 65,000 feet (19,812 meters), flying at speeds approaching 340 knots (about 400 mph) for as long as 35 hours.

That's right, kids! This thing can fly from my home here in California aaaall the say to...well, almost anywhere in the world! The Earth is only 24,000 miles around at the Equator, so this little plane can reach just about anywhere in the northern hemisphere from just about anywhere else. And it can do it at 65,000 feet! Our heavy combers, the B1, B2, and B-52, can operate at 30,000, 50,000, and 50,000 feet respectively. So this little bastard can really get up there. In comparison, the French "Mirage III" fighter has a combat ceiling of around 55,000 feet, and that's the highest of any combat plane ever developed. Until someone strapped a couple of hellfires onto a Global Hawk. This huge combat ceiling also makes the RQ-4 damn near impossible to shoot down. Many SAMs simply don't have the altitude to hit it when it's aaaalll the way up there. Some do, like Russia's SA-12, which to date is also the only effective AMM, or anti-missile missile. That's right folks, this thing can shoot down SCUDs and Tomohawks and all sorts of other sneaky buggers. Like, its designers claim, B-2s. But anyway. Back to the RQ-4.

The RQ-4 began development in 1995, flew its first combat training in 2000, and was deployed to Afghanistan shortly thereafter, along with its smaller cousin, the RQ-1 predator, a similar vehicle which is driven by a pusher-prop and has been armed. In Act of War, someone got the bright idea of strapping hellfires to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, and it's now Talon's anti-tank plane. While the RQ-4A has two hardpoints, and the RQ-4B has four, as yet there are no plans to arm them, partly due to the shoddy reputation that UAVs have in combat. The RQ-1 predator, which is armed with a pair of hellfire AGMs, has killed loads of civillians and has had one successful mission, in which it killed a whole bunch of Al-Queda leaders by providing intel to a flight of F/A-18s, who bombed the crap out of the building they were meeting in, and then the Predator fired its hellfires at the SUVs that were trying to escape, killing everyone. This was in December of 2001, I believe. And I'm too lazy to go and look it up again. :P

Here's a look at each of these UAVs. First, the RQ-1 Predator, with its top speed of 90mph! :D Woo! This thing can really move! >_<

And here's a Global Hawk, which can go a more respectible 400mph. As you can see, this little bastard isn't so little.

So. Now that you know a little bit about this thing in real life, on to how to use the in AoW.

In AoW, these aircraft are stealthed, which is something of a wtf in and of itself, but that aside, this is a cctually a pretty handy plane. Besides being able to scout for your main forces, by flying all over the map showing you where things are, it also carries a pair of AGMs, which makes the Global Hawk Talon's only tank-busting plane. Luckily, it does a pretty good job of it. Most enemy vehiucles go down in three or four missiles, which makes them a great choice for locust swarming enemy tank convoys. Remember the old tank rush strategy?

[There'll be a screenshot of a tank rush here later, when I can find this one great one I have]

Well, that isn't going to work any more, because if you have, say, 6 of these in the air, you can start taking down tanks looong before they get to you. And these things are (or at least appear to be) low enough on the tech tree that you'll have them by the time someone attempts a tank rush! Here are some pretty pictures of tanks exploding:

For more information on UAVs, check out this handy page. UAV site ftw!
-AGT

IVR

LOOK WHAT I FOUND.

2005-02-15T23:55:06Z

Check THIS out. This is the main gun of the A-10. LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THIS THING. :D

For those of you who've forgotten, in AoW, the U.S. gets the A-10. I dunno if the A-10 will have this, though... we'll see. hopefully I'll be able to bug my friend into getting me a copy of the game early. Like, this week. Because that'd be awesome. ^_^

Okay, back to work with me. :P
-AGT

Demo stories

2005-02-15T22:42:22Z

This is a post for your demo stories. Share what you've found works, what doesn't work, what was really cool, and the like. I'll be posting a couple of comments, and so will AGT, you should've heard the stuff he's been telling me...:P

-ND

A second one ripped off the forum, from today.

2005-02-13T01:18:16Z

Yeah, it does feel pretty similar to Generals, but I gotta say, this beats the pants off Generals. It's got cutscenes and everything!:D

And now that I've acctually played with the demo, I'm not as offended by the planes, because they're waaaay smarter than anything I've had in an RTS before. For starters, instead of having an airbase and launching them from there, you have control towers and you just call them in to hit specific targets. And instead of just hitting that target and nothing else, they'll expend half of their ordinance en route. So if there's, say, a SAM site between you and your target, the plane will drop a bomb on it, clearing the way for the other planes. Or they'll blow up tanks simply because they're there. You no longer have to worry about micromanaging your planes, because they're smart enough to take care of themselves. Likewise if the enemy sends planes at you, if you call in planes to hit ground targets, they'll automatically destroy the enemy planes (assuming they have AA capability, of course). And yeah, I understand that whole balance thing... but I want less planes that can do more, like in real life.

And if the A-10 had its avenger...well, that'd be awesome. You tell it to take out the enemy command center, or something. So it flies along hugging the ground, swooping down on any enemy tank arrogant enough to presume it has a right to exist, filling it full of dU-238. ^_^ But you know what? That's how it's *supposed* to work. The demo doesn't have the A-10, though, so I don't know exactly how it works at the moment... but it probably isn't nearly as good as irl.

-AGT

This is from a few days ago, before I'd read the demo, but after I'd read some info on the game.

2005-02-13T01:16:43Z

Okay, I've browsed through the screenshots and the reviews and all sorts of little bits and pieces, and my analysis of it is bellow.

To sum up: O.M.G.

Now, for the details. First, a bit of storyline. Act of War takes place in the near future, with the U.S. Army vs. terrorists. Sound familiar?
Yup, Gernerals! :D Well I have to say, I think this will be a damn sight better. Unless they screw it up. But we'll see. Anyway, The U.S. forces are split into two groups, the "U.S. Army", and "Strike Force TALON". The US army has your tanks, helicopters, and infantry. Abrahms and Bradleys and Apaches and A-10s and the works. Infantry and Marines and Delta Force. Looots of unit variety! :D TALON gets shiny objects, like robots and little mech things and high tech joobermathingies. The terrorists (who are funded by mysterious people with TONS of money), get high-tech things and cannon fodder. I don't know much about them yet.

The game seems to be very unforgiving of homogenized armies. You can't build 40 tanks and expect to win anything. You need to support everything with everything else. For example, Apaches will TEAR UP tanks, leaving dozens of burned out shells in their wake, but if they come up against anything with the slightest bit of anti-air capability,they're going down, and fast. So, you need to have Infantry on the ground with a couple of tanks to clear out AA troops in advance of your choppers, or you've just poured a lot of money down the drain.

Speaking of helicopters, I have some issues with them in the game. The planes are worse, but I'll get on them later. There are, for the US, three types of helicopters. Blackhawks, medivac blackhawks, and Apaches. The Apaches are, of course, tank-busters. Apparently they're very good at it.

The Blackhawks are your transports, and are lightly armed. Wait, they're blackhawks... aren't they supposed to have plenty of guns on them? I mean, if you watch "Black Hawk Down", you can clearly see that they have a pair of waist miniguns, plus some stuff in the nose. Oh yeah, and a couple of rockets. In the game... it appears to be armed with one machine gun. >_< Okay, so it's a transport, fine. But it only carries 8 troops. EIGHT. I know a blackhawk can carry twice thatnumber.

The medivac Blackhawks are unarmed (fine), and can carry eight wounded soldiers from the front lines to the field hospital. First off, I want to say.. THAT IS SO COOL. Being able to medivac a delta force squad from a rooftop under heavy incoming fire... ^_^! Anyway, eight wounded soldiers is fine, because if they're wounded, they're going to want to be on stretchers. So they take up more space than the seated soldiers in the blackhawk, so you'd think that the blackhawk could carry more...>_<

Anyway, I promised more on HOW SCREWED UP THE PLANES ARE. There are 3 planes available to the US army. The F-15 (It appears to be a "C"), the
A-10, and the B-2. First, I want to say that I have one issue in particular just with the choice of aircraft. Where's the good old reliable B-52? When I want to deliver heavy ordinance from the air,it's by far the best platform to do it from!

So, first, the F-15. It's armed with 3 sidewinders. If you can't see anything wrong with that, please arrange to meet me in person so that I can beat some sense into you. For starters, an F-15 can carry 4 sidewinders, 4 sparrows, has a 20mm M-61A1 Vulcan in the nose, and can carry another 15,000lbs of ordinance. I can understand trimming it a bit for a game. For example, you can't use that 15,000lbs. Okay, sure. But the vulcan is manditory. And so are those 8 AAMs. AND THEY MADE IT THREE SIDEWINDERS. I'M GOING TO KILL THEM.

Okay, now for the A-10. I almost broke down in tears when I saw this one. First, I'll tell you what an A-10 can carry here in the real world. First off, there's the Avenger Cannon. This is the cannon that the entire plane was built around. It's a 30mm seven-barrel gattling cannon firing depleted uranium slugs. This thing can punch through the armour on almost any tank. It's absolutely DEVASTATING against enemy armour. It can also be fitted with incindiary rounds, but that's a whole other fireworks show. Anyway. It can also carry an additional 16,000lbs of payload under the wings (22,000lbs under the right conditions) Including, if you so please, 12 Maverick laser-guided anti-tank missiles. Guess what it's armed with in the game! FOUR MAVERICKS. ARGH. MAIM. KILL. BURN. It doesn't even have the Avenger! That's the best part! *grumble*

And finally, there's the B-2. Now, I have a few problems with it being the B-2 in the first place. I think it should be the B-52, because it'll still be in service more than 30 years from now, and it's simply the best heavy bomber ever built. Hands down, no argument. The B-52 can carry 70,000lbs of ordinance, including 20 (yes, TWENTY) cruise missiles. a B-2 can carry a paltry 50,000lbs. If you want to carpet bomb something, you don't send in a B-2, you send in a B-52. Or three. Or thirty. ^_^ Act of War has B-2s being used as carpet bombers, which, imo, is THOUGHRALLY RETARDED. So anyway, they screwed that one up too.

The good news is, they got the ground forces right. I think. I haven't played it yet (the demo is 600MB, so I'm starting it when a few torrents finish), but I'll be sure to post again when I have. ^_^

This has been an edition of AGTMADCAT is excited about a new game! Thanks for reading. ^_^

-AGT

IVR

Cutscenes... a lost art?

2005-02-12T23:45:14Z

Act of War: Direct Action has something rarely scene outside of C&C: CUTSCENES. And not just movies between levels, this thing is PACKED with them. There's a reason that the demo is 600MB. Sure, the engine is pretty big, but god DAMN are there a lot of movies. Like, you seriously have no idea. O_o There are 3 intros just to the mission (one of which is just a "previously..." movie because this is taken from the 6th mission...:P), then there are at least 2 in-game top-left movies when important things are happening (like your troops arriving on the beach), and in the middle of the mission all the action is stopped for a minute while you get briefed on a newly discovered threat: a battery of SAMs on top of a hill, which you have to go and take out with snipers. Yes, snipers. Because you see, these snipers are armed with .50 cal sniper rifles. That's right: Berrets. Here's a picture of one:

And here's a picture of its new big brother, the 25mm one: (Not that it's in the game, it's just cool. ^_^)

Check out this low poly sniper action!

For those of you that aren't aware, a .50 caliber rifle fires bullets that are a half-inch across. And moving at supersonic speed. God help you if you're in anything short of a main battle tank. In the game and in real life, this rifle packs some serious punch. Capable of blowing a person in half with one shot, or cracking a consortium tank with a couple of rounds, this is one bad-ass rifle.

Erm...I'm supposed to be talking about cutscenes. So anyway. Act of War's cutscenes are really well done, everything from the in-the-field operational updates to the between-mission cutscenes, which show your awesome comand center, your command team, and the like. There are many people you interact with, and they're all present in the cutscenes. This goes far beyond the cutscenes in, say, Red Alert 2, which, while cool (and featuring Tanya...Rawr!!), usually consisted of EVA telling you what's up, with a bit of news broadcast mixed in, and maybe Tanya (Rawr!!) giving you a heads up. All in all they helped to completely imerse you in the game, by making you a part of the action, by showing you that those little animated people down there were in fact real people (and hot ones at that. ^_^ mmm...Tanya).

Cutscenes are what seperated the good RTS games (C&C), from the shitty ones (Generals). For example, in the end of Tiberium Dawn, playing as GDI, if you ended the last mission by Ion Cannoning the Nod temple, you got treated to an extra special cutscene of Kain going up to the main floor, turning to face the fron tof the temple, where the ion beam is gathering, opening his arms and tilting his head back, as if expecting some sort of divine deliverance. Then the beam grows, faster and faster, engulfing everything, and then finally sweeping over Kain before the video cuts out. It's a dramatic scene really shows you who Kain is. He thinks he's an instrument of divine justice, even in defeat he is confident and strong. Then you get a shitty game like Generals... where you don't care about the story at all. I don't remember anything about the story. I remember some fun gameplay, but nothing about the story. Therefore, I remember the campaign as being extremely mediocre, instead of being amazing like the campaigns in Tiberium Dawn and Red Alert.

Remember this?

For some reason today's RTS developers have forsaken the FMV as an unecissary addition of megabytes to the game, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. A game packed with FMVs is a game that people will buy, and play, and love. Even though C&C used nothing but B-roll actors and scripts, it still added a depth to the game that made it an instant classic. That's why C&C is considered THE classic RTS. It's not because of the gameplay (which was good, but nothing special today), it's because of the amazing story. So hopefully by embracing FMV as a critical part of the gameplay experiance, Atari will make Act of War a classic, still played many many years from now.

-ND

IVR

Big pile o' links

2005-02-12T23:07:34Z

To start with, here's Atari's offical Act of War page: http://www.atari.com/actofwar/
It's a pretty good site, flashy (and in flash. :P), only one trailer, though.
A much better place to get information and trailers is on gamespot: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/actofwardirectaction/index.html

From what I've seen so far of the demo, it's clear that such specticles will be anything but few and far between. O_o

Next post: Cutscenes!

-ND

Today will be a day of many posts...

2005-02-12T22:55:46Z

Okay, so AGTMADCAT just got us some webhosting, in fact, this whole site may end up over there, who knows? But anyway, once we get the hosting set up over there, I'll be able to post my screens (of which I should have many very shortly), as well as hosting the trailers and the like. :)

So anyway. Only one month and three days until it's out! :D That's right, folks, 15March2005! :D

-ND

Hokay. So.

2005-02-12T22:32:54Z

I've spent the last couple of days playing the demo again and again and again. And you know what? FUN. So far the most fun I've had is when I've sent 21 FA-35s to bomb the crap out of the consortium base at the end. ^_^ Screw ground troops! Ground troops lose! 'splosions rock! :D

One thing I have to say I'm dissapointed in is that there are no heavy units in the demo... you can't even build more buggies. >_<

But I have a feeling I'll be able to scrounge up a pre-release copy. ;) I have my grubby little paws in many a pie. ^_^

-ND