L4D2: Miami Campaign

I recently started the early planning stages for a new campaign for Left 4 Dead 2. I'm working on it with Kosire and it's set in down town Miami and its surrounding areas. I've decided to use this blog to document its progress, so I aim to be showing the maps in their early stages right through to the final playable versions. For now, here's some initial level plans with concept images and the rough block layout in Hammer.

Very early stuff as you can see! More coming soon.

Eurogamer Expo 2009

Yesterday was the first day of two days that Eurogamer Expo took place in London, and of course I attended. I played a good selection of games there but I'm just going to talk about the ones that really grabbed my attention.



First and foremost, I'm a huge Left 4 Dead fan and so I was excited by the prospect of playing the sequel's Scavenge mode at the expo. The new mode sees the Survivor team racing against a countdown timer to collect gas cans, which they must empty into their tank to earn points and precious extra time. Meanwhile a team of Infected players will be trying to make their task harder, before switching sides to try and beat their score. It was an interesting new twist on the regular L4D gameplay which forced survivors to make some quick decisions; do you save your team mate who has been carried to the other side of the map by a Jockey, or do you grab that nearby can and just score a quick point while you have the chance?

That brings me on to the new Special Infected that players can control. This was one of the highlights of the game for me as I've been itching to see how they handle since they were first announced. The Jockey was a lot of fun as you can cause some real chaos for the survivors if you grab someone at the right moment. He would probably be more useful in a map with some inconvenient height drops, which this map unfortunately lacked. The Charger was also a thrill to use as he dashes in and scatters his targets. My only complaint was that his health seemed a bit too low considering how massive he looks. My personal favourite was the Spitter, a support class she-beast whose toxic spit can cause location-based hazards for the other team. I had a lot of fun spitting on incapacitated survivors, bringing a quick death by preventing their team mates from reviving them.

All in all, Scavenge mode seems more solid and less chaotic than Survival and the new Special Infected are a blast to play. They're a very welcome addition to the existing three classes and I can't wait to see some of the devious tactics people will come up with in Versus mode.



Other highlights of the expo for me included God of War 3, the game that needs no introduction. To be honest there's not really a lot to say other than it's more of the same winning formula that was perfected throughout its first two iterations, not that that's a bad thing by any means. Kratos' moveset is pretty much the same except he now has some large lion-head gauntlets that he can pummel enemies with. The new lighting engine is particularly noteworthy, beautifully demonstrated by the illuminating light emitted from Helios' severed head. Good old God of War.



Heavy Rain was another game that I've been anticipating for a long time and it was great to finally see it in the flesh so to speak. The two scenarios on show were ones that I'd already seen in previews (the scrap yard and the grocery store) but it was interesting to see how different players progressed through the branching events. Seriously, anyone who has any interest in games as a storytelling device must check out this game.



Finally I have to say a bit about the indie games section. There were some great games on show this year, highlights for me being Joe Danger and Cletus Clay. The former is a deceptively complex alternative to Trials HD, offering more emphasis on stunts and showing off with dangerous tricks and a clean, almost Pixar-esque look to it. The latter is an amusing 2D platform game with graphics made almost entirely with stop-motion animation. It definitely looked far nicer in motion than it did in screenshots so I'd urge you to check it out if and when you get the chance. It was a pleasure talking to some of the indie developers and I wish them all luck in releasing their games.

Making Shadow Complex: Donald Mustard Speaks

Excellent Gamasutra interview with Donald Mustard, creative director of Chair who recently released the highly-praised Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade. It's a great read with some very useful tips for the whole game design process.

I'm currently working my way through Shadow Complex and have enjoyed it very much so far. I intend to do a big write-up soon!

Corn of the Dead (beta)

The first beta version of my Left 4 Dead survival map Corn of the Dead is now available to play. Find it along with screenshots and installation instructions at l4dmaps.com. Servers should be active soon, or please let me know if you can provide a server.

As always, comments, questions and criticism are encouraged no matter how positive or negative. Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks to Text_Fish for the name suggestion and Adam "Supernorn" Riches for the poster template.

L4D: Barn Survival [WIP]

Here are a couple of screenshots from a work-in-progress version of my new Survival map. The survivors find themselves stranded in a tall barn on a farm that has suffered the infection in solitude. With wide cornfields in all directions, they have no option but to take up defensive positions in the barn and hold out as long as possible.

This map features a three-tiered building, each level having its own strengths and weaknesses in defending against the horde. The main layout is pretty much done and all that's left is adding detail and play-testing (resulting in tweaks). Playable beta should be available this week! :D

Oh yeah, and I need to come up with a good name. Any suggestions?





Update: new screen

Review: Heavenly Sword

I recently had the chance to play Ninja Theory's Heavenly Sword, one of the PS3's proud exclusives in its early days. It was a short affair (I managed to finish the entire game in just two afternoons) but one that certainly did not feel short thanks to its grandiose scale. Comparisons will automatically be made with God of War and as the combat follows many of the same patterns, the main difference being the lack of a block button. I found this decision to be quite frustrating, as to block enemies' attacks you have to be not attacking.

Call me crazy, but when you're surrounded by a mob of highly trained, blade-wielding fanatics, all gagging at the chance to put your head on a satay skewer, asking the player not to press the attack button is somewhat short-sighted. You are given a brief coloured flash to indicate what kind of attack the enemy is about to perform, but I found it was often too late and I was already locked into an attack combo, leaving me no choice but to take damage. The dodge ability ended up being far more useful, but unfortunately did not allow me to witness the game's pleasing counter-attacks. Speaking of which, the combat animation is all superbly polished to the point where you can sometimes forget that it's you that's pressing the buttons. I guess you could call it a button-masher in that respect.

The game's strongest point is easily is cinematic presentation. Andy Serkis (also known as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies) played a heavy role in the story side of things, acting as writer, motion capture director, and of course voicing the gloriously grotesque King Bohan, the game's main antagonist. The professional edge really shows. I am usually not one to advocate the use of cut scenes as I feel they betray the core essence of what makes games -- well -- games, but these performances were so brilliantly displayed that I could not help but enjoy every minute of them. Some other outstanding performances came from Anna Torv as the feisty heroine Nariko, and Lydia Baksh as the childish-yet-determined Kai. These interesting and often hideous characters all interact in ways that set the scene instantly, aided by some truly groundbreaking facial animation despite the game being nearly 2 years old now. This is something all story-based games can learn from.

Eventually I found that Heavenly Sword became somewhat repetitive. The dramatic archery and cannonball-guiding sections were used too many times and with too little variation, and combat was reduced to mashing the same buttons over and over again. I actually managed to beat the end boss by using little more than the triangle button, and the finale was a little anti-climactic as a result. With this in mind, the game's short length probably acted in its favour as much more would have left me growing weary.

All in all it's a fairly standard by-the-numbers affair, but it is executed with such style and finnesse that its flaws can be overlooked for a short while; just long enough to see it through till the end.

Twitter bug

Yeah I had to go and do it didn't I? Just how many personal pages do I need? I'll probably Tweet more than I update this, and reserve the blog for long rants, reviews and debates.

Oh yeah, I'm also working on updating Union with voice acting and more. See the ModDB page.