On the subject of Painkiller, I have kept quiet long enough over the years. It’s probably my fave game of all time – probably. But with this past year’s release of Painkiller Redemption, the duct tape has been ripped off my mouthy mouth.
In 2010, Painkiller Resurrection was released - a struggle to keep the faith for those hardcore fans of this deliciously frightening horror franchise, and riddled with problems and technical issues. Then, Redemption hit the market, filled with something like 6,000 monsters to slaughter, supposedly six or more hours of gameplay, and a seriously puzzling mix of the hohum and improved gameplay.
First off: Mr. Lahey was drunk off his ass for about half the time he’s been playing this – and it took about five or six hours. It’s been touted as seven to ten hours of gamplay. Uh, I don’t think so.
Painkiller Resurrection and the new Redemption are really two halves of a whole. Resurrection (often maligned among PK fans as one of the worst games ever, but I half disagree), had bundles of technical problems, slow-moving graphics and errors, and plenty of new and old monsters that were just goofy and worn out. But, it had that deliciously creepy atmosphere that was so engaging about the first two Painkillers, and some interesting scenarios. At the very least, it took you some new places that were genuinely scary that even Painkiller Overdose couldn’t touch.
Remember that sense of wonder and being at least a little scared by Painkiller 1 and 2? And Overdose, with Belial’s snarky commentary, was amusing, but the game was about half the man the first two creepy installments were.
So Resurrection, with all its technical flaws, took that to another level. That, and its more stable multiplayer/survival mode were a major plus.
On the other side of the coin is Redemption. The graphics and action are vastly improved. It goes old school and returns to the characters of Daniel and Belial. Getting into demon mode doesn’t crash your whole fucking system.
But it lacks that spark of the first two, even Overdose. Certainly Resurrection had a creepier vibe. Redemption is more like one big survival mode, where the monsters spawn endlessly in front of you and it becomes extremely pedestrian to kill the bastards en masse. There’s little intellectual entanglement here, little problem solving to get yourself out of this paranormal mess.
Probably the worst infraction here is that the maps are simply gussied up maps from the multiplayer version of the original Painkiller. This is something not everyone will know because you can almost NEVER get onto the multiplayer function of PK.
Basically, the game consists of hundreds of creepies that spawn in front of you in an endless stream, and you need only kill them quick enough, morph into a demon after the usual 66 souls collected, and mow the rest down.
As heavy as the inundation of monsters becomes, it is quickly a formulaic approach to killing them and getting through the levels.
The graphics are extremely well done, error free, and nicely detailed, in spite of their boring qualities. But they lack the atmosphere the first PK had. There’s absolutely no movie scenes in between to tell a story. I’ll give Resurrection this: with all its flaws: at least it was a nicer balance between story and fighting action.
But Redemption is all action and no thought. It’s kind of like one of those sugary pop drinks that you like the taste of, but you wind up feeling empty and hollow.
On the other hand, Resurrection was such a mess in so many ways it’s become much hated. But it succeeded in being scary and surprising, and more engaging than this.
Now if only somehow the Painkiller folks could combine the best of the two into something new and badass. This would breathe new life into a franchise that has faltered ever-more disturbingly since the end of Painkiller 2. Perhaps if they took a cue from the Steam folks and Half Life 2, with its startling mix of storyline and action, and then a really awesome multiplayer system that worked well, Painkiller would have a mega hit on their hands.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Thursday, July 15, 2010
An Online Players Nagging Question: What the Hell is With Those Guys?
Recently I’ve come across a strange and awkward dilemma in the world of online playing. It’s something the writers of Seinfeld might’ve even come up with to explore in their own humorous style.
The world of online game playing is full of all types. It’s like those social studies classes or other general classes you had as a school kid: you’re there with all kinds. Although you’re in the gamer/geek culture bigtime, you still have to deal with a cross section of society, indeed a cross section of the world.
So recently, I’ve come across an odd situation or two online, and I’m not sure how to deal with it, what the correct protocol would be. Perhaps you can tell me.
I play a lot (I mean a LOT) of Half Life Deathmatch. There are numerous forms these servers and maps can take, including co-op, puzzles, and team matches. But the servers marked Deathmatch are definitely “let’s just kill each other” – endlessly. That’s what they’re for.
So the fifth or sixth time now, I encounter of couple folks playing on one of these who have decided amongst themselves to NOT kill each other, but simply kill the bots in this particular deathmatch map/server. A couple of times I found an individual player like this.
For understandable reasons, I come in with digital guns a blazin’, fragging them and bots alike with wild and bloody abandon.
Then I get yelled at. Bigtime. The most recent one involved two guys who didn’t really speak English (I have no clue what language it was, but perhaps Portuguese), and so it took them a lot longer to convey via text they didn’t want me killing them. They got downright obscene and abusive (which is really how I act in real life, especially when liquored up, so I shouldn’t have been upset at that, I guess).
Anyway, the point is: they were on a freakin’ deathmatch server. If they wanted to play teams, why were they on a freakin’ deathmatch server?? And why yell at me for simply doing what the damned thing was designed for.
This was on one of the famed TKO servers with bots, by the way.
So what is the protocol here? I left the game with the two foreign dudes who got abusive. I felt about as comfortable there as Johnny Rotten would at a Tea Party rally.
It’s a public server. It’s a deathmatch – not a team deathmatch server. Should I have stayed and insisted they play by the “rules?” Or should I leave since they were there first? But then what of others who want to play these servers as intended later on?
Other times, I kind’a felt sorry for the individual players who pleaded, then yelled, at me to stop killing them. I figured, wow, you gotta be a sad creature when you only want to interact with bots and not with real humans – online, that is. Either that or you grossly and strangely misunderstood the purpose. Perhaps you’re a little sloooow.
Either way, I felt sorry for them and left.
I had another experience where I came across two dudes playing another deathmatch server where they agreed to ONLY slug each other by throwing stuff – no weapons. I thought, what the hell…this looks like fun. And it was. Yeah, they were probably bending the true intent of the server. But it was innovative fun.
Anyway, give me your input. Tell me what the protocols are here?
Love, your Mr. Lahey
The world of online game playing is full of all types. It’s like those social studies classes or other general classes you had as a school kid: you’re there with all kinds. Although you’re in the gamer/geek culture bigtime, you still have to deal with a cross section of society, indeed a cross section of the world.
So recently, I’ve come across an odd situation or two online, and I’m not sure how to deal with it, what the correct protocol would be. Perhaps you can tell me.
I play a lot (I mean a LOT) of Half Life Deathmatch. There are numerous forms these servers and maps can take, including co-op, puzzles, and team matches. But the servers marked Deathmatch are definitely “let’s just kill each other” – endlessly. That’s what they’re for.
So the fifth or sixth time now, I encounter of couple folks playing on one of these who have decided amongst themselves to NOT kill each other, but simply kill the bots in this particular deathmatch map/server. A couple of times I found an individual player like this.
For understandable reasons, I come in with digital guns a blazin’, fragging them and bots alike with wild and bloody abandon.
Then I get yelled at. Bigtime. The most recent one involved two guys who didn’t really speak English (I have no clue what language it was, but perhaps Portuguese), and so it took them a lot longer to convey via text they didn’t want me killing them. They got downright obscene and abusive (which is really how I act in real life, especially when liquored up, so I shouldn’t have been upset at that, I guess).
Anyway, the point is: they were on a freakin’ deathmatch server. If they wanted to play teams, why were they on a freakin’ deathmatch server?? And why yell at me for simply doing what the damned thing was designed for.
This was on one of the famed TKO servers with bots, by the way.
So what is the protocol here? I left the game with the two foreign dudes who got abusive. I felt about as comfortable there as Johnny Rotten would at a Tea Party rally.
It’s a public server. It’s a deathmatch – not a team deathmatch server. Should I have stayed and insisted they play by the “rules?” Or should I leave since they were there first? But then what of others who want to play these servers as intended later on?
Other times, I kind’a felt sorry for the individual players who pleaded, then yelled, at me to stop killing them. I figured, wow, you gotta be a sad creature when you only want to interact with bots and not with real humans – online, that is. Either that or you grossly and strangely misunderstood the purpose. Perhaps you’re a little sloooow.
Either way, I felt sorry for them and left.
I had another experience where I came across two dudes playing another deathmatch server where they agreed to ONLY slug each other by throwing stuff – no weapons. I thought, what the hell…this looks like fun. And it was. Yeah, they were probably bending the true intent of the server. But it was innovative fun.
Anyway, give me your input. Tell me what the protocols are here?
Love, your Mr. Lahey
Friday, March 26, 2010
Sad news about Half Life 2/Robert Culp
Yes, Mr. Culp was best known for his many high profile acting gigs, such as the groundbreaking "I Spy" and recent stints on TV comedies. But those of us vid game addicts will know him as the voice of Dr. Breen on Half Life 2.
More here....
This was a surprise to me, though I've played the game WAAAY too much. I didn't recognize his voice.
Yet another reason to mourn this awesome actor's rich life.
More here....
This was a surprise to me, though I've played the game WAAAY too much. I didn't recognize his voice.
Yet another reason to mourn this awesome actor's rich life.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Mr Lahey Discusses the New LOST Season
Mr Lahey spent approximately four hours watching LOST material Monday night - the three hours of the debut night broadcast included.
But later, our ABC affiliate local news (KATU...lahey lives in Portland, kids), ran an interview with Michael Emerson, who plays Benjamin Linus. Then, Nightline ran a pretty indepth piece on the show. Following that, the coup de gras was Jimmy Kimmel with the two co-producers on. That one contained the real golden tidbits, but interesting things were learned about LOST in the others as well.
It was past 12:30 a.m. before all the insider info stopped flowing - hence the four and a half hours.
LOST has special meaning in Portland, by the way. There are at least two references to P-town in the series, primarily Linus was born just outside of this town AND the mysterious biotech firm that scooped up Juliet to work on the island was purportedly located here.
Also, for us "coasties" (i also live part time in Manzanita, on the Oregon coast), there is a weird paranormal legend about the Manzanita-Nehalem Bay area that has many things in common with LOST. It's called the "Wheeler Moment," and it refers to the town on the bay where - like the island on LOST - strange, serendipitous coincidences happen with startling regularity. Click here for more on the Wheeler Moment and Oregon coast connection to LOST. The area is an hour and a half drive from Portland.
For you LOST heads (or as I call myself, a LOST nerd), here's a bunch of interesting tidbits your Mr Lahey learned - some of which you will have heard, but hopefully plenty that will be new to you. In fact, for Portlanders, there's some more cool info here.
- Did you ever notice how many integral things seem to have happened in 30-yr increments - or at least four years into the decade? They crash in 2004 - then they end up in 1974. When they start bouncing through time, they meet the Others in 1954. When the rest of the crash survivors finally get to the 70's, they hop back from 2007 to 1977.
- In case you didn't see the previous week's subtitled, enhanced re-broadcast of last season's finale, notice that Jacob touches each of the survivors - either in this decade, or in some other time period. He seems to be a little bit like the "hand of fate" itself.
- There are 15 episodes of this season, the last one to be aired on Sunday, May 25. Hmmm....a sunday. Is that also significant?
- When the show is done, the props will be auctioned off for charity. Mr Lahey wants to get him a piece of that.
- Learned many surprises from the co-producers on Jimmy Kimmel: The fact that Shepard has only one bottle of liquor instead of two in the plane is "significant," as is the fact Rose is more calm than him this time around. They said the missing people on that plane (Shannon, et al) will mean something. And the absence of Michael and his son on that plane were called "fate" by them.
- When Jimmy Kimmel asked about Sayid, and that it seemed likely Jacob was inhabiting him now - they said SOMETHING is inhabiting Sayid, but not neccessarily Jacob.
- They also said that numbers will be explained and again figure prominently... i.e. those numbers from Hugo's lottery and the Dharma hatch, et al
- According to one of the interviews, Portland may again figure in the last season. Also released earlier this year, Matthew Fox (Shepard) will move to Oregon when the show is done. Will he move to our lovely neck of the End of the Trail - Portland? (Like Jean Claude van Damme, Johnny Marr, Peter Buck and others have). Will he reside in the boonies of southern Oregon (like Steve Miller did)? Or on the Oregon coast (like Ursula K. Le Guinn or MASH's David Ogden-Stiers)?
- So now we know who the black smoke monster is!!! But what exactly IS he? For that matter, what is Jacob? A big hint, albeit a puzzling one, comes at the very end where the Locke-Smoke Monster-Man in Black tells Benjamin that he wants the ONE thing Locke didn't want - "to go home."
Given that creators have outright said the show will have nothing to do with angels, devils, or aliens, you can rule that out.
So what does that leave?
Another form of life from beneath the sea? That could explain the alternate timeline where the island is buried beneath the waves.
My theory is that Jacob and his Smoke Monster pal are actually from the future - perhaps the distant future. This would explain them not aging, and the unusual qualities of the island that often have to do with temporal abnormalities.
But later, our ABC affiliate local news (KATU...lahey lives in Portland, kids), ran an interview with Michael Emerson, who plays Benjamin Linus. Then, Nightline ran a pretty indepth piece on the show. Following that, the coup de gras was Jimmy Kimmel with the two co-producers on. That one contained the real golden tidbits, but interesting things were learned about LOST in the others as well.
It was past 12:30 a.m. before all the insider info stopped flowing - hence the four and a half hours.
LOST has special meaning in Portland, by the way. There are at least two references to P-town in the series, primarily Linus was born just outside of this town AND the mysterious biotech firm that scooped up Juliet to work on the island was purportedly located here.
Also, for us "coasties" (i also live part time in Manzanita, on the Oregon coast), there is a weird paranormal legend about the Manzanita-Nehalem Bay area that has many things in common with LOST. It's called the "Wheeler Moment," and it refers to the town on the bay where - like the island on LOST - strange, serendipitous coincidences happen with startling regularity. Click here for more on the Wheeler Moment and Oregon coast connection to LOST. The area is an hour and a half drive from Portland.
For you LOST heads (or as I call myself, a LOST nerd), here's a bunch of interesting tidbits your Mr Lahey learned - some of which you will have heard, but hopefully plenty that will be new to you. In fact, for Portlanders, there's some more cool info here.
- Did you ever notice how many integral things seem to have happened in 30-yr increments - or at least four years into the decade? They crash in 2004 - then they end up in 1974. When they start bouncing through time, they meet the Others in 1954. When the rest of the crash survivors finally get to the 70's, they hop back from 2007 to 1977.
- In case you didn't see the previous week's subtitled, enhanced re-broadcast of last season's finale, notice that Jacob touches each of the survivors - either in this decade, or in some other time period. He seems to be a little bit like the "hand of fate" itself.
- There are 15 episodes of this season, the last one to be aired on Sunday, May 25. Hmmm....a sunday. Is that also significant?
- When the show is done, the props will be auctioned off for charity. Mr Lahey wants to get him a piece of that.
- Learned many surprises from the co-producers on Jimmy Kimmel: The fact that Shepard has only one bottle of liquor instead of two in the plane is "significant," as is the fact Rose is more calm than him this time around. They said the missing people on that plane (Shannon, et al) will mean something. And the absence of Michael and his son on that plane were called "fate" by them.
- When Jimmy Kimmel asked about Sayid, and that it seemed likely Jacob was inhabiting him now - they said SOMETHING is inhabiting Sayid, but not neccessarily Jacob.
- They also said that numbers will be explained and again figure prominently... i.e. those numbers from Hugo's lottery and the Dharma hatch, et al
- According to one of the interviews, Portland may again figure in the last season. Also released earlier this year, Matthew Fox (Shepard) will move to Oregon when the show is done. Will he move to our lovely neck of the End of the Trail - Portland? (Like Jean Claude van Damme, Johnny Marr, Peter Buck and others have). Will he reside in the boonies of southern Oregon (like Steve Miller did)? Or on the Oregon coast (like Ursula K. Le Guinn or MASH's David Ogden-Stiers)?
- So now we know who the black smoke monster is!!! But what exactly IS he? For that matter, what is Jacob? A big hint, albeit a puzzling one, comes at the very end where the Locke-Smoke Monster-Man in Black tells Benjamin that he wants the ONE thing Locke didn't want - "to go home."
Given that creators have outright said the show will have nothing to do with angels, devils, or aliens, you can rule that out.
So what does that leave?
Another form of life from beneath the sea? That could explain the alternate timeline where the island is buried beneath the waves.
My theory is that Jacob and his Smoke Monster pal are actually from the future - perhaps the distant future. This would explain them not aging, and the unusual qualities of the island that often have to do with temporal abnormalities.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Greetings Earthlings....to this new vid game blog
As a (supposedly) responsible adult and small business owner, I probably shouldn't even be doing this, much less play the amount of vid games I do. But given my now two-year obsession with killing things digitally, and the amount of knowledge I've acquired (as well as the knowledge I will soon be seeking), I felt I needed a means for all this, and more.
What I intend to do here is share the knowledge i have, the knowledge I will require, and provide a means for me and others to vent, rant, rave and inquire - a kind of video game dialogue (a game-alogue?)
So - in that spirit - let me begin by posting a few random thoughts, wishes, queries and such. Many of these will be explored in future postings in greater depth. So I suppose this is a preview of what this game-alogue will be like.
- What in the FUCK is with playing Painkiller online? Everytime you try to log on you get shoved off, with odd error messages. Every once in a while, you can get in to one, but there's usually no one there. And these instances are rare. When Painkiller Resurrection first came out, I was able to get onto a few of those servers, but that seems to have abruptly stopped.
anyone know of a fix for these?
- What happened to playing Quake 3 Arena online? In the course of a year and a half, I've had it on four different computers, and on only one did I find other servers showing up. Then that hard drive tanked. Otherwise, the game seems to have disappeared. Anyone know how to get those servers to show? I mean, even the original Serious Sam still shows up online (wow too....cuz that puppy is ancient...but fun).
- You know that part of Quake Enemy Territory where you're a Strogg, and just before a map starts it says "30 Earth Seconds Remain"??? I've always thought that would be HILARIOUS to say in that voice when you're with a woman and you feel the big moment coming on. Hee hee.
Yes, I have a filthy mind.
- My new addiction these days: half-life death match and the server "new for 1979." OMG what a freakin' kick!! It never ceases to make me laugh when the robot "sportscasters" berate you with "Insufficient postage - you suck!"
- Star Trek Elite Force. Yup....i know it's ancient...but it's cool in my opinion. If i try to play online, no servers show up. Anyone know anything about find those servers?
- What a bummer about the LOST video game....boy did it suck. Well, actually, maybe it was ok....but it was so buggy i never got past the initial four or five moves. I'll try it again on my newer BIG PC...but hopes are not high...and i've gotta be pretty damned bored to give that a shot. No road-crippling snow storms are in the wings here in portland, and that's probably what it would take for me to try it again.
can NOT wait for the new season!!!! holy shit. What IS Jacob?? and the mysterious Man in Black that is his enemy? Is that really him inside John Locke's body? My whole theory about the thing is that the nature of the island lays in the distant future.
What I intend to do here is share the knowledge i have, the knowledge I will require, and provide a means for me and others to vent, rant, rave and inquire - a kind of video game dialogue (a game-alogue?)
So - in that spirit - let me begin by posting a few random thoughts, wishes, queries and such. Many of these will be explored in future postings in greater depth. So I suppose this is a preview of what this game-alogue will be like.
- What in the FUCK is with playing Painkiller online? Everytime you try to log on you get shoved off, with odd error messages. Every once in a while, you can get in to one, but there's usually no one there. And these instances are rare. When Painkiller Resurrection first came out, I was able to get onto a few of those servers, but that seems to have abruptly stopped.
anyone know of a fix for these?
- What happened to playing Quake 3 Arena online? In the course of a year and a half, I've had it on four different computers, and on only one did I find other servers showing up. Then that hard drive tanked. Otherwise, the game seems to have disappeared. Anyone know how to get those servers to show? I mean, even the original Serious Sam still shows up online (wow too....cuz that puppy is ancient...but fun).
- You know that part of Quake Enemy Territory where you're a Strogg, and just before a map starts it says "30 Earth Seconds Remain"??? I've always thought that would be HILARIOUS to say in that voice when you're with a woman and you feel the big moment coming on. Hee hee.
Yes, I have a filthy mind.
- My new addiction these days: half-life death match and the server "new for 1979." OMG what a freakin' kick!! It never ceases to make me laugh when the robot "sportscasters" berate you with "Insufficient postage - you suck!"
- Star Trek Elite Force. Yup....i know it's ancient...but it's cool in my opinion. If i try to play online, no servers show up. Anyone know anything about find those servers?
- What a bummer about the LOST video game....boy did it suck. Well, actually, maybe it was ok....but it was so buggy i never got past the initial four or five moves. I'll try it again on my newer BIG PC...but hopes are not high...and i've gotta be pretty damned bored to give that a shot. No road-crippling snow storms are in the wings here in portland, and that's probably what it would take for me to try it again.
can NOT wait for the new season!!!! holy shit. What IS Jacob?? and the mysterious Man in Black that is his enemy? Is that really him inside John Locke's body? My whole theory about the thing is that the nature of the island lays in the distant future.
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