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Saturday 21 September 2002

Gaming Goodness [spiny]

It just gets better.

Played a lot of instagib CTF last night, it managed to keep me glued to my desk till 12:30. When you have to be up at 6:30, that must be good glue.Now, UT instagib ctf was never really my bag, just seemed like you could never get the flag & was a bit devoid of strategy compared to vanilla ctf. My preconception changed last night though, UT2k3's instagib CTF is a 'reet laff' as they say oop north. What clinches it are two things: map design, the map included in the UT 2k3 demo plays very well with iCTF and now the instagib shock rifle has a zoom on it. While you may think this will just hamper gameplay by the flag runner forever being sniped, the opposite is true. as the flag runner, you're also better able to defend youself while rushing back to your own base, you can fight back much more effectively and your team can cover the flag runner even though they're not near the enemy. The acid test really is number of caps. Most of the games I played last night had a winning score of just under 10 caps, with the looser not too far behind. Great gameplay.

I think they may have actually sorted the translocator this time too. What makes it less effective is that it leaves a bloody great trail as the disc flies. This allows you to spot a translocating pe0n, see where he will land and zap him as soon as he appears. I managed to shut out pratically all enemies who were trying to translocate accross to our base & gib em.

In other gaming goodness the NOLF2, demo has been released and is looking rather sexy. Bump & cube mapping everywhere, nice water effects & character models. Looks like the Jupiter incarnation of the lithtech engine is shaping up niceley. NOLF2 also retains the excellent LOL humour of the original. The added skill points & side quests in it make it a bit of a Deus Ex Lite too. You can expect a fine script, nice combination of gameplay elements to enhance the point & shoot FPS genre (which SOF2 failed to do) and a pretty engine to wrap it up in. This is a preorder puppy make no mistake.

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