Alyxx Thorne

We're a pretty relaxed forum for the most part.

Donated 10$. Not much but I hope it helps!

20-year-old dude, Minnesota. Found FM in early 2009, then Civil Protection convinced me that Ross was, IS, doing something good for the internet.

 

Current interests are learning to draw, cooking and electronic music. Lifelong interests: video games and whatever I feel like typing into search engines at a given moment. Remote areas and pockets of civilization interest me more than they should. I'd rather like to go travelling one day, hopefully on my own terms.

Nice to have you among us, MW! Welcome to Accursed Farms!

Reviewed for PC by Alyxx Thorne

There are games out there that label themselves as expert games. Games you seek out for the challenge and sheer bragging rights of completing them. Alien Rage has put itself in that league, selling itself as a shooter with old school gameplay and difficulty. Does it hold up to its promises? Let's find out as I take a look at a game that almost make my top 10 games of 2013 list.

The story in Alien Rage is paper thin and doesn't really have much impact on the game, basically giving you a setting, though the game itself is pretty much going from level to level in a linear fashion. I do like the writing though, as the use of humor and witty writing offsets the somewhat harsh difficulty of the game, giving you some relief between tense moments.

At first glance, you might look at the game and think "wait, that's not old school, this is Call of Duty with aliens". Well, that would be doing the game a disservice. Sure, it might have aiming down sights, it might have a 2 weapon limit and health regen. But the oldschool elements are there, just a bit subtle and requires you to actually play the game a bit to get them. The oldschool elements come in from the fact that the game gives you scores for skillshots, similar to Bulletstorm. The game also has a rather high difficulty which comes from the fact that the weapons are all really powerful and you aren't really that good at resisting them since the bad guys ALSO use those weapons.

That's why using skillshots and using your head as much as your gun is essential to surviving in this game and it requires that you do more than just shoot at the enemy. Sometimes ingenuity, awareness of your environment and timing can be more important. The fact the game does not have any mini-map and doesn't hold your hand in any way, shape or form means you have to rely on your senses and skills the entire time, which is where a lot of the more oldschool difficulty comes from.

Being limited to 2 weapons really doesn't have that much of an impact anyway since all of the weapons, as stated, are powerful and fit all situations. They just lend themselves to different play styles. I played through the entire game using almost exclusively the alien and human assault rifles. Even the boss fights were handled with those guns so what weapon you use doesn't matter all that much. Find a favourite and stick with it.

The game also has another modern element in that as you play and get scores, you level up, and each time you level up you gain a perk. Perks are, needless to say, modifiers that give you certain boosts that can benefit your playstyle and a lot of the fun comes from earning new perks, trying them out and finding the right combination. A little tip is that once you get the Mega Pistol perk, it makes the side arm pistol you have (which doesn't count as one of your 2 weapons btw) essentially the most powerful gun in the entire game and gives you a much needed edge over your enemies. Combined with other perks such as projectile damage bonus and Mega Health, it makes for a highly lethal combination that makes the brutal difficulty seem possible to overcome. I strongly suggest playing through the game on the easy difficulty to earn these perks before tackling the normal or hard difficulties. The mega pistol perk also makes it much more likely to get the achievement for completing the game using only the pistol.

All the weapons are also equipped with an alternate fire mode that uses up special ammunition that you can find in limited quantities around the levels. The alternate mode usually works as a grenade substitute as it usually leads to a lot of explosions. Keep in mind though that the enemies also have these alternate fire modes and will exploit them to kick your ass hard. The AI in this game is actually surprisingly impressive for a shooter and behave a lot like real players would. Another strategic tip is that if you have no other option but to shoot the enemies directly, aim for the head. Headshots are insanely OP in Alien Rage and can lead to a lot of easy kills, and you get bonus points for them.

The bosses all have their own techniques in how to take them down and figuring them out can take a while so prepare to be slaughtered a lot before you actually manage to take them down. Once you figure it out though it's sometimes astonishingly easy.

The level designs are fairly linear and save for searching for a few secret items there isn't much exploration possible which I think is fair considering the game is more of a linear arcady on-rails shooter for the most part, but for it to be truly oldschool they should've taken a cue from the recently released Shadow Warrior and give you secret locations and easter eggs to find. I don't know why so many game developers nowadays shy away from this. But that being said, the levels are fine and lend themselves to some pretty intense battle scenarios. I especially found it cool that the enemy can shoot through cover and even blow it apart so you are never truly safe in one spot for too long, forcing you to move from cover to cover a lot.

I haven't played much of the multiplayer but what I've played was pretty standard TDM fare. It doesn't really stand out all that much and I don't think this game is worth getting for the multiplayer. In fact it's near impossible to find people playing the game nowadays anyway as I think most people are playing the single player mode or are playing other and better multiplayer shooters that offer more variety. I would've loved a co-op mode or something here to really bring that oldschool arcade feel to it, so there's a bit of a missed opportunity there. All in all, the multiplayer feels pretty tacked on and could easily have been left out.

The graphics are absolutely one of the best things about the game. The game oozes style and I especially love the limited colour palette which for some reason reminds me a lot of early Amiga games in how it's focused very much on the contrasts of blue and orange, similar to a lot of 16bit games, which really does help give the game an oldschool style about it. The enemy designs are really cool and I especially like the huge boss designs that give them a true sense of menace. There's a lot of subtle details in your field of view and the use of harsh lighting gives the game a dark and intense contrasting atmosphere which makes all the colours pop all the more. This game is absolutely gorgeous and definitely feels next gen when you play it. Despite looking this good it runs surprisingly well on my computer, even if at launch the game had some optimization issues.

The soundtrack is a bit lackluster in my opinion. It falls into the trap of trying to be a bit cinematic so it ends up being largely forgettable. It works well to compliment the constant action and I did enjoy the slightly electronic feel to it, but it just ended up being not memorable enough for me. Would've loved some driving techno or dubstep here to really push the action to the next level, and I think the devs should've gone for that personally. The voice acting is great however and brings a lot of the humor and wit out of the script, giving the protagonist a much needed personality that made him stand out a bit. I also loved the sound effects, all of them having a nice sound design to them. The game shows a lot of polish both in the sound and graphics department.

Alien Rage is a great shooter but hard to recommend if you only have a casual interest in shooters. It's definitely for you if you want a challenge and liked more oldschool arcady shooters such as Bulletstorm. It does try to find a true balance between the oldschool and modern game mechanics which might throw some people off if they expect it to be more like Half-Life or Quake. But for what it is, it's a great looking and awesome sounding experience that is fun while it lasts and the brutal difficulty makes the reward of completing it all that higher and I felt pretty f*cking good when I had completed it. But like I said, hard to recommend because this game does NOT hold your hand at all and REQUIRES you to THINK about how you play it and use the environment and your skills to survive.

SUMMARY

Story: 5/10

Gameplay: 8/10

Graphics: 10/10

Sound: 8/10

FINAL SCORE: 8/10

Source: http://alyxxgameroom.blogspot.no/2014/03/pc-game-review-alien-rage.html

Oh my god I just died laughing!

Especially at the end!

"Screw you, YOUR LAB, YOU DEAL WITH IT!"

Here are some games I am looking forward to and definitely want to purchase in 2014.

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Watch_Dogs (Already preordered this)

Titanfall

Need For Speed Rivals

Borderlands 2 Vita

Rust. Finally got a friendly server to play on.

I do agree that the original Steelport was bit more fun in the long run, but SR3 wasn't in the vote list... lol

If it was I would think it was a typo.

Playing some Rust.

Topics merged.

As someone who has had friends who have struggled with bipolar and depression, I can safely say it's not easy and very hard to deal with. It's sad that it ended like this for him, but I think wherever he is right now, he's at peace.

Rest in peace <3

Here's a tribute from Game Chasers that I love:

oDT5mdPtDSw

Rust. Bunch of hackers ruined our game though.

Saints Row 4 was pretty good, but I don't think I really preferred the whole simulation over actual Steelport, plus...

 

OLEG AND VIOLA AND ALMOST EVERYONE DIED

Matter of preference.

Sounds fun.

Shatoo - A Disaster

Doing dishes, listening to Norwegian 80's synthpop.

Strike Vector

8/10

Answer: Never watched the show, I don't use MLP pics as avatars and I don't talk about it every chance I get. The answer should be obvious to you.

"H-hi..."

10/10

I'm glad you are finally able to release videos on a timely basis and not have to deal with Machinima anymore. I remember it was not a good time for you.

8/10

9/10

 

badass but with pink hair

#dealwithit

8/10

Is overall a cool user.

Avatar has authority glasses.

Cause I'm a moderator. Get it?

Jek Jek for being... Jekky.

Taken from my blog @ http://alyxxgameroom.blogspot.no

Reviewed for PC by Alyxx

Despite being a massive Call of Duty fangirl, I honestly didn't feel much hype for this game when it was first announced. Looking at it, I expected it to be another modern warfare clone, which it sort of is but at the same time isn't. I mean, the reason I got into Black Ops II was the futuristic feel of it and I was very concerned Ghosts would not follow that trend. So is Ghosts a worthy new Call of Duty experience or are you better off not giving in to the hype and steering clear of this? Let's find out in my review of Call of Duty Ghosts. Since the game is split into three distinct modes, I'll basically split my review into three parts, each part covering each game mode, to cover as much ground as possible with the game and then cover generic stuff such as the overall graphics and sound quality. So far I have played it quite thoroughly and I believe I have a pretty good impression of it.

The campaign in Ghosts is pretty much what you can expect from a Call of Duty game, however in my opinion it's probably my favourite campaign so far as I surprisingly found the story really well written. Despite the story not having branching paths like BlOps2 did, I think it's a fairly decent story in its own right. It focuses on the Walker family of a father Elias Walker and his two sons, Logan and David "Hesh" Walker as they join the Ghosts, a group of elite soldiers who take on missions the regular army shun away from and their pursuit of an ex-Ghost member named Gabriel Rorke. Keeping the focus on the characters like this means the story is a lot easier to follow and also makes it a lot more relatable than earlier games as the bond between these characters really shines through to you as a player.

They call me George of the Jungle...

In the midst of all this, the space cannon ODIN, which is basically a kinetic bombardment device (this is actual technology being developed today making the game strangely foreshadowing), leaves several US cities in ruins and you have to navigate these ruins with your brother and your dog Riley for a bit of the game. In my opinion Riley is the real star of the game and I actually ended up really caring for him as he felt like a true member of the team, which I am thankful the game was able to convey.

The gameplay is pretty much standard Call of Duty fare. You go from setpiece to setpiece, blast out the opposition with your weapons of choice and that's pretty much it. The new twist is that during some missions you get to control and order Riley to help you out, which adds a bit of coolness and unique quality to the game that I honestly can't say any CoD I've played before this has. The atmosphere and feel of Ghosts is pretty unique and I can definitely say that while it still copies the core Call of Duty style, it feels like its own new sub IP. If Call of Duty is not your cup of tea this game is probably not gonna win you over in any way, but for what it is, it's a solid experience and I really enjoyed the campaign.

Don't look do--- FUCK!

The multiplayer experience though is probably the most interesting part of the game as it is the most likely main reason people still buy Call of Duty games. That is, when I could get into it. You see, this is the first time I've ran into any kind of serious bug when it comes to the Call of Duty games. At first, I didn't have any squad points. I dunno why or how this happened, but I couldn't unlock the first soldier. That's right, this bug effectively locked me out of the multiplayer game entirely and I had to use a workaround I found on the net that was essentially me joining a friend in multiplayer and earning enough squad points to unlock my first soldier. Granted the workaround does mess up squad play massively and I can't get the full experience like I should have, but I can at least play the game now which is enough for me. I can still just join a friend if I want the full experience anyway, but still this was a rather aggravating ordeal for me and honestly one of the biggest signs this game was rushed to meet Activision's deadline of having a Call of Duty each year. Such a serious bug should've been caught in testing as it caused a TON of pain for not only me but hundreds of other Call of Duty gamers who had paid the full 60 bucks for the game. Hell if you take into consideration I even upgraded this game to Digital Deluxe edition after buying it, I paid 90 fucking bucks in total! That's a rather high price for a game and, while I do think I get what I am paying for, paying that much for an UNFINISHED product is a huge deal for me and I am sorely reminded of when I paid 90 bucks for the collector's edition of Aliens: Colonial Marines and getting a huge mess of a game, and despite me being a fan of ACM, it was NOT worth 90 bucks. But, that's at least the only really serious bug I've run into when it comes to Ghosts and anything else has been rather minor for me and not even worth mentioning. Overall the game does not feel as polished as earlier titles, especially compared to Black Ops II which was exceptionally enjoyable on PC, but it's still playable.

Every time Riley attacks someone I wanna add a sound clip of the Heavy from TF2 going NOM!

Anyway, when I actually got into multiplayer I of course was able to fully enjoy the new additions to the multiplayer in Ghosts. It's actually really substantially different from earlier games and there are a ton of changes that I think makes Ghosts not only the best Call of Duty multiplayer experience so far but also the most unique. I think they have really listened to the fans in this case and heard what we all wanted. To start off, the first change you will notice is that you have a squad now. Each soldier is fully customizable in terms of appearance and can have multiple loadouts each. The appearance customization is something I absolutely love as you can finally choose to play as a female, which to me is one of the biggest reasons I got Ghosts as I always wanted that option in Call of Duty. I always felt forced into the role of a faceless man when playing Call of Duty which granted I didn't mind but it would be nice to have the option at least to play as a female like in Blacklight Retribution. You can also get more customization options by completing in-game challenges so there is a lot of incentive to keep playing. You can also use your squad to play what's known as squad matches. These are basically online botmatches where you can earn actual XP and squad points, something you normally wouldn't do in botmatches in earlier CoD's. The bot AI is also surprisingly good in this game and I keep getting impressed by how much they resemble human players, which is very good since you use bots for training purposes and the more human-like they are, the better your training will be.

Damn, I didn't know putting sodium in the toilet would be THIS bad...

The second addition you might notice are the aforementioned squad points. You earn these by playing matches and use them to unlock stuff such as additional squad soldiers, and unlike earlier CoD's where you unlocked guns at specific levels, here you can access every gun in the game from the get-go provided you have the squad points to pay for them. I actually really like this system as naturally, if you play a custom game you have access to everything in the game and can try stuff out before playing in online matches and therefore can find out what weapon you prefer and what you wanna invest squad points in. You also use squad points to pay for weapon upgrades and just like the weapons themselves, none are locked to specific levels so if you want an attachment, you can get it if you have enough squad points. This is just a lot more convenient than having to grind a certain number of levels before getting the guns you want, not to mention it makes going prestige more fun as you don't have to re-grind every gun in the game like in earlier CoD's. Cosmetic stuff is locked by challenges however so not everything can be unlocked with squad points.

The third major addition to online matches are field orders. These come in the form of floating briefcase symbols that sometimes drop when you kill an enemy. Picking these up gives you a special objective to do, for instance killing the next enemy from behind or even teabagging him (yes, you can get rewarded for humiliating your enemies in this game XD). Successfully completing a field order grants you a care package. The positive aspect about field orders is that they give incentive to not camp as much and instead be active and run around a bit since if you stay in one place too much, you won't be able to pick up field orders.

The perk system sort of mixes elements from both MW3 and BO2 in that each perk takes up a certain number of slots in your loadout and you can either use several minor perks or few strong ones. Most of the perks come from MW3 but there are some new ones as well. Ghosts also brings back the Assault, Support and Specialist killstreak packages from MW3 which I absolutely love as I always prefer playing Specialist and not overly relying on killstreaks to win a game. Support package also offers more incentive to be a team player and if you wanna know more about how these killstreak packages work, you should check out my MW3 review.

Call me Snake.

The third game mode is Extinction. If you've played Black Ops Zombies you know what to expect as it is pretty much the same thing. It's a single map (you get more if you buy the DLC packs) where you fight off increasing waves of aliens using weapons you find on the map. You earn money by killing aliens and spend this money however you wish on weapons and traps in the map. It's a fun co-op experience that can give you a short burst of intense action if you've finished the campaign and need a break from competitive multiplayer. I don't particurarily care for Extiniction myself but it is fun to play in short bursts with one or more friends. I strongly recommend getting a party of full 4 players as the mode gets pretty intense after a while. Some of the fun comes from playing as different classes, each with their own perks and playstyles. I have only played weapon specialist so far but might try out the other ones. I guess that's one of the reasons I don't care for the mode as I don't like class-based multiplayer at all usually since it feels a bit restrictive.

Overall the graphics in Call of Duty: Ghosts are pretty gorgeous despite the engine starting to show its age at this point compared to more graphics-intensive games. Everything is really well animated, especially Riley the dog who really does feel very alive in the game, essential to how much of a relationship you build with him. The ruins are full of atmosphere and I especially love the setpieces under water and in space where everything feels like you are actually in space or actually under water. Hell, the devs even went as far as giving the fish a rudimentary AI to keep them from swimming in repetitive patterns which I think is pretty awesome. I also like how the multiplayer maps has architecture that crumbles in front of you and some maps can change the layout entirely during a match, which I always find really cool. There is a very good colour balance too, and while it does get a bit grey and brown in places, it's not to the extent Modern Warfare 1-3 was. I've heard of people experience some glitches though, and unless you set the Image Quality to Extra specifically, the effective resolution will be 720p maximum even if you set the resolution to higher. I would guess this is to make the game run more smoothly but I got it running smoothly by setting the image quality to Extra and just not maxing out the texture or shadow quality.

Sound-wise I love the muffled sounds in space and underwater and the attention to detail when it comes to the ambience and atmosphere. I've heard people compare the gun sounds to N64 quality, though I don't honestly feel they are that bad. They get the job done and sound okay to me and do have a bit of punch to them. Not a fan of the music though. I'm sure Eminem did a fine job with the end credits song, it just isn't my taste at all and I would take Skrillex from Black Ops 2 over it any day. And overall the soundtrack felt very forgetable which for me has been a common problem with Call of Duty so far but it's to be expected I suppose.

Gone fishin'

SUMMARY

Story: 8/10

Despite a bit of a cheesy cliffhanger and some rather fantastical "Michael Bay" moments, the story is surprisingly enjoyable and I found the characters and dialogue really well written for a Call of Duty game. A huge improvement over previous iterations.

Gameplay: 8/10

Aside from a very annoying multiplayer bug, the gameplay is pretty solid. The campaign gives you exactly what you want from a Call of Duty title and the multiplayer adds enough to make the game feel like its own thing and improves on most of my problems with earlier iterations. Overall the multiplayer is a lot of fun, considering all the additions and changes that I frankly believe are for the better. I especially love that the maps in Ghosts feel a lot more open and not as tight and cramped as earlier Call of Duty games. They can feel a bit overwhelming at first but the more I played them, they more they've grown on me. And if you get tired of hackers and other cheaters or just want some training, squad mode gives you the opportunity to play botmatches and still feel like you earn XP from it which I believe you should. The Extinction mode feels a bit too class-based for my taste and not much fun if you only play it alone or with a friend, though it can be fun in bursts. I look forward to seeing new maps being added in DLC's.

Graphics: 8/10

While the engine still is showing a bit of age and the game won't blow your mind, this is a pretty good looking title.

Sound: 6/10

Sound is pretty average, it gets the job done. The voice acting is pretty good and suits the story. Though I don't care much for the boring soundtrack.

Overall Score: 8/10

Don't get me wrong, Call of Duty: Ghosts is a massively fun experience and if you're a CoD fan like me, you owe it to yourself to get it. However, if you're not, this is probably not going to win you over.

- Alyxx