Bottom of the Barrel (no.3): Operation Thunderbolt

It's been awhile since I'd last done a rant on games I've despised so, seeing as I have little to talk about, now may be as good time as any.

Today I want to talk about Rail Shooters. Can't say I'm a big fan of them - you see my problem is that usually there's so much coming for the player that there's little fighting chance left for the player. Thus, the player soaks up bullets he can't dodge and facing odds that they don't have a hope in hell of beating. Now whilst there may be some amusement value - I myself played, and enjoyed the Terminator 2 arcade game back in the day - Rail Shooters aren't really my thing. No, give me first- person shooters any day - at least they have the option of ducking out of fire. 

Which brings me to Operation Wolf - a milestone in Rail Shooters. Released in the arcades, it played by presenting the player with a gun and, through the player's perspective, produced a whole lot of army soldiers to gun down. It came across as being like the action movies of it's time and, through mission descriptions, evoked the sense of a Special Forces operation. The game was a big enough deal to get converted to nearly every home computers and consoles. So a sequel eventually arrived: Operation Thunderbolt!

I myself never played Operation Wolf but I did play Operation Thunderbolt on my trusty Commodore 64. For the purposes of today's post however I present the Amiga version:



One look at the video reveals everything I despise about the Rail Shooter. There's no way to dodge the bullets so all you can do is soak them up and watch helplessly as your health decreases. The levels are long and tedious and thus become less a challenge than an endurance test. There's so much coming at you all at once that the difficulty is ramped up to the level of 'impossible'. Indeed, the only thing that player would need to beat this game would be luck and luck shouldn't have to play a part in beating games. Matters aren't helped with the absurd length of the plane in the final mission and a narrator who sounds like Duffman.

So playing Operation Thunderbolt was enough to put me off Rail Shooters. Okay so there've been some I've enjoyed in the form of Virtua Cop, Gunblade and Hous eof the Dead Overkill but all in all, Operation Thundebrolt made me approahc the genre with a degree of caution.
And I hope it feels damn proud of itself >:(

Its been one week since you looked at me

So it's been a week since I made a return to Azeroth. So how do I feel about it?

Well I think the time away has done me well. When I left last year, I wasn't really enthused about playing World of Warcraft and, despite the myriad of things that can be done in it, somehow doing any of them felt hollow and dull. This time however I'm enthusiastic about doing the many activities again. Oh sure the professions have a degree of tedium attached to them but this time I know what I'm doing and as a result I don't find the profession duties at all prosaic. Subsequently I've made rapid progression in getting my skills up.

When I first left WoW I had three characters entering Outlands (plus there's my Death Knight who was/isn't too far away from there). And at that point I realized I'd be treading over the same ground thrice over. Again the threat of tedium reared it's head and was a good excuse as any not to progress further. This time around however, I've sent Beldrath into Tekkohar Forests and whilst Rithendal may have already been there, this time I'm finding the quests fun to do and have made some considerable progress (of course having the benefits from a level-1-guild-turned-level-9 has helped).

And there was my Hall of Shame. Since giving up World of Warcraft last year I've since struck numerous titles from my Hall of Shame - and thus built up enough karma points to justify a return to Azeroth. Only this time I (insofar) haven't allowed WoW to completely dominate my allotted gaming time - Why, I've recently been trying out Cave Story and Eversion (two games that couldn't be more worlds part).

I've heard of some people leaving World of Warcraft only to return some time later with fresh eyes and, having experienced it myself, there is indeed a lot of truth in that statement. Where once I was tired with WoW I'm now finding a renewed freshness. Of course, at my peak last year, I was playing WoW pretty much exclusively - which in retrospect is probably not the best way to go about playing WoW. Now, having spent some time away  and a reassment of the time allocated to WoW, another journey through Azeroth is looking pretty good at the moment.

Thats my Steam

On January the 4th of this year I took a brave step into the unknown: I signed up for that thing called Steam. So what do i think of it?

Well for a while I was unsure what to make of it: I saw the wide range of games available - many of which caught my attention. But out of the ones I was interested in, many of which I had already purchased through GoG. So what was left?
Well I did like the idea of game specific browser but my current OS offers the same thing. And the sharing of gaming records? Funny, I thought that was what Raptr was for. So ultimately my first impression of Steam was that it did things that had already been done.

Since then however my view has softened somewhat: I can see that the browser has it's own range of useful features and the range of games includes some titles that I've been interested in playing and aren't available anywhere else. Of course it seems stupid that I should be getting more games considering my commitments to World of Warcraft and the Hall of Shame but in the terms of playing games that escaped me the first time around (as is often the case with my taste in gaming), as well as a method of keeping abreast with newer games, Steam has proven be quite a handy gadget.

Keep on Rockin'

The biggest news so far this week is Harmonix announcing an end to regular DLC additions to the Rock Band store.
Some might say that this news has been long overdue as the wave of music rhythm games (or whatever you want to call it) has long since passed, those who've played it have since moved on and it's now only the diehards left still playing Rock Band.

Personally it's something I have mixed feelings about:
On one hand, the time of Rock Band has passed. But for me it's not just in popularity but somehow Rock Band 3, unlike it's predecessor, had no sense of longevity. Rock Band 2 had enough gigs and challenges to justify the DLC and hours of play time - conversely Rock Band 3 had a story mode and...then what? What do you do then? Face down a list of unplayed songs in the Music Library? It's far from a carrot and somehow, it makes the idea of obtaining more DLC feel more like a hollow exercise.

But on the other hand, the use of DLC available to RB2 still holds appeal (as mentioned above). Why, when Harmonix announced the 50% off sale, I picked up a lot of new stuff and gave RB2 another spin. And I must give props to Harmonix for keeping the music rhythm game genre going for as long as they did: they had a great selection of music and they didn't fall into the trap Guitar Hero did of releasing a new game every year.

Still, this may well be the death knell of the music rhythm game genre (if it hasn't already happened). And, like most people, I have a whole wide range of DLC songs on my console hard drive so there is certainty that I won't stop playing Rock Band for good. Whilst a potential revival seems (however remotely) possible it's unlikely music rhythm game genre will match the heights of it's heyday.
But for what;s worth I invested many hours in the Rock Band games and enjoyed it to bits.
So, for now, lets all raise a glass to Rock Band...

We live again

 Yep it happened - after a four month absence I decided to make a return to World of Warcraft - I suppose that once you've signed up you can never really leave.

Somehow I find this music appropiate enough:

Positively Shocking

I don't believe it: System Shock 2 has finally appeared on GoG. I never thought it possible but there it is.

Somehow I think this music appropriate:

Driving me Backwards

As established previously in this blog, my teenage years were spent as an Amiga owner. Not for me the thrills of SNES, Megadrive or PS1. Nope, I had an Amiga 1200 and a very limited access to games and even less people to talk to. But no matter: I had some good times on the Amiga and was deeply fascinated by the Amiga being a vehicle for many bedroom developers having a crack at making their own games. Indeed, I've had a soft spot for the Amiga ever since.

The Amiga I owned was an Amiga 1200 - something of a big deal as it was marketed with an Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) chip that could boast a range of 256 colors over the previous range of 32. Whilst this presented some stunning graphics, for it's day, along with some beefed up hardware, a problem soon arose. For the Amiga 1200's predecessor, the Amiga 500, had enjoyed a large amount of success as a games machine - but due to the Amiga 1200's advanced specs, many of the programs wouldn't work. Some games got re-released with AGA tweaks whilst others flat refused to run - indeed, when determining compatibility was nothing more than trying one's luck with a 50-50 chance of success. This in turn resulted in some bad press for the Amiga 1200 and effected it's sales.

I am recounting all of this becuase I am reminded of it everytime I see this:

And they say history never repeats...