Amnesia The Dark Descent Surviva Tips

1) Always close the door behind you. Barricade if you must.


2) Try and sneak around, hugging to.walls in dark corridors, hallways and cellars.


3) when dealing with water monsters but
boxes are available, esp two boxes at least, keep putting one box in front of the other, repeat, to make a floating platform, just don't throw boxes around, might go far away, too far sometimes.


4) Always be prepared to run away from monsters (esp in custom story's!) and hide in closets, behind crates/barrels and in an emergency in dark corners or dark rooms.


5) You can throw objects at enemy's and barricade doors. You can also shut doors behind you when a monster is in pursuit.


6) Pick up a box, use it to block a monster from seeing you, using the box to hide from seeing it's ugly head, the monster may not attack you!


7) In unfamiliar areas, always have a few tinderboxes and if possible 1/4 oil left in lantern (or 1 refill) to help explore dark areas, dark unfamiliar areas as well.


8) Custom story puzzles can be frustrating and may even have game breaking bugs. Most of these however have logical puzzles just like vanilla Amnesia. Look around everywhere, behind bookshelves, on bookshelves, on desks (under desk mats too) under any furniture, on crates, barrels, under them, etc esp in drawers, behind portraits and such (under movables beds too!) to find items such as keys and such.


Sometimes doors will open only when a bookshelf puzzle is solved or levers are pulled to reveal a door hidden behind one, etc.


9) Remember that all inventory items before picked up (keys, tinderbox's, oil, notes, other items) have a glow to them esp in dark areas!


10) When a monster surprises you remember to run opposite of it. In some cases you may have to run past it. -R.K.

State of Gaming

"Listening to all too depressing gamer rants, on why games fail to meet their marks these days, wanna know why? They bite too much off, they promise too big then what their capable of.


Medieval Total War 2, was supposed to be multiplayer for up to 4 people, same for Empire, and Napoleon the same. Why they couldn't they go into mass mess story of the why, filled with big words meant to distract you and make you think how they dodged a bullet by being smarter. Till you look those words up in a good old fashioned page turning dictionary, and it all sums up to mean, "we don't, nor will ever know how to do that shit."


My rant isn't the I don't know stance game devs have when they fail, it's their hubris. The fact that they revolve around their games so heavily, when asked what other games they play and are excited for, they lie, maybe this is why games suck massive ass these days, because outside of the games being developed by ass hats, outside their studio, nothing really exists."


Via friend Jesse E. on Facebook


Well said Jesse.

Super Adventures in Gaming: Wolfenstein 3D (MS-DOS)

Super Adventures in Gaming: Wolfenstein 3D (MS-DOS): Developer: id | Release Date: 1992 | Systems: DOS, SNES, Mac, Jaguar, 3DO, GBA, Apple IIGS, PC-98, Archimedes, etc. Today on Super Adv...

The Return of System Shock 2 - IGN

After thirteen years lost in cyberspace, Bioshock's ancestor is back.

By Rick LaneFor the past decade something has been lurking amid the vast electronic tangle of cyberspace: a name whispered with a strange mixture of fondness and fear by those who remember it; a creation that reigned supreme at the tail end of the last Millennium, and then almost completely disappeared. Just a few days ago, however, it suddenly came back, determined to regain its former glory. I’m here to tell you why you should be afraid and delighted in equal measure.


The alluring monster in question is, of course, System Shock 2, often referred to as the spiritual predecessor to Bioshock, the game that earned Ken Levine a place in the virtual hall of fame. For more thirteen years, legal problems have kept it locked in cyberspace, inaccessible to anyone who didn't buy it in 1999. But now, finally, that's all be resolved, and Good Old Games has released a version of it optimised for modern PCs.

Bioshock and System Shock 2 are linked by far more than spirit.

In both form and function, so much was carried over from the harrowing hallways of SS2’s Von Braun to the underwater dystopia of Rapture. The spacecraft is divided into a sequence of open environments, each with its own particular flavour. The story is largely told through recordings made by the ship’s inhabitants. Most of the crew have been infected by a hive-minded alien organism known as the Many, and are less extroverted, more unsettling versions of Bioshock’s Splicers. The tools at your disposal range from conventional weapons to hacking abilities to psionic powers analogous to Bioshock’s plasmids. It even has creepy vending machines.

Bioshock is a cataclysm within a circus, all action and spectacle, whereas System Shock 2 is about survival.

Yet whilst they are structurally similar, the two games play in strikingly different ways. The Bioshock games are a cataclysm within a circus, all action and spectacle, whereas System Shock 2 is about scavenging and survival. The former explores grand political and philosophical ideas, the latter simply presents to us a struggle for existence, as the squishy, organic Many clash with synthetic AI, with you trapped in the middle of this inedible sandwich.

Artificial Intelligence is a massive component of System Shock 2 on both narrative and mechanical levels. Built with Looking Glass’ famous Dark engine, it utilised the same tech that powered Thief, and the standout feature of the Dark Engine was how its sound system was interwoven with its AI system. Consequently, AI could locate and respond to sounds made by the player, and even sounds made by other AI. This in turn influenced another major theme of the game: horror.

System Shock 2 is frequently cited as one of the scariest games ever made. Despite the suggestive title, however, it never really tries to shock you. Enemies patrol freely through the Von Braun’s metal halls, and you frequently hear them before you see them. Nothing leaps out of vents making weird gargling noises a-la Dead Space. Instead of cheap thrills there is a constant sensation of dread, upheld by the knowledge that you are being perpetually hunted, that something might attack at any moment. Worse, the longer you hang around, the more desperate the own situation becomes as ammo, health and psionic energy are expended with each encounter.

Pervading this oppressive atmosphere throughout is a deep underlying sense of wrongness. The ship’s infected crewmembers apologise to you as they try to kill you. Escaped lab monkeys, their brains exposed through scientific experimentation, chatter pleasantly when unaware of your presence, but shriek with rage the moment they spot you. The Cyborg Midwives are the antithesis of birth and life, their womanhood replaced with cold, bloody steel. And the game is obsessed with worms, hiding them under every shelf and table, sometimes in huge writhing piles. Unlike most survival horror games, where you gradually numb to the unpleasant surroundings, the Von Braun becomes more unnerving the longer you spend trapped beneath its metal hull.

It’s a challenge intended specifically to provoke defiance, for the player to demonstrate their freedom.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, there is also the small matter of dealing with one of gaming’s most infamous antagonists. Right at the outset, SHODAN challenges the player directly, and in a few brief sentences demonstrates everything which makes her so abhorrent and compelling, her vanity, her god-complex and her and contempt for any being seemingly less intelligent than herself. It’s a challenge intended specifically to provoke defiance, for the player to demonstrate their freedom to act against her.

Only when SHODAN finally reveals herself does the significance of this become apparent. From that moment, the player is subject to her every whim, and knowingly so. She proposes an alliance to defeat the Many (and of course to regain the powers she lost in the first game). It’s an alliance in which you have no choice, and so you follow her orders and complete her objectives while she taunts and belittles you. It’s this complete control SHODAN appears to have over you, contradicting the game’s own apparent freedom, that makes her such a memorable adversary.

03:55

Fourteen years on, System Shock 2 feels remarkably fresh. The Dark Engine holds up far better here than it does in the original Thief. The clean lines, angles and surfaces of the Von Braun are well matched with late nineties 3D rendering, although character models look rather like the developers beat the polygons into shape with a tenderising mallet. The eerie, pulsating musical score from Eric Brosius also helps to keep things lively. The skills system shows its age in places – distinguishing between repairing weapons and maintaining them seems completely arbitrary, and the ending is weaker than a McDonald’s coffee. The game is so strong otherwise though, that these issues can be easily forgiven.

System Shock 2 was probably the last great game of the twentieth century.

System Shock 2 was probably the last great game of the twentieth century, and it’s desperately sad that a generation of gamers have missed out on it. I can’t help but wonder how the development landscape might have been different had more gamers experienced it between Looking Glass’ demise and the arrival of Bioshock. Its understanding of level design, storytelling and choice in play style is visible in so many fantastic games from Deus Ex to Dishonored, and wouldn’t we all like a few more like those? 
 
Nevertheless, it’s wonderful to be able to play it again; and more importantly for newcomers to access it for the first time. Night Dive deserve a lot of respect for sifting through the rights wrangle between EA and Meadowbrook insurance group and rescuing it from legal limbo. System Shock 2 has been lost in the wild for too long, we should all be glad to see it finally shepherded from the darkness.-Rick Lane via IGN

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/02/15/the-return-of-system-shock-2

Why I'm A Hardcore PC (and console) Gamer

I am a hard-core PC (and console) Gamer and no. Games stimulate our brains, relieving stress, anxiety, worry and boredom plus enhancing critical thinking, logic, multitasking and puzzle solving skills plus reflexes, hand-eye coordination and so forth.

 (Just remember people to take breaks every 1-3 hours of playing a game, for at least 20 minutes.)

Also PC Gamers last year raised $50 Million + for various charity's including Doctors Without Borders (source: PC Gamer) and some games run complex programs that help figure out future cures, treatments for diseases like cancer, etc.


I love console games but PC games are the absolute best. I will admit consoles are more PC like these days.


Great memories of not just NES games but also SNES ones, Playstation, N64 and PC games like SimCity 2000, Doom, Quake, Normailty, etc.


The keyboard WASD and mouse controls are a plus.

Bioshock, System Shock 2

"Both of these games (System Shock 2 and Bioshock) thrived on vulnerability. It wasn’t so much about shooting people as it was about being there, in the moment. Up until the “would you kindly” moment, Bioshock presented a world that still felt real, where you were just a guy with a wrench trying to survive against superpowered maniacs and walking tanks with father complexes."


Alone in Rapture: why vulnerability was Bioshock's greatest strength
Bioshock wasn't a great shooter, but it's nonetheless one of the greatest games of all time. Why? Because it made us vulnerable.

Via pcgamer.com

Why Today's Gamers Should Play System Shock 2

If you haven’t heard at least a little bit of commotion about it, GoodOldGames just got the first digital re-release of one of the most celebrated PC games of all time. System Shock 2 is more than just a popular thing for PC gamers though. It’s probably one of the most important games in relation to today’s console landscape as well.

If you ever enjoyed relatively recent games like BioShock, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Dishonored, Dead Space, or Fallout 3, you probably owe it to yourself to buy System Shock 2. The current console generation has seen the popularization of what some like to call the “first person simulation RPG” genre — games like the ones I just mentioned that combine elements of first person shooters with RPGs in extremely detailed worlds. SS2 definitely did not invent this style of game (that credit probably goes to Ultima Underworld), but it’s usually considered to be the best example of it, and I would agree.
If you still don’t really know what SS2 is, it is the direct predecessor to BioShock, having been made largely by the same team. The first Dead Space game also probably owes its existence to SS2 (rumors abound that it was originally going to be System Shock 3). Now some might take this to mean that SS2 is a less-advanced version of BioShock or interesting to play merely as a history lesson on where BioShock’s ideas came from. SS2 however is largely considered to be the better game, and I would also agree on that.


PC elitists might tell you that BioShock is basically the same games as SS2 but dumbed-down for console gamers, that SS2 still has much deeper gameplay and is still scarier despite outdated graphics. That stuff might be true in a manner of speaking. BioShock is definitely a much more action-focused game. SS2 has almost the exact same gameplay mechanics, but is balanced much more heavily towards role-playing and survival horror.


At the beginning of the game you choose a general development path for your character: guns, hacking, or psionics (basically plasmids). You can dabble in all three throughout the game. Experience points are either discovered as items or doled out for completing objectives (this even has a strong connection with the story), so you can’t grind and you really have to watch where you spend them.
This goes into SS2’s heavier emphasis on resource management. Unlike BioShock and more like Human Revolution, you have an actual limited inventory in SS2, and it seems like resources are almost always scarce, especially later in the game. There were several points where I was about sure I’d wasted too much to have a chance at beating the game and nearly decided to start over. I think it was that feeling of constantly being on my last reserves, more than anything else, that made every enemy encounter scary in this game. That’s what a survival horror game is supposed to do.




It would not be a stretch to call SS2 a Resident Evil RPG on a space ship, and people who miss the original structure of that franchise might want to give this game a chance too.
system-shock-2-artwork.




However, there is one reason above all others why I prefer SS2 over BioShock — how much better the former is at immersing players in its world.




People lauded BioShock for how it presented its world to players in ways console gamers had never seen, but I still think it fell a step short of its predecessor, mainly due to the way it handled its heads up display and conveyed information to the player. BioShock did it basically the same way every game does these days, but that’s exactly the problem with most games these days.




When a character calls me over the radio and tells me where to go, I don’t need the game to then give me an objective marker on the map or a waypoint arrow. If I need to be reminded of what to do, I can just refer back to audio recordings. I don’t need the proper object or switch to glow in front of me, not when the in-game environment is as well-realized as BioShock’s.

In SS2 you get some orders over your radio describing a place and a goal, you look on your map for that place, and simply go there. Signs and other descriptors that would guide any normal person in that environment are enough for you to find your way. Irrational managed to create a world in SS2 that feels so natural and lived-in that you can navigate it as you would if you were really there.

Every time I talk about SS2 I like to talk about the one moment that totally sold me on the game: There’s a section where you need to modify a computer by replacing a circuit board. After a voice recording tells me the registration number of the board I need, I go find the room where it’s supposed to be, expecting a small room where the correct board is the only movable object. What I get is a massive library — several stacks filled with circuit boards, each one able to be picked up and placed in my inventory. When I had to look at the registration number of each individual board until I found the right one, I said to myself “this isn’t a collection of levels anymore, this is a real place.”


SS2’s entire world is built like this. BioShock’s is too, but the difference is that the newer game covers that well-realized world in a bunch of assistance icons instead of trusting the gamer to immerse himself in it. Oh BioShock lets you turn most of that stuff off, but not enough of it in my opinion.


Ultimately, what these kinds of games are all about is immersion — building not a series of levels, but something that feels like an actual simulated environment, with a story that takes place entirely within that environment. That’s why people call them “simulation RPGs.” When it comes to that task, I don’t think any game has done it better than System Shock 2.

Actually Playing the Game

If you’re timid about loading up what may look like such a complex PC game, or maybe have heard some stories about the complexities of running it, you really shouldn’t worry.

For starters, no one should worry about getting this to run on their weak laptop or whatever. SS2 was built for 1999 computers — I’m confident that ANY Windows system built within the last decade will run it without issue. There were issues with getting it to run on modern versions of Windows, but the latest GOG release just cleared all that up. Basically anyone now should be able to buy the game and start playing without a hitch.

Don’t try to play it with a controller though. The inventory system alone ensures that ain’t gonna happen. The whole game is very reliant on having a mouse.



All those things you see now for things like “rebirth” or “SSTool,” are just mods to improve the game beyond the original release. You don’t REALLY need that stuff unless you want the graphics looking a little bit better.
Oh, and SS2 has four-player online co-op through the main storyline.

Lastly, if you actually do check out SS2 and like it, then you have little-to-no excuse to also check out the original Deus Ex (which also has a PS2 version available on PSN), Arx Fatalis (from the guys that made Dishonored), and the Thief games (which a lot of people say Dishonored ripped off).

And no, you don’t need to track down the original System Shock before playing SS2. The story mostly stands on its own, and the original SS game doesn’t hold up nearly as well from what I hear.

Via Venturebeat and Multiplatform

http://venturebeat.com/community/2013/02/18/why-todays-gamer-should-play-system-shock-2/

https://noplatform.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/why-todays-gamer-should-play-system-shock-2/

Alone in the Dark Retrospective, the godfather of survival horror games

Alone in the Dark Retrospective

The Godfather of Survival-Horror

As the '80s gave way to a new decade, a young amateur game designer named Cristophe de Dinechin entered the Infogrames office in Villeurbanne, France with the hopes of landing an internship. To make his case, he had with him a small demo designed to show off a fast 3D engine. As the interview progressed, he realized that he had set his sights too low. He didn't land an internship, but instead secured the most generous development deal the company had ever given a freelancer. His assignment was to turn that demo into a game.

Alpha Waves, as the finished game was called, would turn a few heads. It is regarded by game historians as the first true 3D platform game, and while it didn't inspire waves of imitators, it caught the eye of one of Infogrames' programmers, Frédérick Raynal. He persuaded his superiors to let him take on the time-consuming task of porting the Atari ST version of Alpha Waves to MS-DOS PCs. After the experience, Raynal was convinced of the power of polygons, and he knew what his next move would be: a 3D game with animated human characters.


With that idea, the rest of the vision came together: a haunted house, walking dead, and a desperate plight to stay alive -- just like the zombie movies Frederick grew up watching. Infogrames brass wasn't convinced, so Raynal took the initiative and started working on a demo.

Carnby steps into the first Alone in the Dark

 He developed a character engine that set new precedent. It interpolated the movement of points on a 3D model to create characters that not only animated smoothly, but could bend and flex instead of being cobbled together from solid blocks. Raynal knew that the primitive 3D graphics of the day weren't enough to lend his haunted manor the needed atmosphere, so he created a system that used bitmapped backgrounds to illustrate his 3D space with dramatic (but static) camera angles. At first he thought digitized photos would be the way to go, but before long he settled on hand-drawn art by Yaél Barroz and Jean-Marc Torroella.

His bosses were duly impressed, and placed Raynal in charge of the project. He would direct, design, and program the game. To establish the eerie mood he wanted, Raynal turned to H. P. Lovecraft for inspiration, borrowing mythology and monsters from the Cthulu stories. It was a different sort of storytelling, perhaps ahead of its time. Rather than imitating other media and explicitly telling a story using movie-like devices such as dialog, cut-scenes, and narration, Alone in the Dark would allow players to discover the story as investigators, piecing it together from books, journals, and environmental clues.
The atmosphere was thick. In 1920, an old plantation house in Louisiana called Derceto becomes the site of the unexpected and inexplicable suicide of Jeremy Hartwood, a man who had become fixated on learning about the occult during his final years in the house. Players could choose to play as either Emily Hartwood, Jeremy's niece, or Edward Carnby, a private investigator called to investigate what really happened. Interestingly, since the story is discovered through investigation, the player choice doesn't really affect the actual story. The player's imagination is left to piece together the unholy events that have transpired, not unlike more recent games like Bioshock and Half-Life 2..."

Hello!

Welcome to All Video Games (AVG for short) blog. I will be featuring on my site articles from various video game sites and blogs, both retro, classic and modern, arcade, console and PC games, from classic platformers, FPS, adventure, RPG's to survival horror games not to mention my own reviews from time to time and everything in between.


This site is still a work in progress btw.


Enjoy!