HROT

One thing I'm surprised I didn't question as I was playing it was "What the fuck does Hrot even mean" and apparently its Czech for "point" or "spike".  Thanks Google

HROT is a first person shooter that came out in 2023 although looking at I wouldn't blame you for thinking it came out 1996.  Its a fast paced boomer shooter thats wearing its Quake influence so hard that the developer may as well be kicking down your down with a giant "I FUCKING LOVE QUAKE" neon sign draped around his neck while he plays a Nine Inch Nails album at full volume directly into your eardrums.  That's not a bad thing though, its not like iD are making oldschool Quake games anymore so its nice to get some fresh nostalgia bombs from time to time.  Another game that it reminds me of is Chasm: The Rift, but I've not played that so I'm not sure if it actually resembles that game in any significant way outside of the visuals.  I've just seen a review of it via a Civvie11 video on YouTube.  What is obvious is that it's made by people who are passionate about boomshoot history so either way if you're craving some real old-school style shit, HROT is a good place to go.  

HROT has 3 episodes and 24 maps (plus some secret ones) where you shoot your way through what I think is 1980s Czechoslovakia.  Despite the "realistic" setting of the game, the actual presentation is quite fantastical.  The first few enemies are dudes in gasmasks with guns and grenade launchers but quickly turns into you fighting floating heads, zombies, weird newt looking things and those statues from Dr Who.  Bosses also include things such as gorilla ornaments on carnival rides that come to life, sentient pommel horses and the floating heads of politicians.  If you were worried the grey brown environments were going to be devoid of any personality then you'd be quite wrong.  The art direction is following the Quake brown style but you're never sure what weird thing is waiting around the next corner.  One minute you're in a sewer shooting dudes with shotguns, next minute you're in a courtyard desperately hopping away from a horse in a gas mask while zombies in wheel chairs obliterate your HP.  There are also a ton of funny little interactables in a few of the stages which includes the standard FPS mounted turrets but also fully functional keyboards and little LCD games.

One thing that annoys me about the general presentation of HROT is that I felt a lot of it went over my head.  There are nods and winks to all this Czech art and literature scattered throughout the game, I think, and because I'm not privvy to basically any of it as a nerdy British man who grew up in the 90s, some of the charm is lost on a player like me.  For example there's a level in episode 3, the first one, that feels like it comes right out of left field.  It's called War with the Newts and it seems maybe a bit lol so randum to an ignorant player like myself but it turns out to be based on famous novel of the same name that I've never heard of but now want to read.  I forget how I even stumbled on this information after playing, maybe in the wiki or something.  It's not a huge knock against the game though, it's just I have no idea where to even begin educating myself with Czech history in order to get all the little details the game has to over.   

One other fun thing the game does is that upon completion of each chapter the game gives you an actual cooking recipe to try.  The first one you get for the completion of Episode 1 is Beef Stroganoff which I actually tried making.  It turned out pretty well, was good for a couple of dinners

 The second recipe is for Cauliflower Brains which I'm not going to bother trying and the third is for "eggs in aspic" and honestly it sounds like something that makes me want to vom.  Regardless of my picky tastes though, its cool that such a feature is included.  

HROT is great and you should play it.  A fantastic Quake-like that shouldn't be missed by anyone even remotely interested in FPS's.  Shoot some guys, repel the invasion, learn to cook, simulate a clock when you're finished.  What's not to love?

Quake

A while ago I decided to replay Quake so I'll take a moment to blog about it.  It's a short and simple game so this will be a short and simple post.

I don't really feel like I need to introduce Quake in any sort of way.  If you're interested in games and you've not at least heard of Quake then you must have been living under a rock this entire time because this is one of the big bad granddaddies of FPS games.  It's basically Doom but with proper 3D which isn't really surprising since they are both made by the same people.

As fun as Quake is, and it still is a ton of fun to play even today, this game is really, REALLY ugly.  The level design itself is up to the usual id standard for these kind of games at the time but the graphics are all just brown, ugly castles full of swamp water.  Doom, by contrast, while still sort full of dingy corridors on space stations at least had some variation to its color palate.  The levels in Doom manage to maintain some kind of visual interest while Quake just looks like you're staring into a pool of sewer water the whole time.

Complaints about the old, brown graphics aside, the core gameplay is still really fun and the game itself is a classic.  You can actually get the collection of Quake games on Steam for about 5 pounds and with that there's all sorts of mods you can apply to make it look nicer/play a little better than it used to.  So if for some reason you've NOT played Quake in 2019, go ahead, pick it up and give it a spin.  They don't make 'em like this anymore

FPS Used To Be Better

FPS is one of the biggest genres in the industry and always kind of has been.  A long long time ago we had Wolfenstien 3D, Doom, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D among many many others and now the big players in the genre are things like CoD, Battlefield and other more realistic military type shooters.

But that's kind of my problem with the modern FPS game.  Most of them are sort of realistic type military shooters like Call of Duty.  The only other thing we have aside from that are things like Halo but that's just a military shooter with a sci-fi coat of paint.  These games aren't bad by any stretch but they don't come nearly as close to the thrill of the old school FPS.  The fast paced, acrobatic, labyrinthine and colorful shooters of days passed has been replaced with gritty, realistic yet unchallenging games and I can't help but feel things are significantly worse off as a result.

Most people who hold this kind of opinion of older games are accused of having rose tinted nostalgia goggles but this is one of those cases where those games were just better.  I've recently been playing Serious Sam HD: First Encounter off Steam and I'm having so much more fun with this than I have with any other modern FPS title.  I can have more than two weapons, my health doesn't regenerate for free, equipment and enemies are colourful and interesting, there are secrets everywhere and so much more.  I felt a similar thing when playing Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition a few months ago too.

Even multiplayer FPS was better back then.  It used to be all about speed, skill, knowledge of the map both for layouts and pick ups and that was just the tip of the iceberg.  Things like Quake which used a lot of rocket jumping had all sorts of weird shit in play that I can't even begin to wrap my head around.  Granted things are a lot more accessible now but it's a damn shame that the games just aren't quite as fun.

Still, this is just me and I don't want to completely disregard modern FPS games just because I feel the old ones are more fun.  I have a lot of fond memories playing Modern Warfare 1 and 2 online with buddies and sometimes I find myself getting tempted to try out  the latest version of Call of Duty.  Let's not forget the new Star Wars Battlefront which looks cool as shit.  That said, I'd much rather play some Doom, Serious Sam or Quake than CoD or Battlefield.  Luckily the genre isn't completely devoid of old style games and things like Painkiller and that new Rise of the Triad game are keeping things geared more towards fun than realism and prestige bragging.

The most bullshit top 100 list of all time

The above picture was sent to me this morning by a friend of mine via Facebook and good lord, I have never had a worse start to a day than this.

While browsing a certain anonymous forum last night, this picture popped up in a thread, but given the nature of said forum I dismissed it as photoshopped bait in order to rile people up.  That said, after having it linked on facebook, I had to go make sure so I did a google search.

The picture wasn't bait at all and it turns out it came from a top 100 list written on the Xbox Official Magazine website, you can check out the whole of their stupid bullshit list here.

http://www.oxm.co.uk/57106/features/the-100-most-important-people-in-the-world-of-xbox/?page=1

   Now everyones problem is the placement of John Carmack when compared to Anita Sarkeesian.

For those that don't know, John Carmack is one of those legendary game developers, basically credited for putting the FPS genre on the map.  The lead programmer of classics like Doom, Quake and Commander Keen and well known for working on the more recent Rage.  John Carmack, along with everyone else who worked on those games are awesome people who made awesome games and have done a lot for the industry.

But what about Anita?  Well if you don't know who she is, Anita is a feminist who started a kickstarter so she could make videos on YouTube titled "Tropes Vs Women".  In this video she puts forward badly researched points about how the damsel in distress trope in gaming is "harmful towards women".  Anita Sarkeesian is a moron of the highest calibre who took a large amount of money from a large amount of people to make two shitty YouTube videos that show nothing but her bleak outlook that the idea of a male wanting to protect someone that he loves is harmful to women and we as males should be ashamed about wanting to protect our families and friends.

Yet somehow, this idiot is higher on a list of most important people in the industry?! Are you fucking HIGH OXM?! A man who put a genre on the fucking map, the genre that just so happens to be the most played this generation, is somehow less important to the industry than some moron who makes videos on YouTube.  I'M a fucking moron who makes videos on YouTube, but I didn't need a fucking kickstarter to do it, so why aren't I on that list?!  Yeah, it sounds stupid but that's how stupid the idea of Anita being on that fucking list is.

Also since that picture was taken, the title of the article has been changed to "The 100 most important people in the world of Xbox" which is STILL bullshit because if that's the case, why is Anita on there at all?!  A feminist who talks about video game cliches has NOTHING to do with the world of Xbox.  Double bullshit is that rank 39 is fucking Satoru Iwata, the president of fucking NINTENDO.

What the fuck does Nintendo have to do with the world of fucking Xbox?! HUH?! Are you crediting him for motion controls or some shit?  That can't be the case though because if the kinect borrows its concept from anything, it's the fucking Playstation Eye Toy, fucking idiots.  It's not like anyone who works at Microsoft shares the worth ethic and outlook of someone like Iwata so why is he even on the list?

So you know what OXM? Get fucked, you're nothing but a bunch of morons who have no idea what you're on about and I hope whoever wrote this article encounters a gorgon and has his hands turned to stone so he can never write another fucking shitty list again in his goddamn life.

Yes, I'm mad

Less Shooters Please

This generation we have had a lot of first person shooter games, and I do mean A LOT.  To be honest, I wish this shit would fucking stop.

Before I go on, I don't have anything against FPS games, I actually quite enjoy them but I'm sick to death of going to a game store and just seeing FPS games fucking everywhere.  New Call of Duty, new Medal of Honour, new Crysis.  Good lord, don't people get bored of playing the same kind of game day in day out?

I mean we've just had the PS4 thing from Sony which I mentioned yesterday and already we've had fucking Destiny and Killzone.  Keeping in mind that the other games were Knack and inFamous (and I'm not counting that "announcement" from Square as a thing, fuck off) that's half the line up so far as fucking FPS games.  If there were more games than that I don't care, 2 is too many.

I'm a big fan of Rhythm games, I enjoy all sorts of shit from Voltex to DDR to Beatmania, it's great.  But if I just played rhythm games every time I went to the game centre and every time I came home then I probably would have quit gaming by now, that shit would be stale.

I wouldn't even be so annoyed about it if the styles were varied.  If we had some more Doom/Quake-esque FPS games at least there would be some variation on the theme.  I know it's probably not going to happen because this shit sells like hot cakes but I've got my fingers crossed on there being significantly less semi realistic military shooters in the upcoming generation.

Note: I know Destiny isn't quite a "military" FPS but it's still the same kind of game play that I'm bored of.