The current generation hasn’t brought us many of these games,. The two I know are Untold Legends and Sacred 2. Untold Legends came out pretty early in the PS3′s life cycle, and I bought and played the whole thing co-op with a friend. It was alright, but not really anything special. Champions of Norrath was much better. Sacred 2 was much larger in scope, and held lots of promise. But it was very buggy, and these bugs prevented me from doing several things in game that I think are crucial to the experience, like swapping items with friends. It claimed that I was cheating, when I wasn’t. I tried wiping all my data and doing it again, but got the same result. This was really quite frustrating, and I eventually gave up on the game.

Now Gameloft has ported Dungeon Hunter to the PS3, and I’ve been playing it online with some friends. How is it? Well, if I wasn’t such a big fan of the genre, aching to play a game like this, I’d probably give it a fail and move on. But because I really like games like this, I’m enjoying it in spite of its failings. What can I say? I love slaying orcs and wizards and big fat beasts with knives for hands.

What has this game done right? Well, it has a lot of content for only $13. You get three character classes, inventory management, and skill trees. You level up and buy and sell things at shops. Standard stuff, and enough to make the game enjoyable to someone like me. Torchlight on the 360 did all these things better (much better), but did not have co-op. So I get to play Dungeon Hunter with two friends, which is great.

What has the game done wrong? Lots of stuff. First of all, you’ll notice that the load times are terribly long. Like really long. Long long long. For a game stored on the hard drive, that’s deplorable.

The game is buggy. It has hung or crashed several times. Last night my friend had to reboot his PS3. I had to quit the game and re-enter it. This has happened three or four times now in our fifteen hours of play so far. As well, as you play through the game, fairies join your quest and you can use their powers. Well, unless you’re Steve, in which case you can only see the default fairy and not the others. Then there’s the monster-off-the-map problem. One of the bosses was sitting out on the black nether region of the map, and we killed him from the sidelines. Lastly, there was also a problem with one person seeing quest completion while the rest of us didn’t. We had to kill the same boss twice!

The game tries to make distribution of treasure fair by colour-coding the treasure drops. Only the character of the appropriate colour can pick up a treasure. All fine and good, except that my two friends and I are playing the three classes available, so we’re constantly swapping loot. It would be nice if they colour-coded the treasure according to which character can use it most.

Another big problem is the level design, which is uninspired. Boring even. I just saw some video of the Crimson Alliance game that was recently released on the 360, and I felt shame for the Dungeon Hunter creators. The Crimson Alliance levels are so much nicer, it’s hard to make a comparison. When my friends and I are done Dungeon Hunter, we’ll turn to Crimson Alliance.

There are lots of little annoyances in the game, many of which I haven’t mentioned, but the worst are the loading times and bugs. My friends and I are plugging our way through the game, and having some fun. But I think we’ll have more fun once we turn our attention to Crimson Alliance.

Cheap people are everywhere. They don’t give tips, don’t want to take a turn driving, don’t offer gas money, don’t pay for their share of the pizza, constantly show up at your house eat your food and drink your beer but never invite you to theirs. Etc.

Now that the PSN is down, the greedy people are showing their faces once again. They’re saying that because the PSN has been down for several days, they somehow deserve something as compensation. I’ve seen people ask for $25 PSN cards, for example. Are these people serious? PSN is free, people! How can you possibly ask for compensation for something you didn’t pay for? It doesn’t make sense! If I paid $50 a year for PSN, then maybe I could ask for 14 cents per day. ($50 / 365 days = 14 cents) But you know what? I don’t pay for PSN! PlayStation Plus owners might have a case for their 14 cents, but even that’s arguable because it’s not like PlayStation Plus members are losing as much. (PS+ is more about getting periodic bonus content than it is about having a service that’s constantly running.)

Imagine asking my power utility for compensation every time I have a power loss. It’s not gonna happen. After all, I didn’t have to pay for the electricity while the black-out is in effect. The fact is, we signed up for a free service that’s sitting on the internet. Sometimes these services fail. Just like Amazon’s recent problems. We’re not entitled to anything. If you say otherwise, well I feel sorry for you and how life is going to treat you.

Maybe we can go outside and play with hoops until the PSN is back up.

Good

Operations is a lot of fun. It’s true. There are three maps with an Operations mode, and we played the two that were not in the beta – Akmir Snowdrift and Mawlr Graveyard. We played each map twice. It’s great fun to stop the ISA or pummel the Helghast. The objectives are similar to the objectives in Warzone mode, but the game strings them together nicely with cutscenes that show players that were instrumental in achieving the objectives. I saw my handle in these cutscenes several times, and it’s a blast.

I played the Tactician, and it was only on the second go-around on these maps that I knew them well enough to actually capture the occasional spawn points. Tosh did all the heavy lifting the first go arounds. Spawn points are key to winning Operations, and therefore the Tactician is of vital importance. Being a Tactician myself, I like that.

I am very much a run and gun player, so it was hard at first for me to pull myself back and think before I rushed in. Once I started doing that, my score went up. It also helped that I got to know the maps.

Last night there were several people playing with mics on. This is normal on the 360, but not so normal on the PS3. It was nice to actually communicate with team mates. Great stuff.

The maps look great. I was especially impressed by Akmir Snowdrift. For those of you who don’t live in cold climates, that’s really what it looks like. Made me glad I was on a couch instead of outside in the snow.

Bad

Is there an overall winner? If the ISA get the first two objectives but the Helghast prevented them from getting the third, who won? It wasn’t clear to me. Once the match was over, the game tells you the score, like “2-1″. So does that mean whoever won the most sub-parts of the match won the match? I don’t know.

Unless you’ve played the map in Operations before, you’re going to be lost. Often I couldn’t find the objective, and I was running around like a headless chicken. Eventually I figured it out, but it was quite frustrating at first.

Spawn camping. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but even in Operations mode I encountered some of this. It wasn’t as bad as in previous games (especially in Warzone), but it still happened.

Ugly

Killzone 3 comes with a paltry eight multiplayer maps. Operations is only available on three of them. Considering that Operations could very well be the best multiplayer part of the game, it’s a shame that it’s limited to only three maps. Come on, Guerilla, please patch some of the other maps with an Operations mode.

Summary

So there you have it. My thoughts on Operations. I know some of you out there have a hate on for me just because I like to express my opinion. That’s your character flaw, not mine. But nobody else on this blog seems to be doing opinion pieces on Killzone 3 multiplayer, so I don’t have a problem doing it. Do you guys agree with me this time?

I played some more Warzone and Guerilla Warfare last night. I have some random thoughts.

Map Configuration You might not think that the map in the beta is too big. Personally, I do, but that’s fine. The large field with the broken pipes is a useless no mans land just to fill space. (Kind of like the one area in Fuel in MW2.) But anyway. The real problem, besides the size, is the fact that it’s hard to get out of the lower part of the map. There’s only three small areas where you can get out of the lower portion, and if the other team gets out and sets up before you do, you’re screwed. Each of those areas is easily visible by people set up in the top portion of the map. That happened to us in a game of Warzone last night, and there’s no way we could plant the explosives on the dam because we were very effectively bottled up into the lower portion of the map.

Infiltrator Bug It happened to me every once in a while, and I thought that maybe it was just me and I misunderstood what was happening. Maybe there was another guy there I was unaware of, or whatever. But last night it happened again in two very clear instances, where I could not have misunderstood and nobody else was around. My reticles were green when hovering over an enemy Infiltrator. It’s quite disconcerting to go out of your way to check for an Infiltrator only to be given incorrect information. Anyone else see this? I’ll be reporting this on the bugs thread on the official forums.

Gun Ranges Why can a guy with a shotgun kill me with one shot 80 meters away? And why can I empty a good portion of my Tactician’s SMG clip into an enemy 50 meters away, and feel like I’m spitting marshmallows?

Unlock Point Confusion Okay, I want to know: what is rule for getting unlock points? I thought I got unlock points when I levelled up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Do you get them every 10k XP? What? Enquiring minds want to know.

I played some more KZ3 beta last night, and before I get into it I’d like to make some comments. First, I’m only one person, and this is only my opinion. Second, I know this is a beta, but if I can’t criticize a beta, then they shouldn’t have released it. Also, this game is close to release. Those of you saying “it’s only a beta, the final version could be much different” don’t realize how software development works. The final version will be just like this. Let’s just hope that they patch it. Third, I keep playing it because I want to like it, believe it or not. I know I’ve been doing a lot of complaining, but I bring to the fore issues with the game that need correcting. I played KZ2 quite a bit. Those of you who were around for KZ2 will remember all the game nights I put together. I like the franchise, and I want it to improve, and I want to enjoy it. Fourth, to those of you who like to insult me because I express my opinion: grow up. Or not. I like a good laugh.

Okay, let’s get into it. I played several matches of Guerilla Warfare last night, and nothing else. So these comments are about that.

Before I get into the meat of it, those of you who don’t have spawn issues should watch a little more carefully. Last night I caught someone by surprise right at the start of a fresh game and killed him within seconds of the match start. First blood, and he definitely didn’t see it coming. While I enjoyed the kill, I acknowledge that it was totally unfair.

So last I decided that if I can’t do well at the game playing the class I want to play (Tactician), that I would try one of the classes I dislike playing against. I couldn’t bring myself to play the Infiltrator, so I chose the Marksman.

How did I do? Well, to put it mildly: extremely well. I went from one of the players that don’t really make a difference to probably the best performer on the team. For almost all the matches. I didn’t get the highest number of kills, but I turned in the highest number of kills over deaths. And in Guerilla Warfare, that’s what matters. I routinely got games where I went nine and two, or nine and one. (For some reason, nine kills was a very common number for me.) I often got a ribbon for the highest k/d ratio.

I know you’re thinking “Nine kills? What’s the big deal about nine kills?”. Yeah, I’m not the best player in the game. I never said I was. But a score of nine and two contributed a lot more to the win than the “top” player that went 15 and 12. If you don’t understand that, please don’t reply. The leader boards at the end of a Guerilla Warfare match are not organized by contribution to the win, instead they’re organized by the number of kills, which isn’t the same thing.

Anyway, I’m trying to point out that going from a Tactician to a Marksman greatly improved my score. I did a lot better playing a cheap hide-in-the-corner class than playing a class that is more team oriented. Sure, it was very satisfying to turn around and kill two people who were standing right next to me who didn’t see me. But this is adversely affecting the game. Last night I didn’t see a single Medic. There’s no incentive to play the Medic. I rarely saw Tacticians or Engineers. Some games, there wasn’t a single Engineer on my side, so we had no resupply depots. I had to scrounge around for weapons when I ran out of ammo. Is this what you guys want? Everyone playing Marksman or Infiltrator?