Buy Call of Duty 4 from Amazon

I was struck by this fact when I completed Call of Duty 4 last week - games are becoming increasingly like films every year. Not so much due to the graphics, the score or any aesthetic reason. This game drew me in, so much so that I even began to empathise with the characters. I'm bound to drop spoilers here, so if you plan on playing CoD4 at some point, save this article for another day.

I don't play many new singleplayer games. For the past three years I've had a rather unhealthy obsession with Counter Strike - it started off slowly, I joined a clan and found myself hungering for organised matches every evening, I even went to a LAN at one point. The urge to shoot at virtual representations of real people was so great, it became a dominant part of my life. It was something of a social thing, more about the people than the gaming at times - but that's a seperate story. Most importantly, I began to realise how important a human face can be on a computer generated character's body. I barely touched a singleplayer game during my time with CS; and aside from the Half-Life series, Call of Duty 4 is the only new shooter I've properly played since 2005.

Before now, empathy wasn't a matter of great importance to me; it certainly wasn't something significant enough to consider alongside other factors. People have described feeling guilt when the friendly artificial intelligences die in their favourite games, which makes me feel like something of a sadist when I admit that I relish games with a friendly fire option. To give a small example, Valve explained their decision to make Barney (the security guard) more prominent in the sequel to Half-Life, by describing the people they asked having felt a pang of guilt when he was killed protecting them. Me? I used to shoot the guy for fun. I'm not psychopathic, it was simply that the game wasn't real enough for me to consider it a big deal.

There have been a few games which I've connected with on an emotional level. Grim Fandango was one of them, when I wasn't cursing it for some of the less obvious puzzles. The Broken Sword was another. In a way, of course, that's one of the fundamental features of an adventure game; unless the purpose is all-out comedy, at the very least you have to have a vague understanding with the characters you play - otherwise half of the motivation for continuing would be lost. But first person shooters, not so much.

Half Life 2 left me awestruck. But again, it wasn't because of the characters - in the majority of cases the interactions just weren't subtle enough to create the illusion that these were actual people. Perhaps this was due to the fact that much of the interaction occurs in between bouts of action, rather than during it; bonding in games is catalysed by firefights, and dampened by the absense of them; HL2 seperates the two far too much for its own good. Episode Two, incidentally, does a far better job, but misses the mark ever so slightly in parts.

So what makes Call of Duty 4 special? Put simply, continuous war.

The game starts by throwing you in with characters whom you have never met, you feel no great attachement to, and then throws you into action upon action, tense escape sequences which are tense despite being transparently scripted, and firefights, during which you genuinely feel part of a team, rather than a lone hero battling the entire middle-east. Empathy for your fellow soldiers is not crammed down your throat from the first minute; instead, it is allowed to develop. When your Captain pulls you up into a climbing helicopter the moment before you lose grip, your first feeling is gratitude rather than skepticism for an obvious cliché. The game is incredibly subtle in the methods it uses to draw you in; and when it spits you out, you are genuinely shocked and disheartened. At one point, I began to feel a sense of detatchment as I drifted away from yet another daring escape, in a chinook helicopter. And then a nuclear bomb detonated, in the city behind me. The next moment, I was spining towards earth, not sure if I would survive - the next moment, I was given the opportunity to crawl away from the burning wreck, dazed from concussions and radiation. And the next moment, I was dead.

Call of Duty 4 glamourises war, but at the very moment you ask yourself if it is not just another propoganda tool, you are sharply corrected. From the assassination carried out from the harsh, deserted landscapes of Chernobyl, to the execution depicted through the victim's eyes, the game is far more harrowing than many I have played so far, and does not shy from showing both sides of its story.

The poignancy of the empathy which CoD4 instilled in me struck me very close to the end of the game. After having escaped from a missile silo, I was trapped alongside your team at a collapsed bridge which served as a dead end. From the perspective of a fallen man, I watched my companions, shot one by one by the surviving opponents. With his dying breath, your captain throws you a pistol. I desperately empty the clip .. and then help arrives. The ending provides no closure, and you are left, bitter with the consequences of the war your friends have laid their lives down for, and sad at their deaths. Call of Duty does not simply present the ideals of conflict, allowing the player to act a part. The game, if anything, is an emulation of war, one you feel part of until the closing moments.

 

There's a fascinating graph that can easily be found on Wikipedia here that studies the usage of the terms "Doom clone" and "first person shooter", looking at their respective usages in Usenet posts between 1993 and 2002. The phrase "Doom clone" looks to have been conclusively defeated by "first person shooter" by late 1998, which interestingly coincides with the release of Valve's Half-Life. But like the secretive Trystero in The Crying of Lot 49 (I'm sorry, that's the second Pynchon reference in two posts – I'll try and cut them down) the phrase was not quite defeated, but merely forced underground, along with the games that remain lumbered with the label. To be honest, the fact that mainstream magazines and the game-playing public labelled games like these as "Doom clones" was a bit unfair. The games weren't exactly carbon-copies of the massively successful id classic, many didn't even use its influential engine – it's just that the early competitors to Doom were sometimes looked down upon and have been largely forgotten today – even when some of them were brilliant in their own right. So what defines a Doom clone? Well, by my definition a Doom clone is an FPS released between 1993 and 1998, which use sprites for their characters and objects and generally have Doom-esque technology to work with. Some games on the list are still famous today – others have fallen into at least partly undeserved obscurity. Because of the relatively primitive engines they use, they can often be difficult to get working on modern operating systems – but where possible, I'll offer some advice as to how these games can be played in 2008 (remember that DOSbox will theoretically run them all). Incidentally, for those who have yet to experience the joys of Doom itself, it can be found in a Collector's Edition on (for example) Amazon, and there's a guide to getting the game to run under XP over at the excellent Doom Wiki here. For now though, on with the list – from #10 right up to #1…

At #10: Chex Quest (1996)

Hilariously, Chex Quest was developed entirely for the purposes of marketing a US breakfast cereal in 1996. Consequently, it was largely non-violent and marketed towards children, allowing the kids to play as an anthropomorphic piece of cereal that was tasked with fighting off an insidious alien invasion. Despite having only five levels and having most items from Doom directly translated into cereal-based versions, it gained a downloadable sequel, Chex Quest 2, in 1997 and bizarrely, also developed a cult following. For its audacity and amusingly insane idea of removing the ultraviolence from the grandfather of the FPS, Chex Quest gets in at #10. Of course having done what it did way back in 1996, Chex Quest and its "makers" were way ahead of their time – now giving away free games with cereal is pretty normal – I remember a Kelloggs one by the name of Mission Nutrition from my youth which is now incredibly obscure (deservedly). It just goes to show that breakfast really is the most important sinister marketing opportunity of the day. Should the need to play this piece of marketing history take hold of you, there's a site here that contains what you need to know. In the mean time, see it in action in this video of the first level.

At #9: PowerSlave (AKA Exhumed) (1996)

You've got to give some credit to a game that was largely inspired by a 1984 Iron Maiden album. Unsurprisingly the inspiration is rather more famous and easy to get hold of than the inspired. PowerSlave actually also went by another name, Exhumed, as if to belatedly dissociate itself from Dickinson's outfit. Featuring the alluring combination of ancient Egyptian themes with guns, PowerSlave was released for the Sega Saturn, and then the PS1 and PC, and it was developed by the ever-so-famous Lobotomy Software. Interestingly, the game ran on the Build engine, a more powerful version of which was also used in… another game or two we may come to later. There are plentiful videos of the game around, including this one, the first in a series of speedruns. I haven't got the faintest idea how to get the game running, short of buying a Saturn or a PS1 and an old copy. If anyone has a clue, do comment and let us know. In fact, comparing the videos for Chex Quest and PowerSlave, can you believe it's the former that has a cult following? Sometimes people just can't see greatness when it's staring them in the face. Tsk.

At #8: Killing Time (1996)

Killing Time has the dubious honour of having been developed by the much-maligned 3DO, creators of the similarly much-maligned Army Men series of so-called games. It shares a bit of the Egyptian theme with PowerSlave – you play as a 1930s PI hunting down the now-deranged Tess Conway on Matinicus Island, a real island off the coast of Maine. Conway has turned the island into a haven for the undead using her experimentation with the enigmatic Water Clock of Thoth. Cue much shooting and general carnage. The game was notorious for some of its then-horrifying enemies – meat-cleaver lobbing zombie chefs, and so on. There's a theme that runs through most of these Doom clones – if you tried to develop them today, they'd most likely get banned for their ultraviolent content. Killing Time is definitely amongst those. It had some quite impressive special effects for the time, and deserves kudos for its original 1930s setting and oh-so-witty title. Its intro video can be viewed at your leisure here.

At #7: Rise of the Triad (1995)

Here's a fairly famous one. Developed by Apogee Software (later renamed to one 3D Realms) on a bodged form of id's own ageing Wolfenstein 3D technology, the coolly-named Rise of the Triad was released in 1995 and has a developed a reputation as one of the more gratuitously gory entries in the Doom clone canon. ROTT was designed by Tom Hall (whose famous "Doom Bible" was the legendary design document upon which Doom itself was based) who unfortunately was lumbered with a few technical limitations left over from Wolf 3D. Generally all the walls run at 90 degree angles, and the floors and ceilings are all of uniform height. In other respects, though, Apogee managed to push the engine surprisingly far, at least far enough to power the judicious gibs. Inventively, ROTT also featured a choice of characters with different statistics and different comedy names, including one Ian Paul Freeley. Due to originally having meant to be called Wolfenstein 3D II: Rise of the Triad, there were some Nazi Germany allusions, but generally speaking ROTT was its own game, themed around an evil plot being hatched on San Nicolas island - making it the second game in our list to take place on a real island. Curious. ROTT now stands as a slightly obscure thing sandwiched between famous things - it was in some ways the inheritor to id's own classics, and Tom Hall was to go on to Anachronox and Deus Ex amongst other things. Apogee/3D Realms also went on to bigger things, as we shall see. Again, I don't know how to get ROTT working on XP, but if you do, get in touch. There is a video containing the game's intro here though.

At #6: Shadow Warrior (1997)

It's those cheeky 3D Realms chaps again. In 1997 they were hoping that their new game would build upon the success of Duke Nukem 3D - and Shadow Warrior, starring their new ninja character Lo Wang, was that game. Running on Ken Silverman's Build engine, Shadow Warrior was extremely advanced by comparison to almost any shooter that had gone before. Because of games like Shadow Warrior, by 1997 the term "Doom clone" was looking decidedly old-fashioned. 3D Realms were pioneering all kinds of new and clever ideas, many of which were packed into Lo Wang's ultraviolent adventure. The game was packed (in true 3D Realms style) with huge numbers of tongue-in-cheek gags and comments from the talkative Lo Wang ("You're not half the man you used to be!") and popular culture references. It was an amazing cocktail, but perhaps surprisingly Shadow Warrior failed to emulate Duke 3D's success and consequently its expansions were canned, but luckily resurfaced later. The story sees Wang fighting off his former employers, a sinister Japanese corporation who have brought legions of misshapen beasts into the world. There's a video here, and a site here that gives some very handy info about getting Shadow Warrior to run (as well as Blood and Duke 3D, both of which we'll come to later)

At #5: Heretic (1994)

And so we come to the oldest game on our list. While FPS grand-masters id were working on Doom II, their great friends Raven Software were working on something very different - Heretic. Hugely advanced for the time, (having innovations even Doom II didn't have) Heretic was also stylistically different to anything else around here. A fantasy FPS, Heretic let you play as Corvus, and tasked you with hunting down and destroying the villainous Serpent Rider D'Sparil. Heretic had an inventory, and also allowed you to look up and down. It would also be the first of four games in the series, the sequels confusingly titled Hexen, Hexen II, and Heretic II (I can think of one series with more confusing sequel titles - the Rambo series). With Heretic, Raven proved that a fantasy FPS was feasible, that there were more technical innovations to be squeezed out of the Doom engine, and that they were soon to be respected as one of the great FPS developers - helping them establish their ongoing relationship with id. Thankfully, Heretic is still pretty easy to get running. All you really need is a Doom source port like Doomsday or zDoom which also has support for Heretic. As per usual, here's a video.

At #4: Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)

A licensed game? In a top ten list?! Yes sir, Star Wars: Dark Forces surely deserves a place. Like Heretic, Dark Forces spawned plenty of sequels, starting with Jedi Knight, and then Jedi Knight II in 2002. Dark Forces was a bit of a curious Star Wars game because you couldn't get a lightsaber - whilst you play as ex-Empire soldier and Rebellion hero Kyle Katarn, Kyle hadn't become a Jedi by the time Dark Forces takes place. Instead, you're forced to use various classic Star Wars guns as you attempt to destroy the Empire's insidious Dark Trooper project, a secret weapons program that could crush the Rebellion before it gets off the ground. Despite some fairly horrendous sewer levels (also found in Doom II, of course, as well as Strife) Dark Forces was a surprisingly successful foray into FPS territory by LucasArts. Interestingly, it also features no blood - but then again, it's hardly Chex Quest either; those damned Stormtroopers get what's coming to them. If you know how to get it working under XP, let me know. Last time I played it, it was a very long time ago, and it was also in French - don't ask me why. Obligatory video!

At #3: Strife (1996)

There's been a bit of a lack of old-fashioned proper sci-fi in this list, it seems. Doom was sci-fi (albeit very silly and not well thought out sci-fi, but still - that was hardly the point) and so was Strife, which was released in 1996 by its developers, Rogue Entertainment. Strife depicted a bloody war between two factions in a dystopic environment. The Order are a crazed religious cult who have seized control of the planet - the only alternative to them is The Front, a militant resistance group you become affiliated with early in the game. Using words like "affiliated" should signal that Strife was far from an ordinary Doom clone, or even an ordinary FPS. There were tens of named characters, you could trade with NPCs, indulge in dialogue trees with various people, use multiple firing modes and types of ammo on some weapons, and the game used a hub environment system not unlike Quake II's. The plot was surprisingly intricate, featuring betrayals, horrendous conspiracies, and all centred around the player's quest to acquire a massively powerful weapon that could turn the tide against the vicious Order and their sinister overseers. Difficult to describe, Strife influenced a massive number of games in a way you can't really understand unless you experience it - the list of games that owe something to Strife includes such greats as Half-Life 2, Deus Ex, Halo, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and tons more besides. It's an underrated classic, which whilst not quite escaping its Doom engine roots, did a huge number of things very very right indeed. It can be run using zDoom, to which I linked earlier. Here's a video - the game's intro.

At #2: Blood (1997)

We've heard a bit about which of these Doom clones is bloody and which aren't bloody, but I can bloody well tell you, they don't get bloodier than Blood. Released in 1997 by Monolith (who went on to develop Aliens vs Predator 2, Tron 2.0, No-One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R. and a lot else besides), Blood is still hugely respected. It was really a homage, it lots of ways, to the classic 3D Realms games - it's vampiric anti-hero, the remorseless horror film-quoting Caleb, had much the same popular culture quoting tendencies exhibited by butch 3D Realms heroes Duke Nukem and Lo Wang. At the start of the game, you wake up as Caleb in a grave - an atmospheric start if ever there was one - and vow revenge against the evil god Tchernobog, the source of your woes. From then on Caleb moves through his world's twisted, ultraviolent version of 1928, killing virtually anything that moves in his sadistic and insatiable quest for vengeance. Like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood was built on the Build engine, allowing Caleb to see himself in mirrors (and in the Plasma Pak version, smash mirrors, allowing psychotic mini-Calebs to pop out and attack him) and various other technical enhancements. Caleb's primary enemies were the hooded Cabal, and he dispatched them with one of the best arsenals yet seen in an FPS - including a flare gun, dynamite, voodoo doll, pitchfork, and Tommy gun. But Caleb's deadliest weapon was surely his collection of cinematic quotes - he was alive - "AGAIN!" - and he wanted a whole world of scum to know it - right before he blew them, gibs splattering everywhere, all over the damn shop.

At #1: Duke Nukem 3D (1996)

I didn't do a very good job of keeping my #1 secret, did I? To some it would have been pretty obvious before I'd begun. Ken Silverman's Build engine, married with the talented bods at 3D Realms, ended up creating by far the best shooter since Doom in the form of Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. The star of the show was the super-manly killing machine Duke Nukem, who was a huge homage to Arnold Schwarzennegger and was voiced by the now-legendary Jon St. John. Duke's mission was to defend a futuristic Los Angeles - and the world - from a malevolent alien race. With a set of guns to rival Blood's (including a shrink ray) Duke fought his way through strip clubs, Japanese villas, and a space station, annihilating everything in his path, stumbling across a felled marine from Doom, and coming out with quotes largely robbed from Bruce Campbell film Army of Darkness. And now, we await Duke Nukem Forever, and try not to think of the many cruel jokes levelled against Duke's long-awaited return. Perhaps when Duke comes across the dead Doomguy (and says, "That's one Doomed marine."), that was the very moment when the FPS began to become a genre in its own right, having moved out of Doom's shadow. Perhaps after all, that's what we have Duke to thank for. I for one can't wait for him to come back - and when he does, those alien bastards are going to pay for shooting up his ride. Oh, yeah - a video.

Conclusions

Some people say that today is the time when games, and the FPS, are at their best. I'm not sure I agree. Whilst we've had some astonishing shooters in the last few years, very few have been as imaginitive, original, funny or damn well made as some of those that followed in the wake of Doom. And yet a lot of people look down on some of these games - or can't see past their dated technology. The truth is that these games don't just show the way into the past, but also into the future - I for one would rather see another quality wise-cracking character like Caleb or Duke than another mind-bendingly boring git like whatever the guy from Crysis was called. The sense of humour, the sense of adventure has fallen out of fashion in the FPS world these days - but I think that by looking back to Doom and its followers - and they are followers, not clones, after all - we can see how we can marry modern game technology with wit, verve and style. To the past, and to the future…

My last article detailed how to write a very simple mod for Counter Strike Source servers; here, I plan to go into more detail. I will assume basic knowledge of Python, and an understanding of how to create a simple addon on your source server - essentially I plan to discuss Eventscripts' API and features.

Userids

Each player that joins a server is allocated a unique user id. This userid is used as a key to identify users, and a given e player's name, steamid, health — almost any information on that player — will be available using their userid. For example, to find a player's name, one might simply use the 'getplayername' method of the es module:

es.getplayername(userid)

Es

Importing this module is crucial to displaying any kind of output on your server, and registering the events in your addon. Es contains methods which can be used to:

• Display text or a menu on a player's screen
• Send shell commands to the server console
• Create visual effects
• Affect the player (e.g. change their position/view)

And a whole load more. Detailed documentation for each of the methods of es can be found here.

import es

Events

Events are almost crucial to achieving anything with Valve's source engine. In the majority of cases, events are where you will get your inputs, whether it is:

• User inputs (e.g. Console commands, chat messages, menu key-presses)
• Actions the player performs (e.g. jumping, shooting, taking damage etc)
• Important checkpoints in the game's progress (e.g. Map start, round start, bomb planted)

Events are registered simply by creating a function in your script with the specific name of the event you wish to hook. All of the available events are documented here)

These functions take one argument; traditionally named 'event_var', this is a variable which will store a dictionary containing details about the event when it is called. For example, the key 'player_name' will return the name of the player who the event is called by - if the event is player specific.

def player_spawn(event_var):
..es.tell(event_var['userid'], 'Hello, world')

An Example Addon

As an example of a very basic addon, the following script logs the number of times a player says anything in chat, in a given session, and returns this value to them when they type 'stats'.

import es

stats = {}

def player_connect(event_var):
..stats[event_var['userid']] = 0

def player_say(event_var):
..userid = event_var['userid']
..if event_var['text'] == 'stats':
....es.tell(userid, 'You have sent ' + str(stats[userid]) + ' messages during this session'
..else:
....global stats
....stats[userid] += 1

Docs

Once you've got to grips with the basics described above, the rest is simple to pick up. All of the documentation you could possibly need can be located in the following places:

http://eventscripts.com/

http://python.eventscripts.com/

http://forums.mattie.info/

http://addons.eventscripts.com/

Street Fighter 3 is a fantastic game. Utterly incredible for a rainy afternoon - and since summer 2007, it's been possible to play on the PC. If you want to try it out, all you need to do is follow these simple instructions.

1. Download CPS3 Emulator

I tried a load of different emulators, including the latest MAME, and I had trouble getting the game to work with any of them. (If any of you have any tips, please post them in the comments!). Anyway, this is the one that I've tried and tested, and it works perfectly:

http://nebula.emulatronia.com/descargas.php

The specific file download you want is the one under the 'CPS3 Emulator' heading; at the time of posting, the specific name and version was:

CPS3 Emulator 1.0a Capcom Play System 3 Emulator

Unzip that to your chosen directory.

2. Create CHD and Roms Directories

In the same directory into which you've unzipped the emulator, you need to create two folders. The first should be entitled 'CHD' and the second 'Roms'. Now you need to create a folder inside 'Roms', entitled 'sfiii3'.

3. Download Street Fighter 3 CHD and Bin files

This is one area where I can't help you too much; but there are two files you need.

1. 33s000.chd

This needs to go in the CHD/ folder.

2. sf33usa.bin

This needs to go in Roms/sfiii3/

4. Finding the above files

This is an area of some difficulty, I'd prefer not to link you to the exact places I found these files, as technically you need to actually own the game to use them. Here is a big hint though:

Do a google search for those file names, there should be Filefront (or other hosting sites) which have them, at the very top of your search page. 33s000.chd is about 64mb, and sf33usa.bin is about 512 kb, but you do need both before the game will run.

5. Running the game

This should be the easiest part. Simply load up emulator.exe, select Emulator > Load Rom, and then choose "Street Fighter III Third Strike: Fight for the Future (CHD).

6. Enjoy!

The emulator works perfectly for me, along with my logitech keyboard and gamepad, so I hope you have as much luck! As I said previously, if anyone has alternate guides for different emulators, please post them here; but avoid directly linking to roms if you can, please.

Did I mention, I've just ordered a pretty powerful, expensive gaming laptop from Zepto? Some of its power, I think, might go wasted …

Anyway, the first thing I needed to do was find the disk. It definitely wasn't a DVD case, which meant trawling through boxes and boxes of disks, often with no names along the spines. Three hours later - with a sore spine and a significantly less tidy room - I gave it up.

If you see Commandos somewhere in this picture, please tell me.

—

So I was left with one option, short of buying the game again. I jumped aboard the online pirate ship, and torrented it -

Except, the torrent ran for three days, stopping at a pitiful 7%. So I scoured the net, and chanced upon another torrent, seemingly more obscure, and with far fewer seeders. I had little hope for this one, so I left it to run overnight and checked back in the morning.

And it was done!

Mounting the disk in Windows XP was no problem at all - and installing it only required me to set compatibility mode to Windows 95. Running it was another matter. It loaded fine, got to the menu screen, but the moment I moved my mouse, I was sent straight back to the desktop, with an inevitable error. No matter how I did it - and I was almost at the stage of playing with just my keyboard - it crashed. Unplugging the mouse, unsurprisingly, didn't help.

Cue me trying to run every single compatibility mode combination known to man.

—

Anyway, I'd just recently installed Ubuntu Linux onto a seperate partition on my PC's hard drive, and remembering WINE, I decided to give emulated Windows a try. If it didn't work in the real thing, I figure, how could it run under Linux? But surprisingly, anyway, it did… only at 200% speed. But I could live with that.

Two days later, I'd successfully completed the first four missions, the accelerated rate ironically doing little to help me get through the missions at any decent speed. But still, it was Commandos, I was playing it, and to a degree I had achieved what I set out to do. It was all good fun I told myself. It was all fine now.

And then it stopped working. "I CANNOT FIND DIRECT X 5" it casually told me. What could I do about it? Nothing. Support for this game under Windows is practically non existent, never mind an entirely different operating system.

—

While I was hunting around for a solution, one of the things I searched for was 'Windows 95 Emulation'. I wasn't expecting to turn up much, but one thing jumped out: Microsoft Virtual PC. It seemed like a long shot, but I had a strong need for Commandos by this point, and a Windows 98 disk kicking around somewhere in the pile depicted above.

Nice try. No Windows 98 CD key for you.

—

Windows Virtual PC allows you to run an operating system within an operating system - what better way, I thought, than to run it on the operating system it was intended for? Well, a similar operating system, anyway.

I learnt from a friend that to install 98, I needed a Windows 98 specific boot disk - thankfully these were readily available on the internet. I wasn't so lucky with the actual floppy disk; the first three flat out refused to show any signs of working, and I was about to give up for 'corrupted-file' errors before I found one (dated from about 1992) that actually worked. So I formatted my new virtual drive, and went through the archaic 98 install process, all in a window - which felt slightly weird to say the least. Typing 'format C:' in a command line was not something I felt comfortable with!

I'm glad I started with XP…

—

Anyway, to bring this tale of woe to a close; Commandos is now, for the time being, up and running on a virtual install of Windows 98, within a real install of XP. And believe me, it was worth it. If you play any game before you die, play this one.

Next thing I need to try is to install the game on a virtual install of Windows 98, on emulated Windows XP under WINE in Linux. But that's a whole new day. Right now, I'm off to play Commandos.

Last wednesday I ordered a new laptop. I'll definitely be installing Vista on it, if only for gaming and DirectX 10, but I also plan to use it as an excuse to get to grips with Linux. I've read many accounts of the various distributions of Linux, and they all agree on a few things:

• It's massively more stable than Windows
• There are so few viruses, they're not even worth worrying about
• It's fast

I've used Windows all my life, 3.1 followed by 95, 98, 2000 and now XP, and I'd describe myself as fairly competent at working with it: so anyway, this would be a pretty new experience for me. A few years ago I'd installed Fedora Core 4, and I wasn't impressed a great deal, but this time I decided to go with Ubuntu. This distribution, from what I've read, seems to be fast entering the realms of user-friendly for those with no experience of Linux - that is, it would hopefully be less like jumping in at the deep end and hoping to surface. Ubuntu's apparent popularity among those looking for a place to start in looking for a Linux based alternative to Windows, made it seem like an increasingly good place to start.

So I did. Why wait for the laptop to arrive? I cleared up some space on my pc's second hard drive, downloaded the latest Ubuntu release, and gave it a go. This is my account of it, as a completely new user.

Installation

Ubuntu has surpassed Windows in almost every way when it comes to installing. I booted from the disk, expecting to be greeted with text-based formatting options - instead, I was taken straight away to a fully functioning desktop. I could browse the internet, play tetris, do practically anything, while at the same time running the wizard to install the operating system; I didn't need a SATA driver floppy-disk, a serial number, anything. Installing this system could - quite literally - be done by a child.

Booting Up

The first thing I noticed was, it was fast. Even on a fresh Windows install, my system seems to take an age to boot up, but Ubuntu loaded in the blink of an eye. Once I was on my desktop, I didn't need to wait for the hard drive to stop churning away as it does with XP, before I could even think of opening Firefox. As soon as the desktop appeared, I was free to do anything.

Hardware

I have a bubble-jet printer, a gamepad, a scanner, a usb keyboard and mouse. And I didn't have to install a driver for one of them. They just worked, straight out of the box.

The only driver installation I actually had to give the thumbs up for was newer graphics drivers, in order to use advanced desktop effects - but this was simply a matter of pressing 'continue' when presented with the option, and rebooting.

And that was it. No nightmares with unrecognised hardware, no compiling drivers or fumbling around with a terminal; Ubuntu appeared to do everything for me. I have fairly bog-standard peripherals, but I was still pleasantly surprised that it was so easy.

Software

For the average user, Ubuntu appears to come with everything you need straight out of the box. A browser, an office suite, imaging software … when I did need extra software, it was simply a matter of loading up the synaptic package manager and searching for what I wanted; Ubuntu then proceeded to install it and configure all of its dependencies automatically.

Desktop

Ubuntu groups all of your programs into categories, rather than just dumping them all in the start menu; you actually initially get a top and bottom bar, which unlike Windows' start menu, are infinitely customisable. One thing which really works well is the multiple desktop feature; with a keypress you can open an entirely new, empty desktop, and quickly switch between them, making it even easier to multitask.

One thing I've been playing with from the package manager is Compiz. The built in version is nice enough, giving you some effects and features which become old fairly quickly - but with an update to Compiz-Fusion, you get the works. A multi-faced three dimensional desktop, an alt-tabbing system which cycles you through a dynamic thumbnail of each available window, a seemingly infinite level of zooming-in — the list is huge, and the fact that you can easily upgrade Compiz with plugins means it can be potentially massive.

Emulation

During my time using Ubuntu I attempted to use WINE to emulate two windows programs. I had varied results; the first was CPS3, an emulator I use to run Street Fighter III - this worked initially, with some minor resize problems, but later it refused to load, causing Wine to stop responding. The second was Commandos - the original Win 95 game. In fairness, this refused even to load in XP, with or without compatibility mode, so I expected very little from a Windows emulator - however, it seemed to install and run almost perfectly, the only issue being some slight added speed. Unfortunately, this also seemed to stop working after a few days - without any changes made to Wine. This time, it claimed that it could not find DirectX 5.

How I did eventually get Commandos working - and it wasn't under Linux - is a different story.

Issues

The only issues I had with Ubuntu were probably caused by my own mistakes. That's one piece of advice I'd give - unless you're sure what you're doing with the terminal, use alternatives wherever possible. I attempted to follow a guide to enable the side-buttons on my mouse, and despite following the directions to the word, ended up in 'low-graphics' mode, which I couldn't even fix with a driver update or re-install.

Another problem I've had is with my browser taking me to google.co.uk or bbc.co.uk whatever I attempt to view, until I reboot the machine. I've yet to attempt to solve this one, though, as it's only happened once or twice during the past few days.

Verdict

I'm definitely going to stick with it. The impression I definitely get is that although it may not be the best OS for gaming - or, the limited retro gaming I've tried so far - it certainly beats Windows in terms of speed, reliability and aesthetics. There seemed to be open source software for everything I needed to do, and I didn't have to compile or manually install once.

If you've been avoiding Linux for the 'gurus-only' stereotype, now may be a good time to try a distribution like Ubuntu. It's not perfect quite yet - but it's a damned good alternative to Windows, at any rate.

As part of their Holiday Threesome offer, Gametap have provided a list of games which you can play for free until the 31st of December, including several Hitman games (to coincide with the release of the frankly dire film version), Tomb Raider Legend, as well as some classics like Metal Slug. However, the best of the list is undoubtedly Psychonauts, the hugely acclaimed, and thoroughly enjoyable platformer from Tim Schafer, best know for designing Grim Fandango. The game even picked up a few game of the year awards when it was released in 2005.

Take a look at the list yourself: http://www.gametap.com/home/play/free.htm You don't even need to register on their site. All you need to play them is the gametap player. There are some great games here, a great way to kill time over the Christmas holidays.

Gravity Gun

Yep, it's none other than a Counter Strike Source version of Half Life 2's gravity gun. Makes for ultimate fun, with the dynamic objects present in most CSS maps. And if that's not enough - they all explode on impact.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Realism Mod

With features like heartbeat, heavy breathing, loss of accuracy and bleeding, this addon really turns the game into a tactitions dream. If you shoot someone's arm, you'll render them unable to fire their weapon - and if you've never liked the fact that your enemies can aim perfectly, no matter how many rounds you pump into them, then this mod is for you.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Gibs and Gore

"When a player dies", describes the author of this addon, "they are reduced to a small pile of bones and a bloody mess". Don't think I could summarise it better myself!

> download (server addon)

> servers

Translocators

Exactly what it says on the tin. Just like the translocators in Unreal Tournament, this allow you to fire off a spinning, coloured disk, and at a moment's notice teleport to wherever it landed.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Explosive Deaths

Ragdoll physics are yesterday's technology. With Explosive Deaths, instead of crumpling to the floor in a heap, when they die your enemies will explode. Hugely satisfying.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Want to write your own CSS mod? It's not difficult at all, and all the instructions you'll need for doing so can be found here.

Starting projects for anything new can be fairly daunting - but if you're a fan of Valve's Source games, you can be writing addons for their games within a week. Mattie's Eventscripts makes writing server addons a breeze - and if you want to see the kind of things you can create, look no further than my post on CS Source Mods.

1. Brush up on Python

If this scares you off, hold for a moment. Even if you don't know how to code in Python, it's one of the easiest languages to learn - even if you have little or no coding experience whatsoever. If you can understand simple logic, and have a passion for problem solving, you'll not have much difficulty at all getting to grips with it - and if you're looking for a place to start, check out Getting into coding in 8 steps.

Eventscripts actually comes with two languages built in - I've chosen to write about Python because in my opinion it's both easier and more readable than the inbuilt shell language - and if you're coming to it without knowing either, you might as well begin with it. If you already have experiences with interpreted languages, you'll find Python infinitely easier to follow anyway - plus it's magnitudes faster than the built in language, and has more power.

2. Set up a Source Server

If you're already an admin of a server, with FTP access, this makes things easier - but even still, you can quickly and easily set up your own dedicated server on your home PC. There are two ways of doing this - and I'd recommend the first method over the second.

• Download and install SRCDS from http://www.srcds.com/

or

• Go to Steam > Tools > Dedicated Server

You can get away without a server for the most basic of scripts, but without somewhere to test what you write, you'll be in difficulty when you come to release a working version.

There is a great tutorial for everything you need to do while setting up SRCDS here, I recommend you follow this as best you can.

3. Download and set up Eventscripts 2.0 (or greater)

Crucially, it's only versions 2.0 and upwards of Eventscripts that include Python, so make sure you get a copy from here. After that you'll need to unzip it to the right location: if you're using SRCDS, you need to go to:

C:\srcds\cstrike\addons

And make sure you unzip the files to the directory structure they follow in the zip file. There is an awesome screencast with explicit instructions for how to do this here.

Don't forget to create a file called:

cstrike/cfg/autoexec.cfg

And place the line 'mattie_eventscripts 1' somewhere in there, to tell eventscripts to enable events (this is very important).

4. Write your first script!

• First you want to create a file on your server called:

cstrike/addons/eventscripts/myscript/myscript.py

Importantly, the script name must be the same as the folder it is in

• The first line in your script should be as follows:

import es

This is vital for interacting with the game; with the es module contains all of the functions and methods you will need for:

- Displaying outputs in the form of text messages, menus, effects, sounds

- Getting information about the server and the users on it

And a whole load of other things. It is extremely unlikely you will not need this, as without it you will be unable to interact with the server in any meaningful way.

• Functions can act as in game 'events' - these are called when things happen in game, and let you run code when they do

For example:

def player_jump(event_var):
es.msg(event_var['es_username'] + ' has jumped')

Let's analyse each section of this:

def player_jump(event_var):

This registers the event 'player_jump' to be called by your script. Obviously, this is called whenever any player jumps. The 'event_var' is the variable eventscripts passes data about the event to, in the form of a dictionary, for example, who jumped, where did they jump, what is their name.

All of the available events can be seen here

es.msg(

This is a function which displays text in the chat area of the screen for all players.

All of the available funtions can be seen here.

event_var['es_username']

This is, very simply, the player name associated with the event.

• Variables exist for the full duration of the time a script is loaded

This means that they are ideal for small data storage: global variables exist until a script is unloaded or the server is rebooted or shut down. Gobal variable scope, as would be expected, is limited to the script itself.

• Scripts must be 'loaded' before they take effect.

Very simply, this is so that Eventscripts can tell which scripts to call, which events to register, and so on. To load a script, simple type 'es_load myscript' into your SRCDS console; or, if you want a script to load every time you run your server, create a file called:

cstrike/cfg/autoexec.cfg

And place the line 'es_load myscript' somewhere in there.

5. Documentation and Examples

There's only so much that can be said in the space of one post: in order to fully realise the potential of eventscripts, you need to read up on the forums, see some examples, and understand how everything ties in. I recommend the following links as a means of getting started:

http://eventscripts.com/

http://python.eventscripts.com/

http://forums.mattie.info/

http://addons.eventscripts.com/

Play this game now. It's incredible; you draw two dimensional objects in-game, and they interact with everything else, in a way that fulfils a childhood fantasy I'm sure everyone had. I played through the full thing about five times in a row, and I'm still not bored of it.

http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/crayon/

You'll love it.

Best thing is, he's making an updated version - and if you look at the video for it, it looks even more amazing that the original.

Keys, weapon names, and radio command names for Valve's CS Source console.

Usage: bind <key> <command>

Keyboard Key Key Bind Name
------------ -------------
Space Bar - space
Caps Lock - capslock
Escape - escape
F1 - f1
F2 - f2
F3 - f3
F4 - f4
F5 - f5
F6 - f6
F7 - f7
F8 - f8
F9 - f9
F10 - f10
F11 - f11F12 - f12
Pause - pause
Left Quote - `
Hyphen - -
Equals Sign - =
Backspace - backspace
Tab Key - tab
Left Bracket - ]
Right Bracket - [
Forward Slash - /
Semicolon - semicolon
Right Quote - '
Back Slash - \
Shift Key - shift
Enter - enter
Comma - ,
Control - ctrl
Alt - alt
One - 1
Two - 2
Three - 3
Four - 4
Five - 5
Six - 6
Seven - 7
Eight - 8
Nine - 9
Zero - 0
A - a
B - b
C - c
D - d
E - e
F - f
G - g
H - h
I - i
J - j
K - k
L - l
M - m
N - n
O - o
P - p
Q - q
R - r
S - s
T - t
U - u
V - v
W - w
X - x
Y - y
Z - z
Up Arrow - uparrow
Down Arrow - downarrow
Right Arrow - rightarrow
Left Arrow - leftarrow
Insert - ins
Home - home
Page Up - pgup
Page Down - pgdn
Delete - del
End - end
Mouse Button 1 - mouse1
Mouse Button 2 - mouse2
Mouse Button 3 - mouse3
Mouse Button 4 - mouse4
Mouse Button 5 - mouse5
Mouse Wheel Up - mwheelup
Mouse Wheel Down - mwheeldown

Keypad Key Key Bind Name
---------- -------------
1 - kp_end
2 - kp_downarrow
3 - kp_pgdn
4 - kp_leftarrow
5 - kp_5
6 - kp_rightarrow
7 - kp_home
8 - kp_uparrow
9 - kp_pgup
0 - kp_ins
+ - kp_plus
- - kp_minus
/ - kp_slash
. - kp_del
* - *
Enter - kp_enter

Name Weapon
---- ------
galil IDF Defender
ak47 CV-47
scout Schmidt Scout
sg552 Krieg 552
awp Magnum Sniper Rifle
g3sg1 D3/AU1
famas Clarion 5 56
m4a1 Maverick M4A1 Carbine
aug Bullpup
sg550 Krieg 550 Commando
glock 9x19mm Sidearm
usp KM 45 Tactical
p228 228 Compact
deagle Night Hawk 50C
elite 40 Dual Elites
fiveseven ES Five-Seven
m3 Leone 12 Gauge Super
xm1014 Leone YG1265 Auto Shotgun
mac10 Ingram MAC-10
tmp Schmidt Machine Pistol
mp5navy KM Sub-Machine Gun
ump45 KM UMP45
p90 ES C90
m249 M249
primammo Primary Ammo
secammo Secondary Ammo
vest Kevlar
vesthelm Kevlar+Helmet
flashbang Flashbang
hegrenade HE Grenade
smokegrenade Smoke Grenade
nvgs Nightvision
defuser Defusal Kit

Radio A
-------
"Cover Me" - coverme
"You Take the Point" - takepoint
"Hold This Position" - holdpos
"Regroup Team" - regroup
"Follow Me" - followme
"Taking Fire, Need Assistance" - takingfire

Radio B
-------
"Go" - go
"Fall Back" - fallback
"Stick Together Team" - sticktog
"Get in Position" - getinpos
"Storm the Front" - stormfront
"Report In" - report

Radio C
-------
"Affirmative/Roger" - roger
"Enemy Spotted" - enemyspot
"Need Backup" - needbackup
"Sector Clear" - sectorclear
"I'm in Position" - inposition
"Reporting In" - reportingin
"She's gonna Blow!" - getout
"Negative" - negative
"Enemy Down" - enemydown

I'm always talking about Eventscripts for Source games; anyway, I've decided to group together some of my favourite CS Source mods that are written in it. There are over eight hundred available, so these are narrowed down a fair bit - but they're all immensely addictive, and great fun.

Looking for more awesome mods? Try five more great CS Source mods.

GunGame

A levelling mod, which gives you a new gun every time you get a kill with your current one. This results in incredibly addictive action, and is probably one of the most popular CSS addons out there; all kinds of modifications for GunGame exist, including deathmatch mode, ranks, and tens of custom maps.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Starwars Source

Put simply, this comprises of models, characters, weapons, effects and scenes from the Star Wars universe. There's so much changed that you'll barely even recognise the game for what it once was - and the result is staggeringly awesome.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Deathmatch

This is CS Source on steroids. All of the traditional guns, maps, and models remain - the only change is a respawn every time you die, and an unlimited choice of weapons. After fifteen minutes of this, your right hand will be sore - no question about it.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Hide & Seek

This addon selects one team to hide, one to seek - with an added twist. The hiding players are allowed to choose any model from the map, which makes for hilarity when cars, bodies and barrels appear in all the wrong places.

> download (server addon)

> servers

Bullet Time

This mod allows you to specify triggers for bullet time to kick in - or, if you prefer to let it work its own magic, you can set it to 'cinematic' mode and let it slow down time when there's enough action to justify it.

> download (server addon)

> servers

If you like these, definitely check out five more great CS Source mods.

Want to write your own CSS mod? It's not difficult at all, and all the instructions you'll need for doing so can be found here. Give it a shot!

As part of the promotion for season 2 of Sam and Max, Telltale Games have decided to release episode 4 of season 1, Abe Lincoln Must Die, as a free download:

http://www.fileplanet.com/182132/180000/fileinfo/Sam-&-Max:-Abe-Lincoln-Must-Die!

If you've never played any Sam and Max before, this is a great place to start. Its a fun little adventure game, with some comedy thrown in. Although this is my favourite episode of season 1, the rest are great too, and are available through Steam if you want to download them.

Sadly series 1 is only available on PC, however plans have recently been announced to release season 1 on Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this before today - I've followed the Half-Life series quite closely, and I had no idea they had an officially released game on the PS2 that wasn't available on PC.

Anyway, this is being ported to the HL1 engine, for the pc, by a team of modders - and it looks like they're expecting to release soon. The game will feature multiplayer coop (since Decay was originally a coop game) and nine levels. They're releasing it in just a few weeks' time.

http://decay.half-lifecreations.com/

Half-Life: Decay is an add-on included in the PlayStation 2 port of the first-person shooter computer game Half-Life, developed by Gearbox Software and published in 2001.

Like Gearbox's other expansion packs Opposing Force and Blue Shift, Decay returns to the setting and timeline of the original story, but with different player characters: two female colleagues of Gordon Freeman, Dr. Gina Cross and Dr. Colette Green. Dr. Gina Cross is the model for the Hazard Course hologram, and can be seen at a point in Blue Shift. Dr. Green is a new character invented for Decay.

Although Gearbox completed a PC port of the game, Decay was never released "due to powers beyond Gearbox's control". As such most Half-Life players never got a chance to play through it. Decay is also not available through Valve's Steam service. Decay is, however, being ported by fans, at http://decay.half-lifecreations.com for the Half-Life engine in late 2007. If successful, they hope to remake it for the Source engine. The team has entered the beta testing stage and an official release date has been announced. The port will be released on friday, 16th November 2007.

- Wikipedia

"Life isn't easy when you're a twelve pound ball of tar"

Another awesome game for you to try out. I'm not normally a fan of platform games, but Gish is really the exception to the rule. It's dead simple: you're a ball of tar, you can be sticky, slippery, heavy and you can jump. You have to solve physics based puzzles. And it's all incredibly, incredibly addictive. The single player is refreshing at constantly entertaining, always presenting you with something new - and the multiplayer, although limited to one screen, adds a whole dimension to the game. Sumo wrestling, pitfight, even American football, from the viewpoint of … well … tar.

You'll love it. Give the demo a shot, if you get the chance.

http://www.chroniclogic.com/index.htm?gish.htm

Mount and Blade is a free third-person medieval roleplaying/action game; the idea is that you start as a squire in the fictional Caldaria, and train to become a knight, gaining followers, weaponery and horses as you go. There's some immense fun to be had, jousting in tournaments, fighting off bandits and completing quests - and up until level six, it's all open. Definitely give it a try.

http://www.taleworlds.com/

I've wasted hours and hours playing this game. Hope you enjoy it as much as me.

(more…)

Earlier this week, Eventscripts 2.0 for Source games (Counter Strike: Source, DoD: Source, Team Fortess 2) was released. Alongside the inbuilt scripting engine, there's now support for the incredibly easy to use, versatile and powerful Python. Ever wanted to create a mod for one of Valve's multiplayer games? Now's your chance.

Featuring:

• Performance boosts!: Many existing scripts will see dramatic performance improvements. Core libraries (e.g. popup, keymenu) were rewritten in Python for speed.
• Multi-lingual support: Addons can now easily provide strings files for translation. See the MugMod 2.0 example to see it in action.
• New! eXtensible Admin (XA) - (Coming Soon) Full-featured admin addon, written to be easily extensible with your existing ES scripts. (Join our private beta)
• Automatic addon downloads - (Coming Soon) Admins will be able to use es_install to download and install addons via their console. It will support installing any approved addons directly from the Addon Manager.
• … and more!: Chat filters, tick listeners, raw client command handling, new ways to optimize EventScripts for clan/tournament servers, more VGUI menu support, effect library, bug fixes, web page parsing, reliability improvements, etc.

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