...When I return to the place where I destroyed the tanks, that colourful arrow reappears on my screen and my superior tells me there's an enemy Mech nearby. All I have to do is get close to it and attach the claw and I can steal the Mech. That doesn't sound too difficult.
The obligatory guard tanks give me a bit of trouble, but once I'm around the corner, I see the Mech in the distance. It's big. Really big. But it's not shooting at me, yet. So instead of flying, which would probably only irritate it, I cautiously make my way toward it, instinctively staying close to the wall. Which won't help because there is nothing between me and the Mech.
I'm not scared. Just a game. I'm not scared. BOOM!
Every other time I wrecked my suit, I was carted off back to base and put in a shiny new one; most of those times I fainted and woke up as they were strapping me in. This isn't like that. I'm awake. I'm sure of that, but I can't see anything. I don't think that explosion just wrecked my suit. I think I'm dead.
The good news is I'm not dead. The bad news is I'm not a woman anymore. It looks like I'm inside Star Trek. I don't think I'm teleporting from world to world. I think the game worlds are changing around me. I must have a certain amount of lives in each world. My only hope is that when I die for the last time, in the last world, I am returned home and not treated as just another game character, disintegrated and redistributed among the nets as code.
My crew in Star Trek Land are really quite meek, but that's okay. I think they think they're being respectful. My command seems to involve alot of talking - or I should say conversing, as communications with the crew and other vessels appear as readouts. This doesn't bother me for now, as there is not much to read.
The ship's controls are cause for some concern considering the fact that I'm controlling a Federation Starship and these controls are laughably simple. Various buttons are used to hail other vessels, detect objects and examine. The ship's directional controls are merely a set of steering arrows. I would have expected something more sophisticated.
Learning when to squeal the brakes or tilt the ship are both easy, but I'm glad I'm learning all this at the Training Facility. I am getting antsy to see some real action, though.
How to describe how much fun it is to engage warp? Not as much fun as it was for real, when Kirk did it. For me it was like sitting on a tame rhinoceros while playing virtual hackey sack - on a portable console.
Monday, 30 March 2015
Sunday, 29 March 2015
Nintendo Dreams - Mech Assault: Phantom War DS (part three)
It's surprising how many hits the elementals can sustain from me, due to their being so miniature. I haven't tried stomping on them, mainly as they're much stronger than humans, they intimidate me. I know they're killable, though. The first just exploded. I had to unleash a barrage of plasma, but I did it. I have to alternate between shooting the tanks and the elementals; I don't want anyone sneaking up on me.
That's it, they're all dead.
A yellow-green radar on my screen. I decide to follow it. There are tanks in the way, but after the ambush of the elementals, destroying these tanks is easy.
I've been given a new suit, God knows why. It's not like the mechanised robot which I was controlling from my seat in the sky. This is more like an armoured uniform. I'm only slightly larger than the enemy soldiers. I can still kill them by running into them; my armour is not just for defensive purposes, it seems.
I've got a few new gadgets with this thing, one in particular - the claw! Apparently I can use it to grab onto things. The problem is pulling the trigger for the claw, (it's a complex little device,) means taking my attention away from everything else for a second.
I'm told there is a wall here somewhere and I have to get up it. Surely that's what the jump jets are for. But I realise as I find the wall, a blurry grey monolith, with holes and fixtures, definitely man-made. And begin to ascend, that my jet fuel runs out before I reach the top. Use the claw!
By the time I refuel I've fallen. So this time, as I'm scaling the wall, I latch on and wait to refuel. I realise this is all far too easy. It's not a simple process, but as a player I'm not challenged. There are no obstructions deterring me from getting to the top. No sequence of falling bricks, from an avalanche maybe, or snipers to dodge - like something out of Rambo.
More tanks here. Not a problem. A number of well-placed walls provide me with cover. And by now I'm pretty confident about destroying tanks. I'm still getting used to swiveling the Mech's head and strafing at the same time. Honestly, I can't do this at all. So I hide, swivel, then line up my cross-hair and shoot like mad. But while I'm shooting, I run around in case they shoot back. In a few minutes the tanks are burned.
Nobody is in my ear. The radar is blank. The environment before me looks the same as behind me. I think I'm lost. I got turned around after stealthily destroying the last two tanks. I think I'll go this way. I reach a slate grey platform and jump off it. It's not until I find another one and jump down from there as well, that I realise these are the walls which I climbed using the claw!
No wonder there are no enemies, I've gone back the way I came. If this was a game I was playing from the outside, I would switch it off out of frustration.
That's it, they're all dead.
A yellow-green radar on my screen. I decide to follow it. There are tanks in the way, but after the ambush of the elementals, destroying these tanks is easy.
I've been given a new suit, God knows why. It's not like the mechanised robot which I was controlling from my seat in the sky. This is more like an armoured uniform. I'm only slightly larger than the enemy soldiers. I can still kill them by running into them; my armour is not just for defensive purposes, it seems.
I've got a few new gadgets with this thing, one in particular - the claw! Apparently I can use it to grab onto things. The problem is pulling the trigger for the claw, (it's a complex little device,) means taking my attention away from everything else for a second.
I'm told there is a wall here somewhere and I have to get up it. Surely that's what the jump jets are for. But I realise as I find the wall, a blurry grey monolith, with holes and fixtures, definitely man-made. And begin to ascend, that my jet fuel runs out before I reach the top. Use the claw!
By the time I refuel I've fallen. So this time, as I'm scaling the wall, I latch on and wait to refuel. I realise this is all far too easy. It's not a simple process, but as a player I'm not challenged. There are no obstructions deterring me from getting to the top. No sequence of falling bricks, from an avalanche maybe, or snipers to dodge - like something out of Rambo.
More tanks here. Not a problem. A number of well-placed walls provide me with cover. And by now I'm pretty confident about destroying tanks. I'm still getting used to swiveling the Mech's head and strafing at the same time. Honestly, I can't do this at all. So I hide, swivel, then line up my cross-hair and shoot like mad. But while I'm shooting, I run around in case they shoot back. In a few minutes the tanks are burned.
Nobody is in my ear. The radar is blank. The environment before me looks the same as behind me. I think I'm lost. I got turned around after stealthily destroying the last two tanks. I think I'll go this way. I reach a slate grey platform and jump off it. It's not until I find another one and jump down from there as well, that I realise these are the walls which I climbed using the claw!
No wonder there are no enemies, I've gone back the way I came. If this was a game I was playing from the outside, I would switch it off out of frustration.
Friday, 27 March 2015
Nintendo Dreams - Mech Assault: Phantom War DS (part two)
I keep knocking over trees; that's cool. Shows how big and powerful I am. It's a bit like owning an SUV. This experience is somewhat limited. Everything I look at seems simplified. There's no real texture to anything. I feel like I'm in a war in 1944, on an alien planet, hence the advanced technology.
I'm having fun because I like shooting things and I have a morbid sense of the humorous - so their screams make me laugh. Again I feel detached from the experience. I hope this is okay. But there's no real quality to the entertainment. There's no sense of immense power in my weapons or movement, or in the enemy's. There is nothing here that elevates this experience above a run of the mill commando mission in a heavily armoured machine.
I get the feeling that all of this is just a game, and it feels like a Nintendo game, but that would make sense. I don't know how this is happening, but like a dream, I get the feeling that the best course of action is to go along with it, observe and try to learn something.
The female commander is yelling at me again. It occurs to me that perhaps the reason that I'm a woman and the commander is a woman, is a political decision to try to assert female authority in games. I don't have much time to think about this because I'm back in the field again. It's so easy to kill the little men that I don't even think about it anymore. Cue jump jets, stomp, stomp, and back with jump jets, stomp, stomp.
Now to find the cadet. The most challenging part of this mission is swiveling the mech's head. If I had a more intuitive control system I could delegate the head-swiveling to my subservient brain processes, leaving my main focus as hunting and dodging. Because up until now I haven't done much dodging. And that's why I keep failing, (repeatedly destroying what I assume are excessively expensive mechanised suits.)
This is my fifth attempt at this mission and nobody has even hinted that I might be close to a level-up. The challenge I find myself facing, is this: One of the few men on my crew lets me know that destroying the shed at the back of the compound will stop the tanks from continually deploying against me. But the tanks are guarding it.
I dodge a few unrealistically huge laser beams and head directly for the shed, while shooting off the odd round at any passing tank that strolls through my cross-hair. Then I hit the shed repeatedly, full force. I ignore the tanks shooting at me, most of which miss; I'm not sure why that is, perhaps due to bad programming.
The real danger is that destroying the shed is a milestone that triggers the next tier of enemy - the elementals, who I think of now as red commandos with insane bullets. And I still have to destroy the remaining tanks. Last time I couldn't manage it. But now I'm taking the time to dodge the lasers from the tanks. The red commandos are bigger than human soldiers...
I'm having fun because I like shooting things and I have a morbid sense of the humorous - so their screams make me laugh. Again I feel detached from the experience. I hope this is okay. But there's no real quality to the entertainment. There's no sense of immense power in my weapons or movement, or in the enemy's. There is nothing here that elevates this experience above a run of the mill commando mission in a heavily armoured machine.
I get the feeling that all of this is just a game, and it feels like a Nintendo game, but that would make sense. I don't know how this is happening, but like a dream, I get the feeling that the best course of action is to go along with it, observe and try to learn something.
The female commander is yelling at me again. It occurs to me that perhaps the reason that I'm a woman and the commander is a woman, is a political decision to try to assert female authority in games. I don't have much time to think about this because I'm back in the field again. It's so easy to kill the little men that I don't even think about it anymore. Cue jump jets, stomp, stomp, and back with jump jets, stomp, stomp.
Now to find the cadet. The most challenging part of this mission is swiveling the mech's head. If I had a more intuitive control system I could delegate the head-swiveling to my subservient brain processes, leaving my main focus as hunting and dodging. Because up until now I haven't done much dodging. And that's why I keep failing, (repeatedly destroying what I assume are excessively expensive mechanised suits.)
This is my fifth attempt at this mission and nobody has even hinted that I might be close to a level-up. The challenge I find myself facing, is this: One of the few men on my crew lets me know that destroying the shed at the back of the compound will stop the tanks from continually deploying against me. But the tanks are guarding it.
I dodge a few unrealistically huge laser beams and head directly for the shed, while shooting off the odd round at any passing tank that strolls through my cross-hair. Then I hit the shed repeatedly, full force. I ignore the tanks shooting at me, most of which miss; I'm not sure why that is, perhaps due to bad programming.
The real danger is that destroying the shed is a milestone that triggers the next tier of enemy - the elementals, who I think of now as red commandos with insane bullets. And I still have to destroy the remaining tanks. Last time I couldn't manage it. But now I'm taking the time to dodge the lasers from the tanks. The red commandos are bigger than human soldiers...
Thursday, 26 March 2015
Nintendo Dreams - Mech Assault: Phantom War DS (part one)
I was playing Nintendo all day, so I wasn't surprised that I'd fallen asleep. Though I could have sworn that I never left the house and if I had done, I surely would have taken my DS with me.
The first thing I am aware of is the strap, I'm strapped into a not particularly ergonomic metal chair. The sky out the window is crackling. The next thing I notice is the control panel, which looks to be way over my head. The voices in the headphones assure me that it's simple enough. Press R for fire (possibly because R stands for red and fire is red.) A and Y: look sideways. X and B: tilt view. Arrows make the thing walk. That's when I ask the perilous question, 'What thing?'
My name is Jared, but these people, I think they're friendly, they keep calling me Vallen Brice. And whenever I voice my concerns, I hear myself speaking in a woman's voice. I am a mechanised soldier, that much is obvious. I'm sitting inside a giant armed robot and I'm supposed to save a cadet who was on a recon mission but ended up knee deep in the smelly stuff. He's getting nailed by enemy forces.
When I see people on the ground, they're tiny, and I think they're shooting at me, so I stomp on them, it's pretty fun hearing them scream. I hope I'm dreaming, otherwise by now I'm definitely going to Hell. When I first woke up in this thing a woman was slurring my mission plan. The first time I tried to save the cadet, I was still getting used to my control panel. I ended up shooting a few of the enemy who were harassing him. I couldn't really see, because I was quite a long way from the fight. I must have long-range guns. So I repeatedly fired on the cadet and he exploded. Friendly fire. I failed.
Anyway, I found out that I can actually fly, with what they're calling jump jets. That makes it possible to get closer quickly and when I can do that, they're all easy kills. Unfortunately, I can't tell how exposed I am because this suit makes me feel invincible.
The second time I went on mission, I saved the cadet, but then the elementals killed me. They are these tiny red men with tiny guns, but their energy bursts have a lethal effect. Also, because I can only see forwards, unless I manually turn my head, I didn't notice the tanks I'd left standing, who were shooting at me this whole time.
This is fun. I'm getting the hang of this. Though I've already wrecked three suits. Now that I've understood how to use the jump jets, I just swoop in and kill those tiny human soldiers, and now they don't have time to shoot at me before I stand on them.
The first thing I am aware of is the strap, I'm strapped into a not particularly ergonomic metal chair. The sky out the window is crackling. The next thing I notice is the control panel, which looks to be way over my head. The voices in the headphones assure me that it's simple enough. Press R for fire (possibly because R stands for red and fire is red.) A and Y: look sideways. X and B: tilt view. Arrows make the thing walk. That's when I ask the perilous question, 'What thing?'
My name is Jared, but these people, I think they're friendly, they keep calling me Vallen Brice. And whenever I voice my concerns, I hear myself speaking in a woman's voice. I am a mechanised soldier, that much is obvious. I'm sitting inside a giant armed robot and I'm supposed to save a cadet who was on a recon mission but ended up knee deep in the smelly stuff. He's getting nailed by enemy forces.
When I see people on the ground, they're tiny, and I think they're shooting at me, so I stomp on them, it's pretty fun hearing them scream. I hope I'm dreaming, otherwise by now I'm definitely going to Hell. When I first woke up in this thing a woman was slurring my mission plan. The first time I tried to save the cadet, I was still getting used to my control panel. I ended up shooting a few of the enemy who were harassing him. I couldn't really see, because I was quite a long way from the fight. I must have long-range guns. So I repeatedly fired on the cadet and he exploded. Friendly fire. I failed.
Anyway, I found out that I can actually fly, with what they're calling jump jets. That makes it possible to get closer quickly and when I can do that, they're all easy kills. Unfortunately, I can't tell how exposed I am because this suit makes me feel invincible.
The second time I went on mission, I saved the cadet, but then the elementals killed me. They are these tiny red men with tiny guns, but their energy bursts have a lethal effect. Also, because I can only see forwards, unless I manually turn my head, I didn't notice the tanks I'd left standing, who were shooting at me this whole time.
This is fun. I'm getting the hang of this. Though I've already wrecked three suits. Now that I've understood how to use the jump jets, I just swoop in and kill those tiny human soldiers, and now they don't have time to shoot at me before I stand on them.
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