Alien Swarm

[Aqua]

you can even draw on the map to plan your moves, just like John Madden

That sounds like an awesome feature!

Its nothing fancy, but during the game you can bring up the map and draw in yellow. That then also shows up on your mini map, so you can follow the drawing you made.

Oh ok. So your teammates don't see it? I thought it would be an interesting way of communicating with your team.

I'm pretty sure you can see it.
I had a game where a teammate drew a penis on the map.

Heh... All of my teammates did that, among other things.

I got bored pretty quick, but still looks neat. I'd like to see what mods come out.
~Aqua

[Cactuscat222]

So I've enjoyed it thus far, and I agree, I can't wait to see with what people can come up with.

Though, I've been reading up, and people have found alot of server-sided commands the host can use to switch things up: The most notable is the command "asw_horde_override 1" - activating that makes an AI Director, similar to that of L4D, and apparently makes the game incredibly hard, but random and fun.

People have also discovered a tile generator for making quick maps. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Swarm_TileGen

[DarkBlade325]

I have watched the videos. My issues with left for dead primarily revolve around being able to run at super speed, kill things with apparent ease, and general, all around lack on actual skill to play. Whereas say, Call of Duty requires you to truly think through what you are doing, play slowly, take cautioned steps, Left for dead rewards you for running ahead, at the super speed, and just holding the trigger and going nuts. Not to mention it seems to take a thousand and one bullets to die, and even then, you have your allies to back you up. Yet all the enemies take a bullet or two and they are down. Since I haven't played L4D in over a year, and even then barely, I really can't adequately describe why I dislike the game. None the less, this looks to feel the same. Their is utter chaos around you. It's all about moving around as quick as you can, holding down the trigger non stop and hoping like hell one of the thousand things around you doesn't rip you a new one.

Not to mention I don't have steam, thus it's not free.

I dunno how you played L4D, but if you ran ahead in that game, your ass would be raped by Smokers and Hunters so fast your game would punch you in the face through your monitor for being so stupid. And if you're seriously telling me that you can just bumrush a L4D campaign on a high difficulty setting, I think you only played it on Normal. On Expert, you get hit 5 times; 5 times, and you go down. It goes for all Common Infected. You CANNOT run through a L4D Expert game without having your balls ripped off and slammed down your throat unless you've had alot of practice and with a team that will run with you. If you run alone on expert, you'll either get Special'd, or 5 hit KO'd by a Common Infected. And if you somehow manage to get past all that, a Tank will be right around the corner and block your path and send you flying to the moon. It IS easier to bumrush in L4D2 due to adrenaline and other things, but even then it's hard.

If you've played for a while, it's quite easy to bumrush a L4D Advanced difficulty. But why are you even attempting to speedrun anyways? Of course it'll ruin the fun. You want a campaign that'll make you slam your head into the desk due to difficulty, play on Expert. Or hell, try downloading one of those custom campaigns that last 2 hours and play THAT on Expert. I can guarantee you will not complain about the game being easy. And as I said before, you shouldn't even be trying to rush L4D unless you want bragging rights. And im just talking about Campaigns! You try running ahead on a Versus game and tell me how it works out for you.

As for Alien Swarm, Ive been getting butt!@#$ed by the game's difficulty, even on Normal. Though I will say it's mostly due to the parasites, and because I havn't played alot. I seriously hate those Facehuggers though.

[Cactuscat222]

I've made it through the campaign on Easy through Hard now... so my group decided to try Insane difficulty...

It truly is insane. The leap in difficulty is massive. On Easy - Hard, the enemies stay the same except for damage and how much they take to kill. In Insane, the hardest aliens are on the first level, in the first room you enter. And enemies that weren't there before in the other difficulties start running out of everywhere. I'm not sure when we are going to get through it, haha.

[Forum]

I tried today and got owned :(. Still learning though.

[Scotty]

Chaos, Jake and I all took a whirl at it.  I got my first tasting of it on nothing less than Hard, and at that point, I think you need a well rounded team to succeed.  You need a medic, you need a tech, you need a blow-em-to-bits gunner.  If you lack any of the vital classes, you're screwed!  All in all though, it was Hella fun!

[DarkBlade325]

Chaos, Jake and I all took a whirl at it.  I got my first tasting of it on nothing less than Hard, and at that point, I think you need a well rounded team to succeed.  You need a medic, you need a tech, you need a blow-em-to-bits gunner.  If you lack any of the vital classes, you're screwed!  All in all though, it was Hella fun!

I honestly see no reason for the Officer class...What the hell is the stat 'Leadership' good for when your team mates do whatever the hell they want? I just see 1 Medic, 1 Tech, and 2 Special Weapons for the best balance. Or maybe 2 Medics, 1 Tech, and 1 Special Weapons.

[Scotty]

I haven't played with the Officer class, so I have no idea myself either.  I might try later on to see for myself.

[sn0wb0arder381]

I downloaded this the other day and haven't gotten around to playing it yet. Looks like a lot of fun, though. Apparently some guys found evidence of Episode 3 in the SDK for this game or something. I'm too lazy to search for a link, though.

[Cactuscat222]

Chaos, Jake and I all took a whirl at it.  I got my first tasting of it on nothing less than Hard, and at that point, I think you need a well rounded team to succeed.  You need a medic, you need a tech, you need a blow-em-to-bits gunner.  If you lack any of the vital classes, you're screwed!  All in all though, it was Hella fun!

I honestly see no reason for the Officer class...What the hell is the stat 'Leadership' good for when your team mates do whatever the hell they want? I just see 1 Medic, 1 Tech, and 2 Special Weapons for the best balance. Or maybe 2 Medics, 1 Tech, and 1 Special Weapons.

Because the Officer class has the Vindcator, a high clip hella powerful shotgun. Top that off with landmines, where he can put down 3 landmines with a single toss (and it still only consumes 1 landmine), and you've got yourself just as heavy of a gunner as the special weapons class.

[Lingus]

Finally got to play this last night for a brief minute. Played the single player version just to get the hang of things. It's pretty cool. I like the style of it. It will take me a while to get the hang of all the different classes and weapon combinations and strategies and tactics, but for the most part the game play is great fun. I think this kind of shooting game is great because you have the option of using strategy or not. You can just run in there and shoot the crap out of things, or you can take your time and plan moves and work with your team and what not.

[Meiun]

Played it a bit with my brother earlier tonight and loved it! Very cool game in my opinion. It has some great tactical game play mechanics, persistent item unlocks, is quite challenging, not to mention that it is all highly mod-able with a good level creator and whatnot.