Sunday, January 29, 2012

Project Savior Public Alpha

You wanted it - you got it! Project Savior Public Alpha is now on ModDB!!!

Download and check out

This release is dedicated to Michelle Mayfair - Happy Birthday, my beloved tiger!!! :* :* :*

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Contacts, Badges, Other Good Stuff

I have decided to move my contact info to a separate post, just to make the blog design more strict. So, here it all goes:

Skype: einhanderzwei



LinkedIn Profile
VK.com Profile
DeviantArt Profile

Proud member of

fan forum!


Download the old blog backup: COMING SOON

Project Savior page is a part of
Mod DB - Change the Game

BONUS 1:

These guys unknowingly lent me a hand in PROJECT SAVIOR content creation, so check these projects out:





And these guys have made the engines for the Teaser and the game:



charnold

BONUS 2:

Some cool Russian (mostly) fansites, make sure to check 'em out!

Tёsha Software

Arrakis Ways - The Dune Fansite


USERBARS, FANLISTINGS AND THE LIKE:

Friday, January 13, 2012

12 MORE Screens!!!

Here are 12 screenshots for you, showcasing the sights of MAP02:

  
  
  
  

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Killzone [2004] (FPS)

As this FPS masterpiece is scheduled to hit PSN release sometime later this month, why not review it!
Developer: Guerrilla Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Designer: Roy Postma
Composer: Joris de Man
Platform: PS2, PSN (upcoming)
Release year: 2004
Genre: FPS
System requirements: PS2, the best console in the world :)

      

Some say that console FPS games are nothing compared to the ones on PC. Some say that twinstick is the worst control scheme ever. Some even say that Halo: Combat Evolved is a good game. The truth is always somewhere in between. I've tried a zillion of console FPSes, some crappy (Cyber-Cop, Duke Nukem 3D for Genesis) and some really good (Zero Tolerance, Marathon 2 XBLA remake, Disruptor, Powerslave) ones. I'm usually very skeptical to the big-budget Call Of Duty ripoffs that sadly have flooded the market in recent years, but one such game has turned out to be a surprise hit in my gaming library.

Effective May, 14th I've became a fan of Guerrilla Games' Killzone. Picking up the PS2 controller, I was totally understanding that it's a new-school FPS without strafe jumps (and jumps in general, there isn't even a control button for that), with sniper duels and covers instead of adrenaline-fueled Quake-esque action. I perfectly comprehended that it was indeed a Call Of Duty ripoff, which meant something that I'm supposed to hate from the start. But thank God, the developers did take several risks that managed to redeem the whole experience.

- A good storyline! Thankfully, Killzone is not overblown with pro-American overtones, and we're not playing as a member of the elite counter-terrorist group running around the desert shooting down the same enemy models again and again, having to stop the nuclear missile and rescue the princess in another castle. What we get instead is a decent plot about Terran colonists from the planet Helghan deciding to come back and reclaim the planet that once was their homeworld, but now has abandoned the colony. Our heroes are forced to stop them, because the Helghast are unlikely coming in peace. Actually, as the badass intro cutscene shows, they deploy a hell of a military arsenal and launch the full-scale attack, rendering our planet in ruins and fields of corpses, so the good guys are forced to get heavily armed and ready to kill. As the counterattack is proceeding, the Earth military superiors seem to be giving legit orders to our team, but later in the game something makes this trust give a breach...

- Memorable characters. Here we have a charismatic cast right off a quality warsploitation movie like 'Starship Troopers' or 'Operation Delta Force'. Each character is slightly overdeveloped even by the old school FPS standards, and there are no blands here - everybody has something to say or do in order to keep the plot going, may it be Templar the Paladin-Of-Light (primary protagonist), foul-mouthed Rico, wormy Adams or the rest of the gang. There are even some good one-liners ('What the fuck is the Shakespeare?'). I'd especially like to praise Ms. Luger, because the character designer dared to have enough balls to give a female soldier no cleavage and balloon-sized breasts, in a PS2 game with 16+ rating. Bravo, Guerrilla Games!

And the last, but not the least:
- GOOD GAMEPLAY. Yeah, Killzone does have some charming idiocy a-la 'Press the Shoot button to shoot', invincible fellow bots and endless enemy ammo clips, but it still manages to be fun, stimulating, hardcore, and not without appeal in constant switching between covers and standoffs. You receive no penalties for behaving as Rambo, though there are no stupid Soldier Of Fortune 2-style game-overs for being an idiot and wandering around. After all, you are in the killzone, son, so use all the means available to advance and conquer.

The graphics are very good and detailed as far as PS2 games go, although someone may find the sprite muzzle flashes and blurry textures disappointing. Overall, the level designs are really intricate, with good feel of the environment (especially the indoor parts). It may not look anything special today, but for the time the graphics are stylish and vibrant. Same can be said about the music - I'm not a big fan of Hans Zimmer school of epic orchestral sludge (minus the Broken Arrow OST), but here it fits perfectly, creating the dramatic and suspenseful atmosphere of future war. Blasting through Helghan hordes wouldn't be so much fun without the soundtrack.

Nothing in this world is perfect, and I do have a couple of complaints, too. After you beat the game, you can start it over with one of the 4 playable characters (which get unlocked during the first playthrough as they appear in the story). That's nice, but a cutscene or artwork gallery wouldn't hurt, too. Well, maybe I'm just a stinky filthy rich who automatically compares all the games with unlockables to God Of War, heh. But the character selection is pretty neat, as each of them has his/her own set of starting weapons and a unique gameplay feature (Luger can use the ventilation shafts, Hakha can bypass the forcefields, etc.)

What do we have in total: badass title, badass plot, badass villains, decent graphics and music, engaging gameplay, charismatic and memorable characters - yeah, Killzone was a great surprise for me!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Project Savior: Latest News

Alright, d00dz! As the demo release is going to hit the Duke Nukem Forever development cycle, here are some news to hold you over:

FEATURES ALREADY IMPLEMENTED:
- Partial interface (minus the Statusbar);
- The soundtrack;
- Story elements and dialogue;
- Camera switches;
- A cameo by the Baykal soda drink!
- Three weapons: fist, BloodSucker and the Machine Gun;
- Zombie nurses;
- Scavenger, the first boss (and the only one in the demo);
- MAP01 and partially MAP02;

FEATURES TO DO:
- MAP02-MAP05 (that's right, another bonus level!);
- Maybe redo the chaingun (current sprite is OK, but the perspective is a bit off);
- Exclude unused patches from WAD;

ISSUES THAT I'M AWARE OF, BUT WILL BE OCCURRING IN THE DEMO:
- I think that the level decorations quality greatly varies - some rooms are plain grey boxes connected to others which are overly detailed; also, the levels try blending 'realistic' and 'abstract' approaches - will be fixed based on feedback;
- One of the maps is generated by SLIGE and enhanced by myself. I've decided to include it, as it was the map I've playtested the earliest builds of the mod. Of course, I don't claim that I have done it fully myself :)
- There's no crouch sprite ingame, though crouching and jumping are required for the gameplay
- Some of my custom textures are pretty shitty. I'll do my best to fix them, but in the full version they'll sure be redone from scratch;
- No difficulty levels. They'll be defined in the full version - right now all the levels don't differ too much;
- The character sprites really give away their MD3 origin;
- The SMALLFONT I used has rendered the Options section to a mess. It'd be better to set up the game before you launch the demo;
- The scripts and lump placement is a mess, as are the DECORATE contents - will be sorted and cleaned out;
- Stability with DOOM 2 IWAD is not guaranteed. Use FreeDoom IWAD, since that is the base!
- I won't fix the above things not due to laziness or time constraints, but because they are not critical to the gameplay and story delivery - the main things I want to showcase.

Stay tuned! I promise you won't be disappointed.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Project Savior: ZDemo Screenshots

15 suspenseful and scary shots from the upcoming Project Savior ZDemo! Enjoy.