Memorial Day

Memorial Day, for most Americans is just a reason to have a cook out. Not that I don’t advocate such activities, who doesn’t want to commemorate soldiers who died by sitting around drinking to the point that you are not embarrassed that your uncle is wearing that “fuck the chief” apron, Eating a week worth of calories in a single sitting? Well, I wanted to memorialize a different kind of solider today, an unsung hero, the video game soldier. I understand that this is an American holiday but I also did not want to restrict my observance to just digital Americans that have fallen.

This Post goes out to Peter. Peter decided to join the Wehrmacht to defend the fatherland from the evils of the western world. How proud he was standing next to his brothers. It was only one man they whispered down the ranks. A single Paratrooper from the 101st Airborne, they were many he was but he was alone. Peter did not believe the wild rumors that this paratrooper single handedly took the town of Carentan. They had several MG42's, Panzershrecks, and assorted small arms; defensive emplacements consisting of metal barrels and sand bags protected them from this futile American’s attempt at thwarting the thousand-year plan. The last things Peter would have remembered were his friend Hanz, who grew up in the same village on the Austrian border, diving behind one of their defensive barrels only to see it ignite causing small pieces of his beloved comrade to cascade down his face and green fatigues. Peter was frozen unable to conjure any of the training in which he was given. All he could do is stare and wonder as he watched his brethren fire volley after volley of automatic fire at the lone American, only to see when they did find their mark(which was not often) that the American beast did not slow or even flinch in his methodical massacre. Peter finding little strength before his brains became so much chunky red paint upon the back wall was to utter a single word....”Alarm.”

The truth is the number of digital soldier who have died in combat have vastly outnumbered those who died in actual combat. That is why I would like you to join me in a silent prayer for all of the hapless villains of gaming. For Peter and Hanz, for the countless Terrorists and Counter-terrorists locked in their deadly struggle to plant and diffuse bombs in seeming uninhabited and strategical unimportant locales. To the various foolish alien races who decided that invading Earth was somehow easy, or a good idea. Why, I memorialize these poor souls is simple, they could not have possibly known that one man/space marine/scientist was not a man but in fact a W.A.S.D. ninja, a quick save knight, a man blessed with a complete lack of conscience, and an endless reservoir of resolve.

Portal: The Flash Version Map Pack Review

Published by: WeCreateStuff.com
Made By: Hen Mazolski


What first got me interested in Hen Mazolski was his Flash Version of Portal which I found at www.kongregate.com. This semi-popular game never really snagged my attention past a momentary, “Oh, well that is neat.” The Controls were a little flimsy and while adding in some cool new elements, such as electric platforms and laser kill walls, I never really gave it much more then a five minute fancy.

So fast forward a few months and it seems that Mr. Mazolski has been busy converting all 40 plus levels of his flash game into the actual engine of Portal. Now this prospect really piqued my interest. Directly upon reading this exciting news in Kotaku I raced over to his site www.wecreatestuff.com and promptly downloaded it. After the simplistic install process of dragging a few folders I was ready to face the trials of Aperture Science once again. The Map pack fits seamlessly into the bonus maps section of the original, but is less of a map pack and more of a second story mode. You play as another test subject forced to run jump and shoot your way through Gladdos’ little maniacal romper room. This version reuses a lot of your nemesis’ dialogs, which considering she is a computer, Who sole purpose to run people like mice throughout her “tests,” ends up being more endearing then distracting. Though there are a few times that I am almost 100 percent certain that Hen somehow flawlessly adds in some new dialogue for Gladdus. This game also boasts a (while not in any way official to the cannon) development in the plot that connects the Half-Life series with Portal. This prospect while initially very frightening to me like someone deciding to rewrite purposely vague parts of some holy text so that it sits better with his narrow little world view. But fear not, having completed it I can safely say that it was if not official at least it was tastefully done.

Now onto the meat and potatoes of this mod. Considering that it uses the same engine and assets as portal there is no real point to talk about things such as graphics, physics and so on but there is still a lot to pick through in this mod. The new challenges that you face in this such as the previously mentioned electric platforms, walls of killer lasers, and some strange force field that allow you to shoot though but can’t move through are neat but are not all that much of a hindrance to your progress. Hen’s level design as a whole throughout this is top notch his puzzles are smart, inventive, and have a feel very similar to Portal’s. My only real fault with any of the puzzles, or mostly one in particular is that Portal being more of a puzzle game set in first person and less of a first person game with puzzles. I get very frustrated when I figure out how a puzzle is supposed to work but just can’t implement it. Now this is the point I preempt any thoughts of “ I bet he just sucks and is blaming his lack of skillz on bad design.” While this portal is designed to be more challenging, which I applaud, lets call a spade a spade. There is a puzzle where after finding that you do not have the requesist materials on hand to “properly” finish it you have to shoot yourself up a small tube to reach a ventilation shaft. This became for me less about how to shoot myself correctly and more about how not to throw my keyboard through my monitor. But I digress, considering the 3 plus hours of orange and blue holes in reality fun that this free game contains I can’t really rag too much on one testy, maddening, should have been caught by the testers, puzzle. Now that my only real gripe has been satiated we can move onto my second lesser gripe, the last boss/encounter.

SPOILER ALERT...WELL KIND OF. The last boss which surprise ,surprise is Gladdos again. My problem is not with who is the last boss, but rather how in theory it was such a good idea that fell short. Gladdos sometime after the events of the original, decides that it would be prudent to get some kind of giant robot suit thing. While in retrospect it ain’t too shabby of an idea...Anyway back to the point you see this newly acquired battle suit and do the only logical thing when faced with a blood crazed, anti-social, smart mouthed, science bot wrapped in some armor you might have seen in Robot Jox, which is to promptly shit your pants and run from it. This could have been a very cool if they would have just made said robot a little faster, after your 2nd or so jump away from her you don’t really have that impending doom feeling anymore and I just ending up jumping up and down and taunting her. But after you get through your little gauntlet you just end up in a Aperture Science parking garage. At this point you gotta trick her into shooting herself with her new fangled ray gun. SPOILERS ARE OVER. But all in all it’s not a bad encounter by any means, I’m just a little disappointed that you couldn’t run from her and use her own puzzles against her or something, cause that would be some serious poetic justice.

Now comes the really hard paragraph. This is the conclusion, where I sum up what I thought about complex game in an overly simplified numerical denomination/ letter grade which in turn you digest and decide to buy or not buy this game. But guess what kids? Your shit out of luck this time cause all this gonna cost you is 40 megabits worth of hard drive space. So by normal rational this game should get a 1000 out of 10 or some such nonsense. There is no reason to miss out on this great mod. Hen’s level designing skills are at a professional calabur. So after reading this promptly go to www.wecreatestuff.com and download this. And while you are there get “Nightmare House: Remake” it’s some of the best fifteen minutes of gaming I have had in a while.