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Wot I am playing

Finished Red Faction Armageddon. I enjoyed this third person linear shooter a lot but I agree with reviews that give it a "good but not great" rating. Red Faction's unique selling proposition is an engine which allow for insane levels of property destruction and Armageddon brings a unique repair capability to the mix. Unfortunately most of the time the stuff that gets destroyed is the platform you are standing on or the box you are trying to take cover behind and this gets somewhat tiresome.

Currently playing Sanctum. I don't generally like Tower defence games.Partly this is because I am bad at them but also because I find it very depressing to watch an inexorable stream of monsters march towards my inner sanctum despite my usually inept efforts at stopping them. Sanctum however spices up the mix a bit by inserting you into the fray in FPS mode and I find that is enough for me to overcome my dislike of the tower defence format.





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Cap'n John said…
A Frangible Environment just means the box you're hiding behind will be destroyed in seconds by gunfire, usually your own, despite carefully and deliberately positioning your avatar's weapon above said box in order to avoid just such an eventuality. This is because the trajectory of your weapon's projectile does not begin at the barrel of the weapon that your avatar is holding, but actually emerges from somewhere around their groin area.
9:01 pm
mbp said…
You have taught me a new word Cap'n John: Frangible.

It is really more of a nuisance than a blessing in Armageddon because it isn't just the crates are frangible :) but the floor you are standing on. Falling through three floors and then having to rebuild the staircase to get back to where you were loses its appeal very quickly.
11:15 pm
Cap'n John said…
Damn, that IS a frangible environment.

Non-frangible environments can also be annoying. I'm thinking specifically of actual incidents from Goldeneye, but other First-Person Shooters also contain sloppy programming when it comes to this.

Have you ever lined up your on-screen crosshair to fire a round between the bars in a fence, or through a window, at an enemy on the other side? You slowly press LMB to squeeze off what should be a perfect headshot, only to see an impact graphic appear in the air between the rails or on the unbreakable window pane. Or the impact graphic appears on the box in front of you at waist height because - as I mentioned above - your gun's bullets don't come out of its barrel but apparently emerge from your groin.
4:50 pm
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