Some screenshots taken during the course of playing Minecraft:

A motley crew of adventurers on their way to discover an NPC village.

Finally arrived at the village. It was later razed in the name of the Emperor.

Discovery of a hobo.

Two views of the land from atop the windmill.

Turns out Looter “acquired” a 20 slot Minecraft server. If you want the details, you’ll need to come into our teamspeak because I’m not comfortable posting them on the main page.

A beautiful sunrise.

After much back and forth, we finally have a working Red Orchestra 2 server. Config files are still being set so there may be some unwanted features like killcam and such on, but that will be fixed soon. As usual, all server details are on the server info page.

Everyone keeps asking me what I think about this game. I am getting tired of repeating myself so, here you go.

A lot of people compare this game to Gears of War. Having never played a Gears of War game before, I can’t say if that’s true or not. Both of these games have chain blades and BIG ARMOR, which is as much of a comparison as I can draw between the two.

The gameplay is a fair mix of shooting and slashing with a decent variety of weapons you can acquire throughout the campaign. The shooty weapons are broken down into four basic categories: pistol, automatic rifle, ranged weapon, and power weapon. Each weapon is unique in some way, but most of them fall into one of those four categories of usage. My favorite grouping of weapons is the Plasma Pistol, Hellfire Bolter, Lascannon and Plasma gun.

Your alternate weapon is a melee weapon, of which you have a choice of three for the majority of the game, though you start out with a combat knife. Melee consists of making different attacks depending on how many times you press the melee key, with the option to perform different types of stun attacks by pressing the stun key after making attacks. Some people will complain about the relative lack of combos (four attacks, with a different stun ability for each). While playing the demo I would agree with that sentiment, after playing through a considerable part of the game (I’ve not yet beaten it), I think it is just fine. Any more combos or attacks would have made the game too complicated; as it stands now it is easy to learn and, though repetitious, very fun.

In regards to the final point: yes, you will do a lot of the same thing in this game. Slash, stun, dodge, shoot, etcetera. At the core of this, the gameplay is still enjoyable for me. It is a lot of fun to watch and, in major engagements, exciting and challenging to the extreme. Simply mashing the melee button is a quick way to get yourself killed; stuns and dodging are absolutely necessary to make it through. I have a major tendency to forget that I actually have guns because the melee weapons are so rewarding to use, especially when you’re able to perform executions. This has gotten me killed quite a bit.

The campaign, compared to other games, may seem a bit short. I am doing my best to take my time and enjoy the game, and so far this is my third day into it, with six hours played. I have not tried multiplayer yet but I have heard it is solid enough to be fun. There is a co-op last stand DLC in the works, a major step down from the promised co-op campaign but, co-op is co-op. I won’t complain too much.

If you are not a Warhammer 40k fan, a lot of the fluff and interesting bits of the storyline may be lost on you. If you are a fan of the series, then you should find the included fluff rather enjoyable. Purity seals are fun to watch fluttering as your GIANT PAULDRONS move around. The Imperial Guard makes a respectable showing and, for once, are portrayed pretty fairly as less of a human meat-shield wave and more of a HOLD THE LINE type deal.

The bottom line? I don’t know if it is worth $50. Maybe $40. But I do not regret my purchase one bit. Though frustrating at times, the game is solid and the story is interesting to me as a 40k fan. That admittedly is a large part of the appeal, so if you know nothing of 40k or don’t like it, you probably won’t like this game as much as I do. But there is a demo, so you should at least give it a try.

As of last night, our Red Orchestra 2 server has been installed. Unfortunately, we are having connectivity issues that need to be ironed out server side. I have support tickets open and am hoping to have the issue resolved by tomorrow.

As usual, the server information will be posted on the conveniently named Server Info page.

In regards to the forums, I have decided to (again) start over from a clean installation. When funds provide, I will be purchasing an updated VBulletin license and reinstalling them to the server. That will probably not be until the end of next week, however.