Subject Omega – First Looks
Now, I present to you ‘Subject Omega’ a modification for the game Portal, if you have yet to play it, then I strongly suggest that you buy it and play it. You can get it by buying the ‘Orange Box’ and is practically worth it just for Portal. I’ll be posting more about the game soon and why I actually decided to make a mod for it later. Wikipedia will give you a brief overview of the game.
Subject Omega follows the test subject being tested upon through a series of highly advanced test chambers, involving complex puzzles and skill with the Portal gun. Not an original idea at that, but really is simply a premise to create these complex, twisted chambers that I plan to involve, there is going to be some story along with them though. The mod is going to be split up into 3 sections, each released when they are completed, how long this may take is anyone’s guess.
I keep using the word ‘mod,’ when actually this should be considered really as an expansion pack, it isn’t a full game, or mod that is being supplied here, just some additional puzzles accessible through the main options screen of Portal when it is started up.
The objectives I hope to follow for this mod are as followed:
- Create some of the most challenging Portal based puzzles, for those looking for a challenge
- To create a good looking environment, keeping in theme with that already set down by the original Portal
- Create additional music and sounds to suit the new mod
- Apply a relevant story to the mod
These objectives are rather simple and straight forward, but enough of me talking, how about some screenshots then to finish off?
Note that these are far from the final screenshots and I am in-fact missing a lot of map files currently since I forgot to transfer them to my laptop before heading to university. But, I suppose something is better than nothing.
Review – I Wanna Be The Guy
I Wanna Be The Guy, quite easily one of the hardest games I have ever played. It is a homage to the old arcade platformer-shooters of times gone by and does so by having cameo appearances by all your old beloved games followed by the most head-banging, table-smashing, finger-breaking gameplay possible.
You control ‘The Kid’ armed with your trusty generic gun and double jump, you start your adventure, aspiring to become ‘The Guy’ by going through a trial of fire involving randomly moving platforms, pointed spikes of death around every corner and apples which have the innate ability to fall against gravity. Even the slightest tap by an enemy, projectile or about half the surfaces in the game and the kid will explode in a shower of pixelated blood and gibs.
The implementation of difficulty settings seems about as useless as a chocolate nuclear reactor. ‘Medium’ is the lowest difficulty setting and reflects this by having additional save points and by making the kid wear a rather fetching bow. ‘Hard’ can be considered the way the game is meant to be played, with ‘Very Hard’ removing extra save points and ‘Impossible’ seems to have removed even more. Taking the game to the point where you may as well just look outside just to see if there are any flying pigs around.
However, despite all of this, it is still a surprisingly fun game to play, there is nothing more satisfying than getting to the next save point after hours of repetitious failure and death. Think of it as the time when you completed your first game on ‘expert,’ nothing for me feels quite as good as completing a game on the hardest difficulty setting. I loved the boss battles, from fighting a giant mechanical Birdo to a 100ft Mike Tyson and just wait until you see the final boss, for the big twist in the story.
A lot of people would complain that the sheer difficulty of the game provides an excuse for the creator to not worry about difficulty curves or good level design. But this simply isn’t the case, the well designed boss fights, the comical appearances of classic games such as Megaman, Zelda and Tetris are well executed and used. Even the complex jumping sections are well designed, so they are do-able, just very very difficult to do so. There is a difficulty curve, albeit a rather flat one, with the final bosses obviously more challenging than earlier ones and levels progressively getting harder. The 8-bit inspired soundtrack is great, suiting the game perfectly.
All in all, this is a well designed game, despite the occasional bug (which is acceptable considering it is in beta), which, to the best of my knowledge, the creator is currently ironing out for the next version.
So. If you want a frustratingly difficult (well, near impossible) challenge and get a laugh between the sound of smashing keyboards, why not download and give it a go, who knows, you may actually complete it. Then again, you may also win the lottery, marry a super-model and cruise around the world in a solid-gold yacht. Now, I don’t know about you, but I feel the latter as being the much more probable and just as fun.
You can download the game here and watch the play-through, or you can read it.
Welcome to COASM
Welcome to my confessions of being a serial mapper. Here you can find my views on games and mods, my own mods and other general ramblings. If this kind of stuff interests you, then you are in the right place, however you may realise that gaming blog’s are 10 a penny and you would be right, will this one survive and become popular, in even the most liberal sense of the word? Only time will tell.
This brings me on to my current mod in development, a little something I like to call ‘Subject Omega’ designed for the incredible game Portal (from the Orange Box, if you have not played this yet, do so), not only will I post regular updates on this, but also my methods; more on this will appear at a later date.
So sit back relax and enjoy. (boy, am I cheesy)
