World of Tanks - My Thoughts on the SU-101

Since the Frontline mode has been running I have like most been playing a lot of my tier 8 tanks. The SU-101 is often what I have as my first choice running and moved it up from being moderately upgraded to fully upgraded pretty quickly. Honestly since this line was changed I've had mixed feelings on it given my initial draw to the line was their agility, making it hard for mediums and lights to flank. Rather than just rambling on for several paragraphs I'll organise this a bit more than my usual off the top of the head posts.

Firepower and View Range

There is no denying that the top gun is a massive improvement over all three of it's other guns, though I did enjoy using the 100mm D-54S as it's fast reload often took people by surprise. It's top gun however the 122mm M62-C2 I have some mixed feelings on, the penetration, rate of fire and damage per shot and reasonable aiming time for it's calibre make for a potent package let down by only two major flaws.

First is the lack of gun depression but this far into the line you are probably used to it but still it can get frustrating at times to find a suitable firing position. The gun isn't terribly flexible in it's mounting either but that is to be expected for a rear mounted gun.The second of the flaws is the low accuracy, now maybe it's just me but it feels wildly inconsistent, hitting the edges of the crosshair more than most guns. On more than one occasion I've had shots bury themselves into the ground or veer off to one side and merely track a target that would have been knocked out. On the flip side I've had partially aimed shots at 200 meters or more hit a commanders cupola, so, like I said, feels inconsistent.

The view range is a bit low for even a tank destroyer sitting at a base range of 350m, however as most of the time you'll be supporting your team rather than running off solo I've never found it a massive issue unless I am the only one left alive.

Other than that I think firepower wise the tank is very potent and not something you want to be in the crosshairs of.

Armour and Durability

The armour on the SU-101 is a bit of a mixed bag, it's fairly thick and very well sloped with a good gun mantlet but is riddled with weak-spots. At medium to long ranges a lot of tanks will lack the accuracy to hit the weakpoints front on so this is very much a 'front toward the enemy' tank destroyer.

The sides and rear as you'd expect compared to the front are paper thin by comparison and with it's slow turning speed getting around the sides of this thing is usually the end of you. Honestly this is why I tend to hang back rather than charge in with this despite it's blistering speed, keep it at range and waggle after firing and you'll likely bounce all but the highest calibre guns. 

Hitpoints wise for a tier 8 tank destroyer it's fairly middle of the road at 1100hp, it can take a few hits but it can't take the same kind of beating that an AT 15 or Ferdinand can.

I have however noticed that people really really really love firing premium ammo at this thing, like a lot. 

Mobility and Concealment

The mobility is another mixed bag much like the armour is, it has good acceleration and a top speed which allows it to keep up with all but the faster mediums but has one serious downside.

It turns like like a concrete block on stilts, with it's top suspension it's base turning speed is only 25 degrees a second. Now I know that is fairly middle of the road but it's basically only 1 degree a second faster than a US T28 which likely feels a lot slower than it is due to the lack of movement range on the gun. 

Basically try and stay reasonably far back and try to retreat if things turn south, even if a medium or light doesn't track you they will very easily get around you and feast on that squishy side and rear armour. 

Concealment wise it's one of the sneakiest of the tier 8 tank destroyers and when not moving or rotating it's unlikely anyone will spot you before you fire. The lack of any seriously flexible gun movement hampers concealment somewhat I find as you constantly have to adjust to rotate to keep the gun on target often breaking your camo in the first place.

Mobility wise it's fast if a bit sluggish in the turn, so don't try brawling with mediums as any half-way competent medium driver will tear you a new one.

Concealment wise it's good but a little tricky to make the most of.

My Current Set-up and Final Thoughts

I am not saying this is the best or worst equipment set-up but it is what I felt suited the tank best:

• Vents
• Gun Rammer
• Gun Laying Drive.

I felt it best to maximise the firepower and it's working pretty well so far, you could also make use of the camouflage net and binoculars but I find I rarely stay stationary for long enough to get full use out of them.

My crew skills are currently as follows:

• Commander: Sixth Sense - Brothers in Arms.
• Gunner: Camouflage - Brothers in Arms.
• Driver: Camouflage - Brothers in Arms.
• Loader: Camouflage - Brothers in Arms.

Overall I think it's a good if flawed tier 8 tank destroyer, if you can handle it's quirks and weaknesses it's very good at what it does. 

Old Games I Still Love: UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka X-COM UFO Defense)

 

Oh boy, where do I even start with this game? If Fallout was the game that got me into PC gaming then UFO: Enemy Unknown is the game that pretty much confirmed it for me. Even now I'll still fire it up on occasion and play it over it's shinier, modern adaptations (which are still great games but that's a whole other blog post or three!) 

The idea of being given a single long-term goal in a game and then being thrown in to do it has always been compelling to me. In the case of UFO: Enemy Unknown you were tasked with defending the world from an alien invasion and trying to defeat it.

You take control of the so named X-COM forces, meager as they are at the start of the game. A single modestly equipped base, a dozen of the 'best' men and women the worlds armed forces have to offer and a couple of interceptors and the iconic Skyranger transport aircraft.

That's a lot of planet to defend with twelve people!

When you start the game you are asked where you would like to place this initial base on the so called 'Geoscape' screen, the placement is particularly important as your base radar stations only have a set detection range. Not to mention your early radar installations only have a small chance of even detecting the UFO's in the first place. Also your interceptors are also likewise limited in operating range and the countries you can cover will determine your monthly funding increases or decreases.

The Geoscape is pretty much the 'grand strategy' portion of the game where you manage your bases, hire new personnel, direct research and manufacture, send out air interceptions and direct your landing craft. The base layout itself as you build it is also highly important as if the aliens manage to find your base they can and will attack you and a badly designed base can be a disaster waiting to happen. 

Eventually as you acquired the funding you could build new bases which I often used for specialised roles, such as radar bases or manufacturing bases for weapons and equipment or even bases with fighter aircraft. Upon a successful interception of a UFO in the air the games second portion comes into effect. Though it's not the only way of engaging the aliens directly, there are other ways much later on.

Everything on the geoscape itself from how you equip your soldiers to where the UFO's crash-land has an important effect on the tactical battles. If you land at night you'll be hunting the aliens in the pitch black (and they can see a lot better than you!) The kind of terrain you landed on from deserts, snow and quaint farmlands.

Even the type of UFO you shot down would have an impact, more on that later though.

At the start of the game you have state-of-the-art human weaponry which against the aliens may as well be rocks. Honestly, for a turn based game the atmosphere and tension of slowly creeping forwards in the pitch black toward a farm house was palpable which was quite a feat to achieve for a turn based game (aided by the music somewhat!)

"Everything is on fire again, sarge!"

The tactical battles much like the geoscape had a lot of depth and nuance to them, all your soldiers not only had their own unique stats and names (which you could change) but they also improved over time should you keep them alive. The aliens far more advanced technology meant that for a lot of the early game your troops often died to even grazing hits making each mission as tense as possible. The landscape itself would even change especially during larger battles, walls would get demolished by gunfire and plasma bolts, fires could spread and rage out of control cutting off lines of sight with smoke. You could even use it to your advantage, blasting open walls or the sides of UFO's to avoid the almost always fatal door breaching. 

The maps themselves deserve a special mention too, they were randomly generated out of various blocks and buildings meaning that you rarely saw the same map twice. The only exception being the alien ships themselves, those however would have a layout and oft times a multi-floor plan depending on their role and type.

The battles were also helped by an impressive enemy variety, even the basic sectoids or 'greys' were a terrifying opponent with their psychic powers or the pure brute force of the muton's later on. All of them offered their own challenges and were mostly terrifying but the one enemy I will always fear alongside all other X-COM commanders, the Chrysalid.

A nightmare given form.

These enemies were typically most commonly encountered on one of the harder mission types, the terror mission. Every so often the aliens would directly attack a major city and you had to drop whatever you were doing and send troops there to put a stop to it lest the country in question would quite rightly stop paying you. They were tough, ridiculously fast and anyone unlucky enough to be bitten by one was turned into a drooling zombie, aggressive to their former comrades. Bad enough by anyone's standards but it got even worse, after several turns these zombies would crumple to the ground as a new chrysalid emerged. Meaning all those citizens running around in a crazed panic trying to escape would often become an army of black chitinous death if you didn't move fast enough. 

As the game progresses so to does the alien invasion, you go from fighting a handful of aliens in a small UFO wreck with rifles and miniguns in naught but a jump suit. To fighting your way up to the command deck of an alien battleship in powered armour with plasma rifles and blaster bomb launchers, turning their own weapons against them. The tension always remains though, making you feel as if you are always chasing the curve rather than getting ahead of it.

Once battles were done the successes and failures came around to affect the Geoscape portion of the game as well. Alien technology and corpses were stored away to be researched or used, equipment restocked, wounded soldiers removed from active service and fresh recruits hired to replace them. Successes pleasing the world council and increasing funding with failures reducing it or even seeing a member country leaving entirely.

All in all, I could write far more about UFO: Enemy Unknown, who knows, maybe I will when I start doing my after action reports and creative writing side of the blog more! This game even to this day is one of my favourite games of all time and I think I am not the only one who feels that way!

World of Tanks - My Thoughts on the New Frontline Mode

So World of Tanks recently got a new game mode (available only at peak times) called Frontline. I got the chance to play a few games of it last night with friends so I figured I'd post my thoughts on it so far!

Large scale battles have been something I think Wargaming have wanted to add for a while now but I can count on one hand the amount of Grand Battles I have taken part in. This was largely due to me rarely playing my one and only tier 10 tank (the Centurion AX) but I never really found them anymore fun than regular battles. 

Enter the new Frontline mode, 30 versus 30 spread across the largest map currently in World of Tanks. It's done quite cleverly with players choosing one of three lanes to spawn in with a tier 8 tank of their choosing (3 are provided free for use in Frontline so everyone can try it.) 

The attacking team has to push forwards through various capture points until reaching the far end of the map with objectives to destroy, the defending team obviously has to stop them from doing so.

There are other things present that aren't usually there in regular battles such as repair zones, artillery and airstrikes and more importantly, the ability to respawn.

Typically every 4-5 minutes you get another 'reinforcement' allowing you to choose to enter battle in another of your tier 8 tanks whilst any knocked out vehicle is repaired and thankfully, you only have to pay each repair once. So even if you play the same tank three times, you'll only pay for one repair.

The rewards feel worth the effort which was often my problem with the other game modes they experimented with in the past. It isn't without it's issues however, some of them aren't exclusive to the new mode however.

The framerate feels a lot more choppy likely due to the fact it's twice the number of tanks on a far larger map. Though I imagine when I upgrade my ageing rig it'll run a lot better but we'll see!

Also there really should have been some 'in-game' tutorial messages to guide people who didn't read the information screens about it. Even I didn't realise you could simply drive your tank into another of the three lanes to help until I actually tried it!

All in all I think it's a fun new mode that's far better and more accessible than grand battles and a far more coherent mode than past attempts. I do hope they add it in permanently and maybe even for other tiers too. A tier 5 or 6 version would go down very well with me and the people I play with as well!

The Game That Got Me Into PC Gaming: Fallout 2

Still among my favourite games today.

It was just before I started college, a long time ago when I had my first hand-me-down PC for doing 'coursework' and studying, naturally. Up until that point I'd been pretty much a console gamer, PlayStation, Mega-drive and the like when I started searching for RPG on the PC. The age of playable demos was still in full swing and I stumbled across the demo for the original Fallout, spent far too long downloading it compared to today's lightning fast download speeds and installed it.

I was immediately hooked and spent the next few days of playtime exploring every last nook and cranny of the demo. Then I managed to hunt down a copy of Fallout 1 and 2 in the old White Label budget games section of my local games store and goodbye went so many hours as I explored the wasteland.

For whatever reason Fallout 1 refused to work often crashing out but Fallout 2 did and it did so much stuff I loved it was insane at the time. It was even more epic than even the demo of the first one lead me to believe. An in depth character creation system had me sitting on the character creation screen for a couple of hours pondering just how I wanted to go about surviving the wasteland.

Did I want a dim-witted bruiser who thumped their way out of problems? A charismatic smooth-talker? A gun toting sneak thief? Any and all options were seemingly available and pretty viable (mostly.) True you could select one of three pre-made characters but wheres the fun in that!

So Many Options!

My first character will always stick with me the most, a smooth talking, agile, gunslinger type who suffered from not being very strong so I ended up having to pick and choose what items to carry. The combat system was so satisfying and responsive as well for a turn based one anyway, shoot an enemy in the leg and they were fairly likely to be toppled over, meaning they'd have to spend action points to stand up again. Arm shots could prevent enemies from wielding heavier weapons, all given a dose a black humour from the text speech above their head and the combat log in the bottom left. A vast array of weapons, items and armour further added to that, everything from a cobbled together make-shift pipe-rifle or brass knuckles all the way up to plasma rifles, power armour and lasers often ensuring you'd always find some new toy to play with (and then grumble at finding no ammo for!)

The graphics by today's standards are not really great but I am very much a gameplay over graphics person even to this day. However it had a lot of amusing animations and some downright gory ones (hence the games 'Mature' age rating among other reasons.)

I think a minigun probably is overkill, yes.

The story and quest/mission system certainly kept me playing right til the end as well. Multiple choice conversations with branching dialogue trees, certain skills, traits and attributes giving more or less options in different situations. Add in a karma system tracking whether you were a beacon of hope or an immoral douchebag which further gave more options and it wasn't hard to see why I wasn't the only one who got lost in the vastness of it all.

Even to this day and despite it's more modern and shinier pixel shaded iterations I will at times reinstall it just because I love the game that much. The interface is very archaic and clunky by today's standards of UI design but even that doesn't always dissuade me from firing up this old classic for a jaunt through the wasteland.