[DoctorEldritch]

Hello Legion Gamers!

Epic Games Store offers games for free every week. This week the free game is...

Hell Let Loose

Join the ever expanding experience of Hell Let Loose - a hardcore World War Two first person shooter with epic battles of 100 players with infantry, tanks, artillery, a dynamically shifting front line and a unique resource based RTS-inspired meta-game.

Don't know anything about this game, but from the looks of it seems like CoD WW"'s bigger, stronger, massive and more good-looking cousin. If that's something you think you'd enjoy, be sure to grab it.

A bit of WW2, anyone?

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch This game has the look and feel of the older CODs. The graphics I must say, are way better and the gameplay looks more intense.

[DoctorEldritch]

@DracoTarot It is intense, but I'd also say it is more realistic, too. How do I put it...grimmer, I guess. CoD was a bit...I dunno, sugarcoating it all. Hell Let Loose is more brutal, maybe?

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch Call of Duty has become a joke and not fun anymore. The developers seem not to focus on the original gameplay and concept and it is starting to look and feel more like PUBG and Fortnite.

Hell Let Loose is more brutal and looks great. This is how I have imagined most of the new COD titles would be instead of dropping out of an aeroplane with a parachute hunting other players and when other players try to get you banned for being better than them, it's no fun anymore.

They even added another character to the list, a little girl in a blue dress holding a teddy bear you can play with. It seems a bit bizarre.

Call of Duty Warzone has become Weirdzone!! 😂

[DoctorEldritch]

@DracoTarot I want to say it's been a joke for quite a while now. Even when I was working on WW2, it had some curious moments. But "like PUBG and Fortnite" is not necessarily all bad, I mean, that's where the money is. Fortnite alone is bringing in millions, and PUGB is the second top sale on Steam.

I am not sure about how the ban system works in COD these days. I read recently that Marvel Rivals had some issues with their ban system, but I have not heard about any COD-specific stuff. Can they actually ban you for being too good, don't they have some sort of "by-skill sorting system" or something?

I remember a little girl in the WW2 campaign who you needed to save and then [SPOILERS]her sister got shot[/SPOILERS], but I do not remember there being an option to play with her. Did they bring her back as a playable character?

All in all, I want to say the Zombie mode is the most decent thing in CODs these days. Still does not hold a candle to Dying Light or Dead Island, but they come up with such ludicrous plots there it's amusing 😅

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch I just feel and honestly my opinion developers need to stick to their own and stop following another model just because it is all about revenue. PUBG and Fortnite do bring in millions and attract a lot of attention but I'm not sure it's a good idea to take the same route with all first-person shooters.

Call of Duty already has lost many players due to this and now I've heard they want to release a similar concept for Borderlands.

They ban players for being too good. For example, if you play against medium-skilled players and you win most of the rounds with a high kill ratio your profile could be flagged as a cheater or you using a cheating system like auto aim or the ability to look through walls on the map while you are innocent and not cheating.

People tend to be bad losers and mass report a player for just being better. The skill-sorting system is flawed and does not always pair players correctly. In some matches, a hardcore player could be added to the map with less skilled players and automatically be the one who comes out top.

After the player is mass-reported for winning too many consecutive matches the server will block the profile and kick the player and will instate a ban for the time being.

I was once kicked out of the game because of having 6 kills in a row within less than two minutes. I got a message telling me I have a soft ban due to auto-aim and camping while sniping. The bizarre part of this was I had no sniper rifle equipped and ran around with a knife and a pistol within a room where I got my kills.

This little girl is not the same one as in the WW2 campaign. I'm trying to find a screenshot somewhere to show you. This little girl looks similar to Alice but way younger.

I must agree with you on that one. The Zombie mode is enjoyable and would rather play a few rounds killing zombies to improve my FPS skills.

Dying Light and Dead Island was and still is awesome. Dead Island is my favourite and still have it saved on my PC. 😊


I wish a remake of Redneck Rampage would be considered. I love the game so much but I guess it would not happen due to many reasons. 😂

[DoctorEldritch]

@DracoTarot That may be true, but copying winning formulas is a current trend, a scourge of the industry it may be.

But it is difficult to capture exactly what makes the game good, I mean, look at Hades: gameplay mechanic is not revolutionary by any means, we saw that many times before, but it is the mix of style, character building and lore working together with gameplay that made the game great. Borderlands may not be a great game, but it has a distinctive style and lore, simply copying their style and trying it for CoD will likely not do much good. But that's my opinion.

Oh my, I did not realise the ban system is so subjectable to misuse. I guess it's understandable, of sorts, I mean, sorting players by level is always hard, more so with a limited layer pool, but I did not think it was this bad.

I know that they had another girl named Samantha in one of the Zombie modes, but not in "proper" mods. Is that the one?

I know some people get CoDs for Zombie mode alone, play it with friends and then get rid of the games. I guess there may be merit to this approach.

Dead Island 2 had one of the best trailers. Such a shame that Axis Studios that made it shut down last year...

Why wouldn't a remake of Redneck Rampage happen? Where else can you piss yourself to heal? 😅 But maybe you're right, it may be a tad too offensive by modern standards...

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch I guess you're right when it comes to trends and trends are there to be followed but certain titles need to be left alone and Borderlands is a good example.

Hades is one of those games I haven't played and I watched the trailer a few minutes ago. The game looks intense and I can imagine how the mechanics play a big role. A thorough understanding of the nature of game mechanics is essential for crafting rich game experiences and sometimes it's lacking. Without it, developers seem stuck reusing the core mechanics of other games.

Players who misuse the system must be banned and banned for good but it seems people are banned left right and centre just because of mass reporting without any investigation. You can almost say the players who report a player is the judge and jury. No fair trial for the innocent player found automatically in the wrong.

The worst part nowadays is Call of Duty doesn't usually clarify why they may have banned your account, they just ban you.

You can read all about it on the steam forums: banned for no reason :: Call of Duty® General Discussions

I don't think it's Samantha and a completely different character.

Me and my friends quit playing COD online last year October and deleted our profiles. We play the old releases which have added zombie mode against each other.

We also quit Counter-Strike. Too many toxic players on there.

It's a shame Axis Studios shut down. Maybe another studio will take over their work and release their version of Dead Island.

Redneck Rampage is such a funny and entertaining game. I can't get over the part where you can urinate on yourself to heal 😂😊 and it seems you also find it funny.

Until this day I still use the slang term " your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower" when playing games against my friends. 😂😁😂

A remake could happen but like you mentioned it may be too offensive by modern standards. Actusally, It's not an excuse, there are many other games out there which have offensive content. Duke Nukem, Counter-Strike with their nude mods, and Dragon Age to name a few.

If they keep politics out of the game, I do not see an issue here. 😂

[DoctorEldritch]

@DracoTarot It is natural to look for an easy way. Finding something new is hard, copying someone who did is easy. And harder still is that you need to innovate and come up with new things continuously: even those who pioneered something new and were trend-setting can stagnate. The games industry is a business, but a creative industry too, and original ideas are always in short supply.

Hmm, back in my time I want to say it was better, though I was not involved in the banning side of the games at all. What you're describing seems like quite an ordeal...

Hmm, maybe they invented some other character. Samantha I remember is the one narrating this:

(thought you may enjoy the music too 😉)

Oh, no, sorry, I was confusing. Dead Island was developed by Techland, a Polish studio. They are still around and doing well, they may not be making any more Dead Island but that's because they improved on that: Dying Light and its sequels are also their games, they could be "zombie specialists".

But when they made Dead Island, they contracted Axis Studios from Glasgow to make a trailer for them, that's the one I shared (where a pretentious jogger turns into a zombie). Axis Studio was Scotland's biggest animation studio, and they were the studio that closed down.

Not as much funny as unique, I'd say, and I can appreciate the creative decision behind it, I mean, from a game dev viewpoint, it takes courage to make a decision to include such a mechanic in a game.

Duke Nukem is old and was stuck in production hell, and I would not count mods, those add things not in the original game, you can do anything with mods. I mean, Darkest Dungeon too has plenty (something I prefer not to think about 😱 )

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch All you mentioned makes sense and yes I would imagine how hard it must be to come up with new ideas, especially in the gaming industry.

Banning gamers for no reason has become a real pain especially if a player hasn't violated any rules. The worst part is when they perma ban.

Ah, ok so it wasn't Techland who developed the game who closed down but Axis who designed the trailer who did. I get you. 😊

The whole game was funny to me I haven't found a game as unique as Redneck since. Well, they tried their best to add similar mechanics into the games but does not work as well.

Duke Nukem took ages to make and in the end not even worth playing a second time.

You grabbed my attention now by mentioning the (something I prefer not to think about 😱 ) mods for Darkest Dungeon. Im always interested in the bizarre. 😂