VladPiranha

As a tank, cars and dumpsters will go straighter if you duck when you punch them.

So what happened to the 'pro tips for everyone to share' part of this?

San, you don't even play on the Left 4 Dead 2 servers. How can you know what's best for them? Firstly, I've spent a significant amount of time trying to teach concepts like spawnblocking, the dangers of rushing, the !buy system, and keybinds to new players. I can count the number of people who truly took this to heart and remain with the community on a single hand (You've come a long way, Hussan!). I never give up on trying to give back, and it's always worthwhile to give a hand to the people who truly care, but it's foolish naïveté to think that we see respectable, permanent returns on community investment. You're right that it's hard to find people who want to have a voice outside of the game, San, but the reality is that many of our new visitors don't share our opinions of what constitues a good time. Their brand of fun may not involve challenge and learning, so there's little incentive for them to learn the advanced techniques that we all consider necessities. Meanwhile, there's a middle ground between novices and experts that I personally found disheartening when I was coming up. People who are still learning, but want to get better, are just as much at the mercy of griefers as the rest of us. I can only imagine how many of them we've lost because they can't learn in a toxic environment. In spite of the efforts of the admins and regulars to spread the gospel of teamwork, every campaign will feature a few troublemakers that can get our new people killed or worse. There's little worse than seeing rushing mains up in the lead and the real team players dying in the back. Do you fall back and help the team at the risk of dying or do you commit the sin of rushing yourself to salvage what's left of a game? Veterans know the answer to that question. New people don't and might panic, as they often do. I've seen many of them follow rushers simply to protect them and get reprimanded for it. It's hard to learn by example when such a bad example is being set. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to have a server set aside so that our established player base can feel that they're being properly challenged. We have a beautiful, complex, server-side mod on our hands that really brings depth to an already great game and I feel like we never actually play it, we just police it while cursing the day that Southeast Asia discovered Steam sales. Remember Cameron's dad's Ferarri from Ferris Bueller's Day Off? That's a lot like what the mod is some days - a really cool toy that we only maintain and polish with a diaper and never really play with as intended. If people knew that they could look forward to a clean, problem-free server once they learned the basics, it would actually greatly increase the incentive to pick up on the techniques that we emphasize. If they had to report to the GC forums to sign up for such a privilege, it would increase awareness of the forums in general. Everyone would get what they wanted. If you want to see new faces on the forums, then give them something to talk about. Yes, but when do they finally get to take a break and enjoy the fruits of their efforts without any turmoil to have to stomp out? Don't assume that nobody would ever show up to the regular servers again. Give us some credit, we're not too selfish to be helpful. Like I said, I like being able to spearhead an effort for positive change. I sometimes think that if GC was a farm, our members would be obligated to sleep in the mud with the pigs rather than a bed just so they wouldn't get too comfortable. Are we so offended by the notion of them enjoying themselves after they give their best? Let them have their cake and eat it too once in a while. There's an old spiritual song that sums this up best: Sometimes you want to go Where everybody knows your name And they're always glad you came You want to be where you can see Our troubles are all the same You want to be where everybody knows your name Gary Portnoy understands our pain.

Automatic Shotgun Info The Tactical Shotgun (Silver) fires 11 pellets for 26 damage each with a wider spread. The Combat Shotgun (Black) fires 9 pellets at 28 damage each with a tighter spread. In other words, if you'll be engaging targets at closer range, especially point-blank range (tanks and witches), the Tactical model will absolutely do more damage and kill your target faster. The Combat model shines in a larger variety of situations since you will hit target more reliably at a variety of distances, making it more of a general purpose weapon. Tactical Shotguns are much better for crowning witches.

Why not just utilize the script to issue an automatic warning to potential rushers? The admins have to do it manually when there's trouble and they don't always see them right away. At least then, when no admins are present, there would still be a very clear set of rules in place. It would also mean that starting a votekick to throw them out would be much more justifiable after a server message in addition to spoken warnings from the team.

Bind a suicide key for use as Infected. It has countless uses. I use it most frequently for the following, all of which are vital to my play style. 1. Freeing up spitters and pinpoint spitter death puddles. 2. Ending a Charger run as quickly as possible to free up another for the team (Blood Harvest finale makes this absolutely invaluable). 3. Killing a boomer after its use to avoid stumbling nearby infected helping you spring a trap, smokers in particular, since suicide deaths lack push force. 4. Most players will push smoker or jockey victims rather than shoot the SI off of them. You can kill your character before they get a chance to retaliate after they save their teammate, thus denying them points.

Virtually any team will help with identifying troublemakers, so that's encouraging.

This game desperately needs a z_jockey_always_kills option.

I think the current fire system is pretty reasonable. Its introduction really cut back on the firespamming that was making things harder on infected, so it clearly works. I just wish common kills from fireworks didn't count toward achievements like Killing Spree or Killing Machine. It's irritating when survivors can actually make points from being covered in bile. This is especially vexing when this happens in an area that's extremely hard to get a boom off in already, like virtually all of Swamp Fever. Fireproof hordes would be an interesting buy menu option, though. I'd love that.

I'm still in support of the 30pt flat rate for dangerous witches with no necessary upgrade to buy. If you think about it, that has a few interesting features that would enhance the experience: 1. A normal witch and a dangerous witch would be indistinguishable from one another. One person could buy a DW and everyone else could surround it with normal witches as cheap distractions, creating a sense of paranoia and intimidation when you see a pile of several with no idea which one is the real threat. If this became too unbalanced, we could also probably just give them a red shade like we do to infected players. 2. To buy a mob of DWs would be too expensive for a single person to do on his or her own. The current system, once the upgrade is in place, is illustrative of that. It takes currently takes at least two people to do anything useful with them. 100pts is as much as many players get in a single, well played round and it would only put three down with a bit of change left over. I like witches quite a bit, but to throw away two tanks, or a tank and almost two heals, is leaning toward recklessness. 3. Because of point #2, it would require a team effort to put down enough witches to represent a really serious threat, encouraging the kind of teamwork we strive for. 4. Since witches can spawn in really useless locations if you don't spring for the placement upgrade, it would be nice to have access to cheaper witches to test their placement ahead of time before committing a larger amount of resources to their dangerous counterparts. You can do that now, sure, but this would enable the ability all round long.

I don't have much of a problem with it, to be honest. To use this exploit requires an entire team to syncronize and work together to see the benefits of their purchases. The design of the server has always been about encouraging that kind of cooperation. That's why we have the menu item to reghost the entire team when the tank spawns. With how readily available explosive ammo and laser sights are, I think the dangerous witch farm is a badly needed strategy to help the infected gain the upper hand. It's also nice to know that tanks aren't the only haymaker to throw at the survivors. That kind of variety keeps games fun. That being said, I try to comply with the current ruling and I don't really see others trying to bend the rules either.

He was back again tonight, foul mouthed and rush-happy as ever. Any criticism of his behavior was met with a prompt 'STFU' even after he was warned about language. I have the screens as proof.

Why not take the weather/low visibility thing a step further? I've always wanted the ability to activate Realism Mode.

My subscription, or whatever you'd call it, ran out at the end of the year. After giving it some very brief thought, I've decided to pass on renewal and I'll explain why. In the past six months, regulars have been leaving in droves, having played out their interest in Left 4 Dead 2 in general. This has left us with fewer leaders, fewer competent players and fewer people who actually follow the rules and care. What we get instead now are multitudes of new players who either contribute nothing at all or grief altogether. This problem has only been compounded by the dwindling number of admins. To make matters worse, reasonable people like myself, have now been stripped of their ability to rid the server of problematic players due to the removal of the !votekick option. I've seen infected attack their teammates for an entire round or survivors running backwards and exploring a map with complete disregard for their team's screams to do the contrary. The most infuriating part is that after these people have usually damaged a team's chances beyond repair, they'll simply leave. Let's not forget that a campaign can take ninety minutes to complete. A griefer can ruin that in fewer than five, wasting a substantial portion of a team's night. The only person who gets to enjoy the round is the person who plays it their way at the expense of everyone else. For free. Nevermind that members have paid good money to play a game that they're being denied. By disallowing punishment of key troublemakers, we as a community are essentially saying that the rights of the lone, selfish and cruel individual are more important than those of nine paying members who abide by the rules. I understand that a highly vindictive attitude and intolerance toward new players can ruin the server (like DOTA players), but the current conditions are corroding whatever worth it has anyway. If it's impossible to play a fun, team-oriented game, then there really is no reason to show up at all. I sympathize with our former regulars at this point. I want people to ask themselves what their money is really buying them in comparison to a year ago. A year ago, we had a happier player base that was more cooperative and less tolerant of griefing sadists. That was worth the money. That's all imperiled now because the good guys have no ability to fight back on their own and what authority we do have is nonexistant or indifferent. This has bothered me for a while now, but the problems are really aproaching the Rubicon quickly. I'm not like the average jackass internet user who casually uses the word 'rape' in a humorous context. I reserve it for analogies that involve the humiliation and injustice that the word really stands for. Rape is what griefing is doing to our server and it's not worth $15 to stand by helplessly and watch.

I've heard that Realtek sound drivers will also do this. My game quits periodically and I'm pretty sure that is what is causing it.

I've always been a huge fan of the Microsoft Intellimouse, but that thing got discontinued a couple years ago. After nearly a decade of use, I finally replaced mine with a Razer Naga. The extra buttons are great for tool shortcuts in 3dsmax. In addition, they're fantastic for game binds. I have a button just to send all of my points to Maestro.

This right here. Our veterans all know that tanks desperately need boomers to make their job easier, yet I've seen countless tanks torn to shreds because their teams were simply too selfish to provide this necessary service. For those of you who haven't had it spelled out, booms during tank fights offer the following advantages to the infected: 1. If survivors can't see, they can't fight, especially at a distance. They also can't dodge tank rocks. Biled survivors won't be able to see the purple outline of the biled tank anymore (the counter-boom). 2. It makes supplementary attacks from special infected much more effective and harder to detect, Smokers especially. 3. Common infected draw fire and empty magazines, thus hindering a concerted offense (and hopefully wasting incendiary/explosive ammo). 4. Flying boomers draw fire on their own. If someone on the team is keeping an eye out for Boomers to shoot down, that means they aren't helping shoot the tank. Each player doing this makes the anti-tank effort 10% less effective, if you think about it.. These reasons are why I love having Defiant and Kazya on my team and hate playing against them. Removing the bile bomb from the menu will be like putting training wheels on our tanks (pun intended). If we're going to bury a game-breaking weapon, let it be the damn fireworks crates. Anyone who has seen the benefits of a difficult and well executed group boom quickly get burned up for a measly three points will know that pain. My hatred for fireworks crates burns as hot as they do.

It's good to be back, sort of. The server is slowly beginning to function again even though some parts are very crash prone. Parish has certainly seen better days. The funny thing is that rather than be frustrated by our twitchy server, I see this as an opportunity to take a good look at what it takes to make it go. Seeing how many things can go wrong at any given time should really drive appreciation for how much effort it takes to get every element of our 10 on 10 server working properly. I can't imagine how much time it takes to go on a scripting bughunt to prevent gameplay issues and crashes. I just want to go on the record thanking our server-side mod crew for all the work they do, and will undoubtedly continue doing, to maintain a good, healthy, and functional server. That having been said, I can't wait to get back to puking on you meatsacks as soon as possible.

On the upside, all of the griefers and fools will lose track of the server when it's playing dead like this. Maybe they'll give up on it and make the world a better place.

Many reviewers have been basing their criticism on sheer disappointment and backlash against the hype and that isn't a good way to get a quality opinion of what Aliens: Colonial Marines is like. I want everyone here to get a completely objective and unbiased review for this game to decide for themselves what they think. In the end, I do give my recommendation, but only after I tell you what your money buys. What follows is the two part review I originally posted a few days ago on the CT forums. Part One - Single Player and First Impressions Scratch another game off of the list of famous vaporware titles. Like fellow vaporware icon Duke Nukem Forever, Aliens: Colonial Marines was not worth the wait. ACM seemed to be in development Hell for several years. Problems with Aliens games seems like some sort of tradition as EA's Playstation 2 title of the same name was canceled in 2002 and Rebellion's Aliens vs Predator from 2010 was a poorly planned and uninspired piece of junk. After nearly three decades of tries, Alien 3 for the Super Nintendo and Aliens vs Predator 2 for the PC were the only good games to take full advantage of the licensing and do something cool and memorable. Considering the content matter of Aliens, it seemed like a sure thing for a great video game. Once again, the ball has been dropped. What shocked me most was that Gearbox, an industry darling, was responsible for development. What I thought was the most reassuring thing about the title ended up being a black eye. The game isn't awful, but potential was definitely wasted here. The plot is strongest in the first act when everything still feels new. As a marine sent to investigate the aftermath of the films Aliens and Alien 3 (with emphasis on the first of the two), you board the ship Sulaco and encounter the same horrors as the film characters. The creatures are bad enough, but Weyland-Yutani has also sent armed units to contain the situation and they aren't even remotely friendly. The only things you won't be shooting to survive are your squad mates. As simple as this sounds, this still had great potential. What we get is a game that takes almost every single one of its ideas from previous games. HUD and art design seems lifted directly from AvP 2010 and the plot is the same as Aliens vs Predator 2, minus the predators. What results from all this is not a polished game with only the best elements remaining. The aliens' first appearance was tinkle poor and, as a whole, they ceased to be scary almost immediately. The motion tracker was more likely to get you killed in the campaign as you're better off looking for threats with your weapon ready than reading that cryptic piece of crap for help. Even Rebellion's slipshod 1999 AvP game got that part right. Worst of all was how badly the plot retconned the Alien Trilogy to (poorly) rationalize its own existence. Even Marvel comics would be disgusted. It was an act of either blind fan service or arrogance, I'm not sure which. The fact that this quasi-prequel is supposed to be canon is just hurtful. I guess Aliens has its own Phantom Menace now. AI involvement is spotty. On the upside, your squad mates will never block your path or get you killed. They'll even take the point once in a while to guide you, provided you aren't getting yourself lost looking for weapon upgrades or accessories. This is classic Gearbox Software design a la Half Life: Opposing Force. Unfortunately, there is no real interaction or creativity with your squad like that game, so your mission is left very linear. Aliens always seem to have the same scripted plan of attack: go after the nearest bot until you're spotted and then kamikaze straight at you. Unlike Left 4 Dead, your bots can't be killed. This keeps missions from becoming difficult thanks to bad decision-making on their part, but it also removes a key element from L4D that added variety and suspense. Since there's no advantage to attacking bots, every single alien will try to kill you when given the chance. In every fight, it's your responsibility to kill everything. The bots will help you in their own feeble way, but even Barney from Half-Life was more useful and assertive. The one part of the game that was stunning was the sound design. Everything else felt old and tired, but this element of the game was spot-on and impressive. Voice acting was decent and featured a couple original cast members. Every sound effect was movie authentic right down to the clicks of menu selection. The icing on the cake was the title screen's layout and sound effects, making it feel like a Weyland-Yutani computer terminal. I have yet to try multiplayer and will do a review entirely for that very soon, since that's the reason to buy this game. In closing, Aliens: Colonial Marines is not the disaster that many publications are making it out to be. I'm bored with most shooters these days, so this was just another day at the office, though I can see ACM's shortcomings. What hurt this game the most was how it mimicked previous Aliens games and other titles like Left 4 Dead and didn't save any room for something new or original. It wasn't particularly scary, exciting or interesting for a title this hyped up. Had this been made by a no-name company, there would be forgiveness, but Gearbox can do better than this. A triple-A title ending up like this is just a shame. Part Two - Multiplayer Review I gave multiplayer nearly a solid week of playtime to decide for myself what to say about it. I wanted to be sure that I addressed every major concern and had a fair view of the online experience. As I'd hoped, the multiplayer features of A:CM rescue the game's appeal from the dismal campaign. It's pretty obvious that the single player campaign of this game was tacked onto what was, at its core, a multiplayer title. This is a strange and amusing about face from previous Aliens themed titles that offered multiplayer features built around the mechanics of the single player campaign. What I got was a fairly robust experience that had more depth than what the game's surface implied. (I didn't bother with the campaign in co-op. I hear it's the same damn thing as the single player experience. I'm not having seconds of that crap sandwich.) Races Marine: Oddly enough, new players who have worked through at least some of the campaign will begin with a Marine as their stronger class. Playing the game in any capacity, be it campaign or multiplayer, will gain you experience points that you'll spend on your weapons and their upgrades. The most welcome discovery for A:CM is that, unlike Aliens vs Predator 2010, there is no bad Marine weapon. They all have their uses that will suit one player over another depending on his or her playstyle and they can be customized via upgrades to further suit those needs or fill even more specific roles. Do you like close quarters combat and want to throw away accuracy in favor of an increased rate of fire? The SMG does that. Do you prefer a medium range weapon to help you put down a threat at a distance? What if it's a fast mover or you aren't a good shot? Take the M41A Pulse Rifle and upgrade it with the high capacity magazine and you'll check both of those boxes. The Battle Rifle can be given sniper capabilities with magnum rounds and a long range scope or it can be an all-purpose bullet hose with a laser sight and a threat-detecting 'smart scope'. Shotguns, Assault Rifles, Pulse Rifles, explosive rounds, this game has it all. If you need to put holes in a wall crawling monstrosity, there are a thousand ways to do it. The best part is that the campaign has hidden (but non-customizable) movie-themed weapons in it that have their own specific bonuses and are well worth the trouble of seeking out. I grabbed Hudson's Pulse Rifle from a supply room in the sewers and I've been on a rampage ever since. Aliens: The Alien class selection of AvP2 has returned with glory! You can choose from the Warrior, the Spitter and the Lurker and each has its own play style and upgrades. The Warrior is your go-to killing machine. Attacks with its claws and tail are straightforward and you can buy upgrades to help you develop a fighting style with them to suit your needs. I prefer a flurry of quick blows and a circular tail whip to help me attack groups of Marines as quickly as possible, since they try their best to move in groups for survival. The Spitter launches acid over long distances with a pretty rapid cooldown. Using their innate Alien ability to climb walls and regenerate health, the Spitter can throw devastating amounts of damage down upon Marines while being a difficult target to pinpoint (hence the Marine's choice of sniper weapons). Don't make the mistake of thinking the Spitter isn't well suited to close range combat. They have your choice of melee attack for a secondary weapon and upgrades can make the class focus specifically on close range. You can sacrifice the long range capabilities of the normal acid spit wad to choose to spray acid mist. This is like being attacked with an acid shotgun and hurts every bit as much as that sounds. The most stylish class is definitely the Lurker. His primary attack is your choice of melee attack, but his true personality comes from his alternate attack: he makes a long distance pounce that, if it connects with an opponent, knocks him down and then proceeds to slash his victim to death with his claws. There is a chance to shoot the Lurker off of the Marine, but three quick slashes and the poor bastard dies, so he'd better hope he didn't wander too far from his allies to look for ammo. All Aliens slowly regenerate health and can climb walls to move from place to place in search of prey. Game Modes The game features four distinct game modes that offer different experiences. They all are played two rounds at a time to give each team a chance to play both races. Comparison of scores in one way or another determine the winning team. The modes are as follows: Team Deathmatch: Fight the opposing team for a set amount of time. Your kills are added to your team's total. At the end of the time limit, your team achieves a score based upon kill total. Deaths, of course, feed points to the enemy and the scores of both rounds will be added together to form your final score. This dual play style to meet the total adds an interesting element of chaos to the mode. I've seen rounds where a team falters badly as one race only to rally and utterly rout the enemy once on the other side. This variety keeps rounds exciting from game to game as a player can compensate for a lack of experience as one race by playing to strengths with the other. I get my points as the Aliens and try as best I can to survive in order to keep what head start I've achieved. Escape: Think Left 4 Dead on this one. So much of the game seemed to emulate L4D, but this is honestly the only part that reminds me of it and that's not a travesty. The Marines need to get from point A to point B in one piece. Along the way, they'll need to hold defensive lines as they wait for elevators and other delays. The goal of the Aliens is to simply kill them as quickly as possible. The distance both teams manage to cover before being overwhelmed is factored into their scores. Bonuses are awarded for to the Marines for each of their squad members to complete his mission in one piece. There is no penalty for dying in an aggressive effort to kill the humans, so xenos will want to be crazy aggressive when the opportunity arises and try for coordinated strikes. Extermination: King of the Hill, essentially. Like Escape, kills and deaths are only relevant to pride. Objectives are the only way your team will acquire points and those are only gained by arming explosives as the Marine team to destroy clusters of alien eggs spread out around the map. To arm the explosives, you must stand in proximity to the charge that awaits your team's arrival. At least one marine must remain in the area until the weapon activates and any enemies in the zone will halt the countdown timer. Strategy revolves around whether to band together for survivability or disperse (and how widely) in order to hit more zones at once. Aliens will do their best to slaughter anyone they come across, especially in zones, since the Alien round has no other objective. The specific areas of combat make certain loadouts for the Aliens more viable than others, so players who love this kind of event will build their creatures to fight groups of Marines well. I've always liked the tail whip as a weapon, but being able to spin that thing in a circle in the middle of a capture party may save the round. I've killed an entire squad that way. It's an incredible feeling. Survivor: As the name implies, the Marines must simply survive as long as possible while the clock ticks. The amount of time alive for each player factors into the score and both teams take their turn trying to gore the human team. When in doubt, the arenas have plenty of nice defensible areas for the Marines to try to fortify. Bear in mind that the Aliens have infinite lives and it's a shame that those dead ends don't have any place to pick up ammo... Overview Cons To search for games, you need to use the game's matchmaking system. You may remember this pain in the donkey from Aliens vs Predator 2010 since SEGA used it in that title as well. A:CM has the potential to become laggy to the point of being unplayable due to how the system chooses a player in the game lobby to host the game. If that player isn't up to the responsibility, you're screwed and need to go find a new game. Other players with horrid pings have the potential to drag everyone else down just by being present, as well. This game needs a better server selection method in the worst freaking way. Without a way to weed out problem players, users will put up with this crap for the forseeable future. You can, luckily, organize games around your friends list to get a really good game in. Speaking of problem players, for reasons unknown, 'Push to Talk' is disabled by default in this game. Ignorance to this fact boils down to mic spammers for entire matches. For the longest time, in every match, I swear I had to listen to at least one player from Latin America watching TV at full volume while a fan blows on its highest setting. Because of its shoddy, bandwidth demanding construction, driving your teammates insane is the only thing in-game voice communication is good for. I barely get coherence out of it even when pings are good and players are pleasant. Ventrilo will be a close friend of A:CM players, mark my words. When you do manage to find a great game, due to the timed and objective based rounds, you'll be in that game no longer than ten minutes before the game ends. The players from the game return to the lobby before a new round is launched, which leaves some potential to keep the good times rolling, but they almost always abandon ship, leaving you with a de facto new game anyway. Gearbox chose a third person perspective for Aliens in order to make crawling on the walls more instinctive, but this design ironically watered it down. While in previous games, your ability to scamper along any surface was necessary for hiding, stalking, assaulting and escaping the enemy (and playing as the damn Alien), A:CM multiplayer has limited its major use to navigation. You can still descend upon an unwary Marine to tail whip him to death unexpectedly, but it's not the strategy it once was. On the upside, that was one of the many unbalanced and unfair strategies in AvP 2010 that were abused heavily, so it won't be missed. Also, you can't crawl on every surface, so if there's a cardboard box in your way when you try to climb a wall, the game starts freaking out. I don't have a more eloquent way to describe how it tries to figure out what the hell is going on in that scenario. Lastly, the Marines get their gear from the campaign, but Aliens can only level via online play, putting them at a starting disadvantage. Weaponry is useable and selectable in at least some form while you can only get vital Alien attack styles through grinding and slaying. You'll need to play for a few hours before you'll achieve the level of lethality you deserve. Pros When this game is in full stride, it's pretty great. It's fun as hell to play once you get the necessary upgrades for your bugs. Once you upgrade their speed and find the attacks you like, they become the fearless killing machines you see on the movie screen. I praise Aliens vs Predator 2 often enough even outside of discussions like this one, so you can imagine that it casts quite a shadow. Amazingly, this game still offers a better melee combat experience for the bugs than that even that masterpiece could. Gone are the days where you simply maul guys until they drop. Stringing together a series of savage claw slashes into a head-removing uppercut is a thrill every goddamn time and looks cool as hell (without AvP 2010's disturbing levels of violence). The third person perspective only gives you more of an attachment to your chosen xeno class and helps you aim your attacks, so I welcome it. As I stated, Marine weapons are all fun and unique. You'll be able to do some real damage from the start and be able to really compete if you played the campaign and found the unique movie weapons. Perhaps most satisfying of all is the return of the flamethrower. There are no problems with balance this time. It's not that Old Toasty isn't crazy awesome, which it is. You need to track down the weapon in the stage in traditional deathmatch fashion and only use that unless you're willing to toss it aside to return to your normal loadout. From there on, you'll typically either run it dry or be mobbed after the Aliens get sick of being fried. In this way, you'll only find one such weapon in the stage at a time; enough to be a great threat to the Aliens, but far from enough to ever stop them indefinitely, just like the movies. I have yet to use the entire canister of fuel before I go down, but I guarantee my portion of the map will smell awful before that ever happens. That's fun enough for me. Leveling is still not terribly time consuming and you'll enjoy playing enough to get what you need without too much worry. It only gets better, so you won't be missing anything in the meantime. Bottom Line This game is made for multiplayer. If you threw together a LAN party or had 10 people who you could turn into an organized online event with Ventrilo to communicate, you could effectively eliminate all of my complaints about this game's multiplayer and turn it into a pretty good way to burn a Friday night. In any case, it's still a hell of a good time when the stars align. If patches come out for this guy to smooth out the wrinkles, it'll get the popularity that it still deserves. This is not a $50 game. Once it's featured in a Steam sale or inevitably gets it's price cut to $30, then movie or genre fans should absolutely pick it up. If it ever features on Steam for $20, you'd be stupid to not get it regardless of what you expect. I hope like hell that I get the chance to play this with you guys sometime. I'll be playing the crap out of it until that day comes. It'll be glorious.

Nevermind the defibs, spawn a tank upon player respawns. You could remove the limits on those and merely answer them with tanks. It seems like the infected team never responds to the person respawning quickly enough. In addition, it seems like if one person is extremely important, they are sent enough points to respawn and !heal anyway, so the black and white thing isn't the deterrent it should be. I also like the idea of a team waiting at the safe room at the end while their fallen comrade buys up and runs to them, only to bring a tank down upon them all.

Why not add other small benefits that help the infected as a whole? I love buying the options that help my entire team beyond mere class availability. Horde and witch on respawn can be useful, but I'd like to see a couple more options added to the list. I'd absolutely love to see a menu purchase that would cause all SI to bleed acid upon death, spitter-style.