[CAT] Scratching Post

Anyone played the demo yet? You can play it now if you preorder the game or I think the demo is on general release tomorrow. It's the only game out recently or coming out soon that even remotely interests me. Definately gonna give the demo a go.

For those clueless fuckwits that have never heard of it - It's multiplayer coop - You and the other human players against the AI zombies. It looks fast, gory and gun-tastic. Hordes of zombies, you an yer mates and shitload of guns and exposives. AI and animations are supposed to be absolutely spectacular (uses an enhanced Source engine). You can play coop, SP or a deathmatch kinda thing where some folks play as zombie "bosses" - Badass mutated creatures a la Resident Evil.

The pre-release video made it look wank. Pics and descriptions I've seen since have really piqued my interest. There's something called the AI Director that shakes things up and keeps it interesting. Dunno if that is a human player doing it or some fancy AI stuff but apparently it keeps it fresh and varies things and employs devious tactics to enable it's zombie hordes to get past your defences.

Demo, if I read it rightly, should be available through Steam tomorrow.

Demo available through Steam right now.

Just played through the SP demo. It's fun and fast - The zombies are more like the infected from 28 Days Later than the shambling Romero type. Once they spot you they charge and they charge FAST! One shot to the head downs them though and 2 or 3 pistol rounds to the body do the job. You have unlimited pistol ammo plus a single main weapon. Start with either a shotty (down multiple zombies in one shot) or a submachinegun. Found a sniper rifle, auto-shotty and assault rifle later on. You can only carry one main weapon plus one explosive. For the most part you're facing zombies in singles, say half a dozen in a largish room but the AI launches "hordes" at you. Then you have maybe 20 or 30+ all charging at you from all manner of directions. I was breezing though it on "Advanced" skill level and so decided to set off a car alarm to attract a few. We were quickly overrun - Probably about a 100 just came pouring into the street from all directions. I took down maybe 20 or 30 with a pipebomb and the rest just kept on comin'. The melee aspect works well too, I need to work on that not being used to it in a FPS - Hit the RMB and you swing your weapon knocking back any zombies in front of you. Knocking a zombie on it's ass with your shotty butt, chambering a round then blowing off it's head as it tries to get up is like something off a movie.

The animations, effects and physics are very nice. The zombies move well and look good when in full flight. It also looks cool when they go down in a hail of bullets. Graphically it's no Farcry2 but they've done well with the source engine. Cool thing is that even shitrigs like mine can run it blazingly fast with the more fancy shit turned down. I have it at 1440 x 900, x2 AA and all settings at medium or high and it's bastardly quick. I can set everything to high and I get the odd glitch but very little slowdown.

I can see me getting bored of the SP in about an hour - It's all pretty samey - The MP aspect may add a lot too it though. Get 4 of you in voice coms and it would be pretty cool - There's lots of bits that involve helping members of your team - Getting zombies off you, healing, helping up etc. Some decent squad tactics will make all the difference. Your character does lots of stuff automatically that helps too - You shout out when reloading, you also holler if you spot some equipment.

It's not gonna fill our DF's for months to come and I doubt I'm gonna actually buy it but I do recommend at least giving the demo a go - It's free afterall. It's also only available for another 5 days. Worth a look if we can get some CAT's together to go a'huntin'.

Sounds pretty cool. I think I'll give the demo a try.

They're not "maps" as such. You're playing through a storyline. There are different episodes you can jump in at though. There are 2 in the demo. Just gone through it with 3 other humans and we went through it pretty quickly. That was on Normal setting though, I've heard it's a bit easy on normal. Gonna go for experienced or advanced - Should be more fun.

There's a Versus mode that pits the 4 humans against AI zombies and zombie "bosses" played by humans. Not sure if they're on "maps" or incorporated into the storyline.

The bosses are some fast fuck who jumps on you and pins you down (you need a teammate to rescue you), some geez with a really long tongue who lassoos you (again you need to be rescued), a big fat bastard who spits goo on you (the goo blinds you and makes all the zombies go apeshit for your blood), a giant fucker who is hard as fuck and throws players around (need all 4 hammering that guy for ages to take him down) and finally "The Witch" a little girl with claws - She's not playable and the only time I've seen her she killed all 4 of us. She can be avoided though cos she'll only attacks if disturbed.

The MP bit is poorly realised at the mo. You just hit MP, set a few preferences and it throws you in there. My first game I joined a game in progress (up until that point the 4th person was AI) and it was waaaay too laggy. You have no way of choosing servers - It's like Quick Game in the BF series. 2nd game I joined a lobby and we waited for 4 of us before jumping in. The game couldn't find a host though so as the lobby leader I had to host. Meant zero lag for me but a couple had to drop out as it was too laggy for them. Another couple joined though so by the end we had 4 of us doing okay being hosted by my machine.

Having played a round and a half it's still a blast but I sense that it will get old real fast. Good for a quick hour long blast but a long term game it aint.

Okay guys. You HAVE to play this game on Expert. Anything less and it becomes too easy and so a bit lame. I was just thinking I was getting a bit bored of it already when I fired up an expert game and managed to get on a server with 3 other guys on coms and interested in working together. That's when the fun started. Had an absolute ball. We musta had about half a dozen restarts when we all got killed before we finally finished it. We were down to 1 man left for a bit. He stayed alive long enough to rescue 3 other "survivors" who we then assume control of. The other 3 were well up for playing it through again but it's getting a bit late for me.

Really good fun. Very tough but it feels far more of a team effort if you have to struggle so much together.

Don't really have time for screenies but this was one bit where we were defending a stairwell against a horde. 4 guys with shotguns made mincemeat of them.

Anybody ready to play yet?

I've found that setting up a lobby is the best way to play - I just set it on Expert mode, create a lobby and within a couple of minutes 3 other dudes have joined - We then go on to play through the game hosted on my machine - Some folks struggle with the ping - I guess they're too far away but I always managed to eventually get a 4some going with acceptable pings. You can invite anyone who is already a Steam buddy into your lobby too.

Looking forward to another bash tonight. Changed my mind, I think I might buy this. Expert mode makes it a lot more challenging. There's just massive great big hordes of zombies and the AI director throws the bosses at you far more often.