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lordnikon
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Posted:
Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:08 am
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Exclusivity is a word I am still trying to wrestle with. Is it a good thing? In some cases yes, in some cases no. Exclusive games can define a console, and can really give you something to be proud about if you are a big fan of a console you own. The Playstation 2 has it's fare share of exclusive online first person shooters. We have games such as Tribes Aerial Assault, Fire Warrior, MOH Rising Sun, and Killzone. Barring an announcement of Killzone 2, Cold Winter will be the PS2's last and final exclusive first person shooter. This is good information to know if you play online games for other platforms. This game is 100% PS2 exclusive and will not get released for other systems.

Through out this article I will be giving you the complete low-down the Cold Winter's multi-player functions. I was able to fire questions right to the developers and they gave me answers to them all. Couple this with other research, and for the first time we are able to learn all those little nook and crannies we have come to appreciate about our PS2 online games, well before Cold Winter hits store shelves.

So lets get this show on the road. First order of business is Local Area Network functionality. Unfortunately Cold Winter will not have LAN. I asked them specifically why they were unable to implement it and here is what they said:

Ian Stevens - Cold Winter Producer:
We didn't include LAN because (with the time we had and the resources at our disposal) we saw the benefit in focusing on a more robust Online game that would mean a better experience for everyone across the board.

If we had decided to code LAN support, it would have meant losing a few meaningful game features (i.e. some great game play), so we made what we felt was the best decision for everyone generous enough to spend their hard earned $ on the game.


This was entirely understandable. At least they gave us a specific answer why they could not include LAN functions into the game. The positive here is that Cold Winter will be running on GameSpy. This service is notorious for having games up for an extremely long time. There are still Dreamcast games running on GameSpy to this day. Even a master list is still up for a game that doesn't even have servers up anymore. So the fact that it has GameSpy means that this game will be online for an extremely long time.

So, what about offline multi-player? One of the big things some people like myself have with an online console FPS with no LAN is, can you at least simulate the online experience, in and offline environment. Meaning playing against bots. MOH Rising Sun has this for instance. Well, turns out Cold Winter will have full bot support in offline multi-player. You can play with up to 4 players split screen. You are also supposed to be able to use up to 3 of these bots online as well. The game will support 8 players for online game play.

Online there will be no Map Rotation. However, from the sound of things, games will loop like in XIII. Where a game will start fresh on that map after your round is done. Here is what Ian said:

Ian Stevens - Cold Winter Producer:
No map rotation - users are returned to the lobby when the game is ended by the host. Otherwise the game will simply refresh when complete and start over.

You will be able to password games. Thank god. Any developer that leaves out password support should be shot. Keyboard support is not supported, which is disappointing since GameSpy kits usually make it really easy to implement keyboard support. The game does support USB Headsets. In the end I was informed that keyboard support was intentionally left out because the headset is supported. You can chat in the lobby with the controller and an on screen keypad. In-game you can use the headset to chat with other players.

The game will have 30 total weapons. However in each match you must choose 5 weapons for the game. Sort of like in TimeSplitters. These 5 weapons do not include peripheral items such as grenades and mines. So these are added in addition to the 5 you choose. One of the touted features of Cold Winter's single player campaign is combining items you find. Such as finding matches, a rag, and a bottle, and making a molotov cocktail. This can also be done online! For instance timed explosives will combine with sticky bombs to create "timed sticky explosives".

The weapon damage in Cold Winter can be adjusted. I believe it is a global variable, rather than an individual one. The default setting mirrors that of the single player game. Setting it to 50% will make the game more like Quake. Setting it to the realistic damage setting will make the game a lot like Counter-Strike. Where only a few shots will take you down. Or, you can just set it so one shot from any weapon will kill you instantly.

Online won't have as many physics objects to interact with as offline. It would have increased lag. The rag-doll and dismemberment features are online though. Each character has 14 total points of dismemberment. All I can say about this, is it's about damn time we saw some gibs in a console shooter. Meh FireWarrior has gibs, but man are they weak. Cold Winter will have juicy bloody hunks of flesh bouncing off the walls.(Yess!!!) It's not the blood that makes this so satisfying. It could be green for all I care. It is the impact and visual feedback that it gives that you destroyed your opponent. It shows that your bullets are actually able to travel to another location and DO something. Gibs rock!

Cold Winter will sport 12 total maps inspired by the single player campaign.

Game Modes:
Deathmatch
Flag Tag - a one-flag CTF variation
Last Man Standing - starts all players out with a set number of lives
Domination - has you vying with the other team for control of specific nodes
King of the Hill - you fight for control of strategic zones
Head Match - challenges you to be the player who carries a disembodied head (which you can even attack with) the longest

The game will have very fast respawning. Which is great considering some of the other FPS's have included unnecessary screen transitions after you die. Such as MOH Rising Sun fading to black, or Snowblind's red screen of death.

The weirdest part about the game is, according to GamePro magazine, you cannot adjust the sensitivity of the analogs. This is downright odd. However GamePro stated the controls worked like butter. This could have something to do with the fact that each weapon you carry effects your movement differently. I just hope the analog sensitivity is good enough for everyone. From the movies I have seen it looks fast enough, and not too slow. The game also comes with pre-set control schemes.

I hate to bring up the LAN issue again, but when you look at what SwordFish studios did with this game online, you really can't fault them at all. When they said they didn't put LAN in, in order to work on other features of the game, goddamnit they meant it. This game is possibly the most customizable online first person shooter available for consoles. TimeSplitters 3 might be, but Cold Winter comes pretty darn close in the customization department.

Cold Winter will be hitting stores on May 10th.

I can't leave you guys hangin though. Want goodies? Here yah go :]

1.) Cold Winter Fansite Kit (link also added to our downloads section, under fan kits)
2.) Soundtrack


Last edited by lordnikon on Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:52 pm; edited 9 times in total
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Mir_wan
rank 39
Posted:
Wed Apr 27, 2005 5:41 am
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this game is looking good.. where they left out a feature the made up for it else wher.. i would like more games to have keyboard support though....The bots are always a good adition when playing spilt screen with friends.

the map rotation would have been nice but at least you can continue playing after a game is over and not sent back to the main menu like killzone

30 weapons seems like a good number to have.

The passworded games will be nice when trying to get specific people in your game.
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Apple
rank 23
Posted:
Wed Apr 27, 2005 3:55 pm
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Posts: 463
So the online will be like Warhammer mixed with XIII in the set up sense. It will have Warhammer lobbies and XIII game loops, very interesting. I'm glad to hear that the mixing of items thing is online. I had figured it wouldn't be included, but having that sounds really cool because you need more than one piece to have some weapons. It has good map and game mode selection. There's 4 player splitscreen (big plus for me) and passworded servers. It seems like this will be a very good game. Sad Even if all 4 went to $20 it would cost $80.
 
MICHAE2414
rank 24
Posted:
Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:39 pm
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Posts: 497
Great stuff. I enjoyed the demo I played (there was no blood in it, though Sad ), and some of the multiplayer features and aspects you mentioned (4-player splitscreen, no keyboard support, etc.) have been immensely helpful; I know I'll end up with at least one of the 4 FPS games in my collection in due time. It definitely sounds like Cold Winter is wrapping up nicely in the online department.
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Mir_wan
rank 39
Posted:
Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:29 pm
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this will probably be my next new ps2 game...ill probably wait on the others to go down in price
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TheMytho
rank 38
Posted:
Wed Apr 27, 2005 7:03 pm
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The thing I especially like about Cold Winter is that it is PS2-exculsive. It's often hard for me to decide over the PS2 or Xbox version. Having cross-console play was such a missed oppertunity.

-Mytho
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