Ed

Kikizo Network Editor, occasional bookworm, secret lover.

Posts by Ed:

Just Cause 2 hack: tie everything together, everywhere

A brave new vision of an elasticated world.

Enterprising PC modders have unleashed the Power of Geek on the innards of Just Cause 2. The result? Rico’s grappling hook can now be attached to an infinite number of objects at once, as opposed to a miserly two.

Get the patch here.

Side-splitting Heavy Rain ninja glitch

Hai!

Heavy Rain is one of the most serious-minded games you’ll ever play. That’s why the above glitch, which takes place during Scott Shelby’s first interview with Lauren Winters, is so pant-wettingly amusing.

Now you see me, now you DON’T. Guess she’s got a bit of underpants elastic caught on something.

How to beat Mass Effect in time for the sequel

Still not experienced Shepard’s last adventure? Power-play the sucker with the aid of the following devilish exploits.

You've only got three days to kick his arse, UK readers.

Fact: you’ll enjoy Mass Effect 2 a lot more if you’ve played Mass Effect 1. Going by early reviews, at least. Reportedly, the brawniest of the game’s strong points is its carrying-over of plot dynamics and characters, filling in the picture between the destruction of the Sovereign and Shepard’s reanimation at the hands of shadowy pro-human organisation Cerberus. New allies (and new enemies) are doing the rounds, but you’ll also reunite with former comrades and adversaries, now scattered across the galaxy, visit familiar locales and find answers to some of the original’s pressing questions.

I don’t know about you, reader, but I don’t intend to start this sequel – perhaps Bioware’s best title to date, and a definite GOTY candidate – on the back foot. LevelSkip’s most advanced survey probes have been trawling the ether, scooping up choice Mass Effect haxploits (”Mass Exploits”?) to hasten your progress to the end credits, and thus to a thoroughly well-informed first playthrough of Mass Effect 2.

Don’t read on if you’re a goody two-shoes, or you’re happy to enjoy Mass Effect’s charms at leisure. Do read on if you’re anxious for a glimpse of Miranda Lawson’s underwear.
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Final Fantasy XIII bugs: the infinite jump loop

“Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs…”

Well here’s something you don’t see every day. Among what is reportedly a rather embarrassing number of Final Fantasy XIII bugs, there’s one which makes computer-controlled characters hop forwards and backwards like a kangaroo with its braces caught. Wheee. Tigger would be proud.

Expert play: Modern Warfare 2 Search & Destroy

Complete with buddy-bonding commentary.

Just been watching Trumpf’s latest Modern Warfare 2 blowout on Youtube, embedded above. In it, the goodly pro and close chum SeaNanners talk us through a Search and Destroy match over Xbox Live on the Favela map.

The vid’s a little under eight minutes long. Too long? Here’s our scalding hot digest: never take the same route twice, think before you shoot and double back a lot.

Over and out.

Why Left 4 Dead shouldn’t be left for dead

Left 4 Dead 2’s out. Is it all over for Francis, Bill, Louis and Zoey? Not on our watch.

I'm too young to die!

Poor old Left 4 Dead. Just over a year old, and already consigned to the backseat of history by Valve’s uncharacteristically headlong rush to sequel-dom.

Well we’re not quite ready to let go, chaps – as befits the PC version at least. Here are some reasons to put off uninstalling the original zombie co-op FPS for a few months longer.
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Unreal Engine 2 mod Out of Hell hits web

One-man attic coding endeavor puts majority of big budget shooters to shame.

If Jesus Christ were still in the miracle business today, and had chanced to lay his hands on a copy of Unreal Tournament 2004, the results might look something like Long Nguyen’s long-awaited solo project Out of Hell. Forget “water into wine” – any mod that can make a five-year-old first-person shooter engine out-perform most recent equivalents is Biblical material indeed.

Out of Hell courteously invites you into the town of Grinwood, lately plagued by the walking dead. Broken up into 15 maps, it’s a plausibility-soaked exploration of classic zombie horror cliches like abandoned motels and carparks. You’ve got 10 weapons – five of them up-close-and-personal, five marginally less so. We like the sound of pitchforking somebody through the nostrils.

The mod’s 100% free to download, but you’ll need something a little meatier than the average 2004 box to power it: a Core 2 Duo E8200 at 2.66 GHZ, three gigs of RAM and a Geforce 9600 GT 512 MB, for preference.

Screens here, survival guide here, install FAQ here. Just to reiterate, everything on show (less the music) is the work of one man. Ye gods.

Cheat Sheet: Issue #1

First of our regular code overloads.

Walking tall with the aid of a cheat or two.

Hola, bonjour and welcome to the inaugural issue of Cheat Sheet, in which we lump together a bunch of codes and exploits from recent or upcoming games for your breathless perusal. In this episode: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Borderlands, Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2 and Tekken 6. Go crazy with gratitude and relief.
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Doom II gets fan-crafted Skull Tag expansion

Old dogs, new tricks, no price tag.

Now you don't need to buy Left 4 Dead 2, see.

BFG gathering dust? Get your fingers into Skull Tag, an intimidatingly well-equipped “sourceport” of Doom II, featuring new items, bots, modes, weapons, maps and at least two or three kitchen sinks.

It’s classic Doom gunplay with the addition of jumping and freelook. New modes include “Invasion”, a wave-based defensive affair, “Possession”, in which players score points by keeping hold of a Hellstone for as long as possible, and “One Flag CTF”, which is like CTF except you have to return the flag to your opponent’s base, rather than your own.

In a departure from the original Doom II, you can drop in and out of games in progress. There are no dedicated servers. Time for another petition, Modern Warfare 2 fans?

Blurb here, download here, installation FAQ here, screenshots here. You’ll need a copy of Doom II, Heretic or Hexen.

Left 4 Dead PC mall campaign goes live

Or should that be “un-live”?

My body’s at work, but my head and heart are sprawled in front of my desktop at home playing the Dead Before Dawn beta. After all, life’s too short not to spend a sizeable portion of it sniping at Boomers from the cover of a faux-Hawaiian coffee stand.

You can download this user-built Left 4 Dead campaign here. Initial player feedback seems mixed, with some picking on the size of the five included maps (a sixth, the finale, is still in development) and others the prevalence of bugs. The campaign is standard co-op only at present, but Versus functionality is on the way.

What else? 200 custom models and props, new AI-Director-controlled music and some “professional” voice-overs. If you ask me, they missed a trick by not titling it “Dead B4 Dawn”.