Oswald Rant: The 3 Flavors of Action
Remember when you were a kid and the toughest decision you had to make was chocolate or vanilla when choosing the flavor of ice cream you wanted? Then one day you go to the ice cream shoppe, only to find they added a third flavor, that being strawberry. You felt overwhelmed by the choices, not sure which one you liked best. Now compare that to the different versions of Action which have been or are being develop by The A-Team. The choices do not stop there, new mod developers are popping up, most using the Quake 3 engine and a only a few using the UNreal or Half-Life engines, to give The A-Team a challenge to produce a more “action-packed” mod then before. Again you feel even more overwhelmed then when you had to choose your ice cream flavor.
What do you do? Who do you turn to? And what mod should you play? I am not here to answer any of those questions, but help to make your choice easier. This may be a moot point, since Action Quake 2 is considered an old and outdated mod in the gaming community. I am still an advocate for everything Action Quake 2 brought to light, when it comes to “action” gaming. When it comes to gaming, especially the highly popular and successful “first person shooters,” mods come and go at bullet blzing speeds. From the humble beginnings of Action Quake 2, the A-Team moved on and to bigger and better creating Action Half-Life.
With the inception of AHL, the action community was suddenly cast into disarray as a mod divided. I’ll admit I was quite excited and full of anticipation as I eagerly awaited the beta release. Unfortunately, like most betas, this one got rave reviews, unfortunately many of them were negative, which turned my attention away from AHL and back to AQ2. The Action Half-Life team soon had competion from another well concieved action mod, Counter-Strike, brought to use by Gooseman and Cliffe. Both of whom worked on the Action Quake 2 project. These two mods, at least some well argue, fought for action dominence, with Action Quake 2 taking a bit of a backseat, in part to the aging anddlimited Quake engine. The Half-Life engine was something of shear beauty, able to produce sharp textures and vibrant colors, both of which added to the realism of the mods which were developed.
I recently viewed the second installment to the Action Series, Action Half-Life: Beta 3. This release was a long awaited event from the announcement and inital release last year. Of course, being complete enthralled and protected in the Action Quake world, I paid very little attention to the goings on of AHL. Every now and then a new beta version would pop up, I would also check out what the current happenings in their community were. With AHL Beta 3, this mod “approaches what Action Quake 2 should have been” as Oddjob told me recently. Not having any experience with it, I was very impressed with all aspects of the game. Although there are still the udnerlying tones of Half-Life seen thoughout the mod, similiar to those in Action Quake 2. My gameplay left much to be desired, sitting down at a foreign machine with a very “unique” config as Oddjob put it, made my experience much more challenging. Once again, I had that newbie feel, a bit hesitant to ask questions.
After playing a few rounds, a comforting map presented itself in the rotation, Actcity2. Considered by many to be one of the classic Action maps, I left right at home on it and my gameplay improved. There had been some redesigning on the map, most all of which enhanced the map. I was also able to get a true feel for how my character responded, from the running and jumping to diving through glass plated windows. This was true, pure Action! So, what am I actually ranting about? It has to do with giving Action, all “flavors” of Action a chance, and notv
As we all know, it began with id Software’s release of Quake 2, Action Quake 2 was born. This mod was highly successful, but was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This mod spawned some of the most loyal players who came together as a community to offer advice, support and talent to make this one of the all time greatest Quake 2 mods available. The game had it all, the action, the maps, the weapons, everything you could possibly have in an action movie was included in Action Quake 2. Or so we thought.
