Today, undoubtedly, EA is receiving thousands of emails about ways to improve Madden and how DICE should make more games for them. Of course, many of these emails are automatically sorted into different categories depending on who sent them and what their content is. Then, these emails are viewed briefly for no more than a minute, and trashed. Occasionally, something interesting will show up and an official will be notified of this interesting email. Now wouldn’t it be nice to know that your email goes directly to the people that develop a game. And that they actually read and consider people’s emails (GASP)? Is that the kind of company you want working on a game? People that care about their user base? Well, yes. You do. Sakari Indie has made an update for their game Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood out of pure love and dedication to their user base. Many of the ideas in the game are from users who have actually TALKED to the devs (holy shit devs speak?) and recommended certain tweaks to game play. But this update is much more than a tweak. The original release of FL: BOB was very lackluster. It had one map and very limited replay value. The premise of the game is splendid though, and with the update it has been expanded. You are a lone legionnaire, left to fight the terrorists that constantly attack either you or your MVP depending on the mission. This game play is ludicrously addictive and gets very frantic later on in the game on the harder difficulties. FL: BOB has eight maps currently, two of which currently have exploits already discovered. A game with such a simple concept is exploit-fodder (it is one of Murphy’s laws don’t question it), and I was disappointed that the devs put so much effort into the game and it should suffer from insufficient play testing. Of course this is to be expected of an indie title, but it is still a bit upsetting they didn’t make an effort to find all the bugs and exploits. I have reason though to believe that they were under time constraints, and I am sure they thoroughly debugged the game. But it is understandable, as a developer, you simply cannot analytically play your game from the view of someone who hasn’t worked on it can, and I have full trust that these problems will be solved. Despite the worrisome exploits, the maps are well designed and the person in charge of level design is a friend of mine who has experience with Half Life mods, so he understands the importance of utilizing game play mechanics and incorporating it into level design. I often found myself just running around the map looking for a different point to camp out for the next wave, or in the case of one of the MVP escort missions, positions to cover all sides. In this substantial update, there is now an actual ballistics system, unlike the random placement of a bullet inside the reticule. But now that there is a ballistics system, the aiming is off when shooting anywhere but level with you. This makes the sniper rifle that is now available very odd to use (which might I add has a faulty sound file that sometimes doesn’t fully play) because I can shoot at the enemies head, but he will take damage like he was shot in the back. On the topic of aiming, the chain gun seems a bit over powered. In the first game it was worthless seeing as when it was used the AOE increased fivefold, making it highly ineffective. Now it has an AOE increase comparable to the Windows Live game repertoire, and it is more accurate than the sniper rifle. On the other hand, the game still retains it’s over gratuitous head shots, so I think I can forgive a faulty .wav file. All the missions take place in desert villages, which consist of a couple models of houses which are re-used in every level. Signs of laziness or time crunches such as this are best covered up with different textures or slight tweaks in size and shape. Instead I found myself climbing the stairs to the same house I was on in the last map. This has to be changed, and only furthers this game from maintaining a grasp on the professional aura it managed to contrive. But these can easily be overlooked by the fact that the developers released this update for free and did it even though they had no incentive to. The update could have very easily entailed a two dollar price tag, but it was unnecessarily free. An update of this caliber is biblical. In the update all if the following are included- -Seven new maps -Better leader boards -Character customization -A plethora of new weapons -Cash system -Leveling system -Survival mode -Character load out system Foreign Legion: Buckets Of Blood update two is my most
anticipated game of 2010, because if it lives up to the caliber of this update
it will be spectacular. Though it is
obviously an indie title made apparent by the major exploits that completely
break the game. I myself have found one
where usually when you shoot, the reticule showing where the bullets may hit
expand, but if you switch weapons and then switch back, the reticule will
shrink back to normal size. These and
other problems make me sad to decrease the score of this game, such as the
still small playtime, accompanied by the lack of a crouch button. But for the price it is at, you can miss out
at buying a candy bar and instead by Foreign Legion: Buckets Of Blood, and have
a good time soaking up all of the underlying jokes and easter eggs, as well as
some of the more obvious ones *Giant terminator chicken cough cough*. 80%
PROS
CONS
 This is the tent where you call for ammo and building repairs.
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 An example of the over-the-top headshot animation
 Wow. You could have at least extended the map a bit.
Whoa uhhh...... Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I'll just be leaving now. Did I forget to mention the devs have a great sense of humor? Guess I did. Sorry.
 From left to right: Repetitive character 1; Repetitive character 2; Repetitive character 3
 There has been a massive UI over haul. A. Time left untuil the end of a round B. HP, XP, and LVL C. Weapon details D. Radar displaying location of enemies, items, and home tent
 This is where you can select color, and add ons, as well as uniform and helmet |
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