Total Annihilation

          Today, Ubit killed me. He has probably been wanting to do that for years.  Unfortunately for him, it didn't take, and here are the photos to prove it.

Ubit's Revenge

          You probably remember sim Outbreak on OSgrid. The zombie game was set in a lovely European town, with trees and squares and alleys and a big old church in the middle. The textures were, if I remember correctly, by Michelle Theiss, but the heart of the matter, the scripting, was by that Queen of Code, Total 'call me Louise' Sorbet. I had the great pleasure of catching up with her the other day and hearing her news. 

Total Sorbet: I have a test region up for zombies. Region Total. Nothing pretty (was never a builder) but it is way more advanced. We can blow the zombies up with grenades now, and use machine guns, and there's pickup that makes them fight each other... that's fun!

The dusty desert panorama on region Total

              One of the best features of the old Outbreak sim was that the Zombies were clones of previous players. I wondered if that were true of the new game.

Total Sorbet: yes.. for now.. still clones, but that's an old problem. People abuse that.

            It was huge fun to run into yourself, and Dan Banner, and Ubit of course, and sure, one or two naturists rushing about, but you're so busy shooting and figuring out how to escape the horde that you don't have time to be shocked by bare boobs or other bits. It's mostly a blur. The region is open to all but not set up for the big Safari crowd, however that shouldn't stop anyone from giving it a go.

Total Sorbet: mines just a test region, you are all welcome to come play it. I doubt there's anything else that can match this, but there's no polish here. All I can say is if you get a moment, come try it. It's a leap ahead and hard to master, and plays like proper video game.

Total leaderboard.

          Yesterday I finally got over to the region, and yes, I was immediately struck by the bare bones of it. On Outbreak, you could kind of navigate by the different facades, while so far on region Total, everything is prim-color, with a sort of post apocalyptic desert feel.  But that's to be expected, as it is still in the testing phase, and anyway, it's got a cool minimalist vibe to it.

          You jump over the wall and into the enclosure, and get the usual popup windows supplying you with a HUD showing your progress and score, and a gun of course. Within seconds, you're on your way.

The tower roof is a haven, but not for long.

        You have to play a few times to get the hang of the new features, which include a neat teleport to the top of the highest building, although watch out - even though you can fire down on Zombies, they can also teleport up to you, and if you're not looking, you will suddenly find yourself surrounded.  One of the cutest new elements is the witty tomb marker that shows where you succumbed to the undead.

 Time to call in the cavalry, and who better than the gorgeous gor guy Havoc Rau, who you may have met in Turia, or at the Sardar Fair on CounterEarth, or here and there in the hg. 

Something for the ladies.

Havoc Rau: howdy , got some zombies needing killing?

        You need a non-scripted avie to play the game, which meant that Havoc's fancy mesh body was a no-no. But he very sportingly slipped into something more comfortable in order to play the game. I gave a very crappy explanation about how it works, and proved it by getting myself offed a few seconds later. 

There are lots of extras, more than Total made me understand (she is a modest gal), including ways to score on bunnies and fragging. You still can get the medikits and nuke bombs to save yourself, but now you can save others by getting close to them. I found it an absolutely brilliant mix of old features and new, including strange silver cylinders that appear for reasons still mysterious to me. That is the fun of it, gradually grasping how it works, as your screen gets gorier and gorier!

Cry Havoc and... zombies, watch out here he comes

Havoc is a scripter (he has flying tarns at home, more about that in a later post) so I was curious to hear what he thought of the game. He was dead impressed. We had zero lag, 100% fun, and I can see myself coming back here again and again to creep up the leaderboard if I can!

Total Sorbet's Test Zombie Game     hg.osgrid.org:80:Total