Spectating is a lot of fun. I just played 10 or so games of Co-op Terrorrist Hunt in Rainbow Six: Vegas, with Nick and Chris, and too often did we end up with just one player alive against 20-30 terrorists, with the other two players spectating. Since I was the one with the most armour and the least courage, the remaining player was often me, but I also got to do a fair bit of spectating.
One of these times, it occurred to me that I was really enjoying watching the others play, even though the camera was (to put it lightly) crap. The player model was often in the way of the action, I couldn’t see much more than the player was seeing yet I wasn’t seeing exactly the same (since the camera is third person), and the framerate was terrible as for some reason (performance for the player maybe?), the feed isn’t transmitted with full framerate.
Worst of all, of course, practiced FPS players move their view around a lot and really really fast. The camera is moving largely in jittering jerks, like a movie filmed by a speed addict suffering from ADHD on the run from something scary, and you find yourself rapidly scanning each image for signs of movement, just like when you’re playing. It’s actually pretty interesting from a game studies perspective because you realize how fast the average FPS player processes information (which you don’t really think about when you are playing).
I can’t say for sure why it’s interesting to watch the chaotic headache-inducing footage of somebody else playing a game when the same camera work in most movies would piss you off (though Transformers‘s fight scenes come remarkably close to the same level of chaos and confusion). The facts that you were quite recently in the same position as the player you’re now watching, and that his success or failure is implicitly your success or failure probably have a lot to do with it.
Our last game ended with me taking out the last 9 terrorists in the Red Lotus level after Nick and Chris had bit the bullet. Got the last 2 terrorists with a single grenade, and felt like a man.
I almost joined you guys, BUT the store was all out of xboxes (except the elites). And wii’s (actually, my whole country is out of wii’s).
Isn’t the whole world basically out of Wiis?
To join us, you will need:
1) Rainbow Six: Vegas for PC.
2) The extra map pack (available for free).
3) Hamachi.
4) TeamSpeak.
I have hamachi …
Excellent, we’re a third of the way there then!
My PC can’t run Rainbow Six, damn you!! Maybe I should use my money on a new pc…
The spectating being slow is a latency issue, not a framerate one, or at least it is on my end. When I’m playing your movements are somewhat jerky but it feels worse when you’re spectating because your camera movement is tied to their jerky movement.
I personally mostly enjoy spectating, though it can definitely get boring after awhile. I think my favorite moment last night was when you got stuck when you had one terrorist last night and that terrorist lobbed a frag at you that ended up taking you both out.
That was a good moment. I also enjoyed it when all three of us had survived Kill House until there was just 1 terrorist left, and then he popped out from nowhere and shot you dead.
There’s no doubt your completing Library all by yourself, tearing through just under 30 remaining terrorists with just a pistol was the most impressive achievement of the day, though.
I also was quite close to buying the budget-version (17€) but it got devastating reviews on amazon because there’s a major bug that causes BSODs after the first restart when it autoupdates to v1.6. Ubisoft is aware of the problem but wants to “handle it individually”, which means that you have to send in your copy after getting in touch with their support (which seems pretty difficult, people reported). I’ve decided against the R6:Vegas and grabbed NFS:MW for 10€ instead…
Yikes. That’s weird, I haven’t experienced that issue or even heard about it. But well, you can just wait for R6: Vegas 2 if you like
Seems like the budget version of GRAW2 has the exact same problems. I wouldn’t wonder if that is yet another copyprotection screwup only honest gamers are suffering from.
- http://www.amazon.de/rondomedia-Rainbow-Six-Vegas/dp/B000ZMWN12/ref=pd_sbs_vg_njs_img_2
- http://www.amazon.de/Tom-Clancys-Ghost-Advanced-Warfighter/dp/B0012JPDRS/ref=pd_sim_vg_njs_title_2