It's no secret that one of the most enticing things about the new Call of Duty is the inclusion of a cooperative mode which pits up to four players againts a blood-thirsty horde of undead nazi soldiers. There is nothing more awesome than fighting zombies in a World War 2 setting, is there?

I've been playing this mode on and off for the last week with a friend of mine and I've come to some conclusions as to how to survive longer. Here's some tips I would very much like to share:

1] Easiest one first but it's surprising how many people don't know this. When rebuilding the barricades you don't have to be facing them. You only have to be standing next to them and hold the rebuild button. A lot of people I have seen simply stare at the window while it's being rebuilt only to lose their head by a wandering band of zombies who snuck in behind him. This way you can cover your rear while making vital repairs. You can also shoot at any zombies at the window while repairing, so you can get a few extra rounds into them.

2] Reload at every opportunity. Even if you've fired one or two rounds; reload. I've lost count of the number of times I've squared up against a horde and had the last bullet in the magazine get that vital headshot that sees you survive the round. The is especially important with the lumbering life-savers that are the MGs.

3] Leave the door closed. Opening that door is asking for trouble. Best thing to do, I have found, is to clear both staircases of obstacles and make the "Random Chest" room your alamo. You can have one person easily handle the "Random Chest" room on their own for the first 10-12 rounds while the rest have a party upstairs. This gives the zombies more access points but it also forces them to sometimes use the longest route to get to you which filters out their numbers and makes them more managable.

4] The flamethrower is useless. As tempting as it is to use it, just leave it alone. All it does is make the horde of screaming zombies a horde of flaming screaming zombies. You'll be digesting in their stomachs before the flames take them down. Same applies for the molotovs. Not worth the hassle.

5] Stick together. When you get past wave 10 or so, it is wise to stick in a group. There is nothing worse then having to fight your way across the whole map to revive a teammate.

6] Revive as a team. When someone loses an ankle the person who has to reattach it is very exposed and will usually need to be wearing Huggies. It is best that one person revives while the other two protect them. And as soon as that's done, run like merry hell to the alamo and regroup.

7] Instakill is your friend. It might not make much of a difference early on but in the later stages it is as if the heavens themselves have parted and given you the most holy of gifts. If you have a raygun; switch to solid rounds. Not only does this save precious raygun ammunition but it is very satisfying to shoot a mass of zombies with a machine gun. I tend to have the FG42 as my backup as it puts a big grin on my face. Only downside is that when the raygun dries up it takes a magazine and a half to put down a single zombie at point blank at wave 20 and above.

8] Communication is vital. When I play with my friend we have our PCs next to the PS3s so we use xFire to talk. We've found that this gives us an edge over others when we do competitive games. It allows us to coordinate without the others being privvy to what we're saying. Downside to the console versions of the game is that you cannot type messages if you're not using VoIP. Also, many people have their mics in and all you can hear is them chatting mindlessly to a mate in the same room or coughing their lungs out. So you mute them and when they do have something to say you can't hear them. Not very helpful. But, if you're playing with three other people you know VoIP is fantastic and will help warn the others when situations become dire.

Nazi Zombies was put into the game with the intention of it allowing players to experience a fully cooperative game where you will depend on one another. Bit hard when no-one can talk to each other. I have found that sending a quick message in the early rounds advising not to open the door can help out a lot but what is not needed is having one person with a mic who thinks they're in charge because they're the only one who can talk. When someone issues me orders over VoIP like that, I mute them. Again, not helpful. Best thing to do in this instance is simple situation updates.

To reach a high ranking spot you need to be able to have four players that can talk to one another without annoying each other.

9] Grenades. Bit of a grey area this. Chances are you'll end up blowing yourself up which, last I checked, is very counter-productive. The only time I use grenades is when I'm closing up the concrete wall. Just as I'm about to repair the last chunk, I lob a grenade in to take out any undead heathens that might be waddling along. After throwing it I then close up the last piece. That way the zombies in the tunnel are blown to teeny tiny bits and I'm protected from the blast. Throwing grenades is usually to be used in desparation i.e. running as fast as your virutal legs when the starting room is overrun by zombies that move so fast it shames 28 Days Later.

This is just a small bunch of tips I can think of which, I believe, will get any group of players past wave 25. I, myself, have only reached the 23rd wave and we failed when one of our number fell above the alamo and one of us ran upstairs into, what can only be described as, a wall of death. This left my friend and I screaming downstairs trying to survive until the next round began. Canute has an easier job, believe me. We reached that wave with only two of us being able to communicate. I strongly believe that if all four of us could talk we would have broken the current standing record (on the PS3 version) which is currently the 28th Wave.

Would like to shout out to the members of said game;

infilTRAITOR88 (myself, natch)
ChaosBubbles (my friend)
Recruit99
Broken_Splinter (who was only level 1 and made a bloody good account for himself)

Now to hope they release new levels for this mode. Games can last for an hour or more and I always finish sweating. It's very intense. This is what gaming should be. Plus it reminds me of Dog Soldiers. Which is neat.

I hope this helps some folk out there!

I have only recently recieved the joy of wip3out HD on my PS3 and I cannot believe I have suffered so much without it for so long! I've seen a lot of custom wip3out HD custom playlists and they have helped me develop and expand my own. With this in mind I am going to share my custom playlist in the hopes that it will help inspire others. Some of the tracks are my favourites from previous wip3out games:

Atom Bomb (Straight 6 Instrumental) - Fluke

Big Groovy Funker - Plump DJs

Bass Test - The Chemical Brothers

Control (Juno Reactor Instrumental) - Traci Lords

Down the River (Torrential Rain - Hong Kong Trash

Dooms Night (Timo Mass remix) - Azzido Da Bass

Conspiracy (Terrorvision) - Paul Oakenfold

Blue Funk - Amethyst

Gold Rush - DJ Tiesto

Black Flute - Leftfield

Superfresh - Boys Noize

Hymn (Lucky Orgasm mix) - Moby

Goteki 45 - Sasha

Escape (Bloody Beetroots remix) - The Toxic Avenger

Electric Molecular (KMFDM Insane Taxex instrumental) - Chemlab

Like a Robot - Goteki [From Timesplitters Future Perfect]

I Want You - SamplingMasters AYA [From Ridge Racer 6]

You're Mine (Instrumental) - Nick Galea

Landmass - FSOL

Vulcan (Johnny Vicious Club Mix) - Snake River Conspiracy

Fall in Confusion - Ballistic

Surrender - MKL

Hard EBM - SiN [From NFS: Underground 2]

Dust Up Beats - Chemical Brothers

Ready, Steady, Go (PMT Remix) - Paul Oakenfold

Voodoo People - Mindless Faith

Technologicque - Orbital

Prison Break Theme (Remix) - Ferry Corsten

We Have Explosive - FSOL

Sick (Instrumental) - Utah Saints

Onyx - CoLD SToRAGE

Burns Attack - Paul Oakenfold

Ignition - Paul Hartnoll

Old School Vibes - Timo Mass

Krushyn - Elite Force

Firestarter (Instrumental) - The Prodigy

Bolt Up - Luke Slater

Hellion - Ming + FS

Canada - CoLD SToRAGE

Body in Motion - CoLD SToRAGE

Avenue - Paul Van Dyk

Axiom - Photek

Enjoy. I know I am. And if you have suggestions please feel free to let me know!

So, I've been off work ill since last Saturday. It's not been nice. You think

you're getting better and then BAM! something new hits you.

With that being said I've had a lot of time to play some games. Huzzah!

Dawn of War

I caved in last month and picked up Dark Crusade. I like the idea of moving 

onto new territory and gaining benefits for conquered ground but it was still way 

too cartoony and too limited. However, the Lights of the Warp mod added tons 

of gameplay value to it.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R

After completing this and getting the worst ending you can get I tried it again, 

but only this time with the Faikes mod installed. Makes the game so much better 

in my humblest of opinions.

I've decided, however, that it is now my turn to step back into the modding spotlight 

and create a mod for Stalker. It's really quite easy compared to many other FPS 

games. I already have a small team assembled and a web site has been made.

It's to be a realism/horror mod as a prelude. But when the SDK comes out it will move 

onto an alien invasion of present day Earth. Dun dun dun!

Unification Wars

I've also been playing Unification Wars. This is a free browser-based massively online 

empire management game. It's quite addictive. I'm doing quite well in day 3. If you

want to join me, go to:

Play Unification Wars (Online Games) , Unification Wars is a Free MMORPG or Free MMOG . Galactic Conquest is

a Free Online Web Games with Unification War a Online Strategy Games

 

If you go there, start an empire and PM KasrkinCK. See if we can't get a mini-alliance 

going and wreck some bloody havoc! 

 

Moving house. No net til next week. Again.

 

See y'all! 

...'cos Supreme Commander came today! And I posted a video blog about it. Watch it! LOS LOS LOS!

So, three days have passed since my last update. Needless to say I have been hard at work on this. My tread-fether team you saw the other day is nearing completion. I have added a rocket backpack to the launcher guy and a rifle (with folding stock I’ll have you know). I have also started on an infantry squadron. They’re armed with basic autorifles at the moment. I spent most of yesterday sorting out an old Leman Russ Exterminator I found. The last time it had any attention was around the same time they were released. When I saw it, I just had to do something to it so the 22nd Armoured was started in ernest. As you may have read before, I nearly killed muself (literally) getting the turret off of this (I was young and had glued it in place with the plastic bonding glue. Cripes!). So the turret has been replaced by a reasonably newer heavy bolter razorback turret. This is to be the first of my infantry support vehicles. I striped off the paint with a generous amount of nail varnish remover and cotton buds, sprayed it black and spent a good portion of the day applying about 11 coats of desert yellow. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Also, breaking news…my heads have arrived! And with that, I have actually started to paint one of my troopers. You don't realise how crap your camera is on your phone until you want to capture some detail. I think next time I'll borrow my housemates ubercamera. Anyway, I'm using a quasi-tropentarn camo effect. And much like todays forces in the desert, his armour is more suited for a woodland environment so flecktarn is being used. This will help create a certain character for my army as a whole. On top of that, I have struck a deal with a friend of mine who is going to be selling me his old Armoured Fist army for about £60. So next month the Alamein 22nd Armoured Division will be bolstered by two more Chimeras, two more Leman Russ tanks, a Leman Russ Exterminator, another Basilisk and a Hellhound. I'm tingly with anticipation. At the moment, my house has been turned upside down due to the fact that I have lost my old Chimera. I am planning on ripping that apart as well. Going to smack Rhino tracks on and give it my old Exterminator turret while getting rid of those lame lasgun ports and maybe making the rear more angular. I will probably use the old Chimera tracks on an old russian BTR I have lyring around. Until next time, Kas out. PS, I would've done more today but the SupCom demo has it's evil hold on me.

By the Emperor's grace, I welcome you. I have finally gotten my week off. A week of sleeping, eating, The Simpsons and 40k. After 5 or 6 months of planning and designing, I am ready to start building my new Imperial Guard army. That's right, most of my Forge World, Battlewagon and eBay orders have arrived (thank you very much, Revenue and Customs!). I am only missing my heads. Fantastic. This week, me and a co-worker (Bubbles) will be building our respective armies. Mine being Imperial Guard. His being a Black Templar rip-off. We only started building yesterday and yet we already have our first challenge. A workmate from the Building Department has challenged us to face his mighty custom Necron army (so if anyone has any anti-necron pointers, please, for the love of god, tell me!) So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to my custom Imperial Guard army; the Alamein 8th Light Infantry Division. This army is based loosely on the Werhmacht and modern British desert forces. Alamein - Segmentum Ultima - Mordant Zone The world of Alamein is one of wind, sand and plascrete. Primarily a desert world, you would be forgiven if you were to easily dismiss this world as a wasteland. This is a world of riches and turmoil. A world where you can find the finest gemstones, the purest promethium and the finest craftsman. This is a world that has florished for generations without much input from the Father Imperium. The Imperium finally took interest in this world of wanders at the worst of times. Civil war had gripped the entire planet. Leading corporations fought each other in a perpetual war that lasted two decades and nearly decimated the worlds economy. The war was brought to a close when the Imperium threatened the populace with viral bombing. Years of warfare have forced the people of this world to learn new ways of fighting and can now offer the Divine Emperor more than just shining jewels and sweet smelling fuel… Progress - 03.02.07 After 7-8 hours of building I had managed to slice a chunk of flesh from my thumb, build 3 headless guardsmen, a stormtrooper and almost stabbed myself in the stomach while trying to rip a turret from an old Leman Russ Exterminator. It was all going to plan... With my prototype trooper built in the previous week (without a head) I started on making my first squad; Flammengruppe One. A two man squad, one armed with a flamethrower and another armed with an autogun. Note: Heads are proxy only As you can see, I have used a standard imperial flamer and converted it into something classical. Here is the rear of the flammen trooper. This is how I lost a chunk of my thumb yesterday, splitting the promethium canister in half with an old fashioned stanley knife. Not smart. Here is the flammen trooper's additional man. I've modified a bolter to look like a MP40. You can't really see the stick magazine but it was made from a Space Marine auspex reader handle filed down. On top of that team, I started on another small squad. The first of my anti-tank squads armed with a good ol' fashioned tread-fether. I wanted these because they looked so much like the Panzerschreks. At the moment I'm ripping apart my old Leman Russ, Chimera and Rhino and trying to come up with at least two decent tanks for the 22nd Armoured Division (which another friend of mine has started making). Tomorrow I am gonna concerntrate on working on my entry for Hobbyist of the Quarter (Sci-fi entry) which will include an Ork getting it in the face! (by it, I mean a shotgun blast...not that it). Until tomorrow (or later today), Kas out.

Come on people, who can honestly say, hand on heart, that last years selection of PC releases were amazing? I know I can't. Last year offered almost nothing of value for the underrated PC gamer. Only two games last year offered something that wowed me and they were Empire at War and Red Orchestra. EaW offered a slightly fresher look at the RTS genre while RO fufilled my craving for a decent multiplayer WW2 shooter. That was it. Sure, there were a lot of hyped games that came out last year but in my opinion they are just loafs of stale bread. Games such as Advanced Warfighter, Prey, HL2: Aftermath, NFS: Carbon and DoW: DA. This year is going to be frakkin' different! It better be! I went through 2006 with hardly any decent PC releases! But I think I can sleep easy, here are some reasons why: Alliance: The Silent War A FPS set across a couple of decades of various different wars, this should add a welcome twist to a much abused genre. Chrome 2 I'm a fan of the Chrome series because it has so many qualities that are lacking in most other shooting games. And it was enjoyable to boot. Command and Conquer 3 Not so excited about this. But it's a step in the right direction for the RTS genre. Crysis This is what I'm talking about! This is made by the guys who left their old team because Ubi was pretty much ruining everything it touched. If this is the direction PC gaming is going, freeze me now and thaw me in a few years 'cos I can hardly wait! Enemy Territory: Quake Wars I'm loving that games are being set in the near-future. An online FPS set in the middle of an alien invasion of Earth? Yes please! This again is going to make new ground for online gaming. Haze From the makers of the Timesplitter's series (and the good bits of Goldeneye 007) this is gonna rawk!! The trailer raises and answers some questions and just leaves me wanting more. Project IM I've had my eye on this for a while. What drew me to it were the sounds. I loved them. But this should be a winner. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Everyone is raving about it. I was too when I saw the first vids some years back. But I've lost interest...for now. Supreme Commander This is it. This is the game I have been waiting a decade for! Since I first played TA all those years back I still want more. I still play TA every now and then and marvel at how it is still years ahead of most current RTS games. This is going to push the envelope further. I can't see anything touching this for years to come. This is going to be the HalfLife 2 of 2007 in my book. I may also pick up Halo 2 when it comes out. I hated #1. Was so poorly made. Hype and fanboy-ism carried that game. But I love alien invasion games. Damn me!

I've never really liked Dawn of War. Didn't really encompass the horror and darkness that I always imagined the 40k universe to be like. Nethertheless, a friend at work recently purchased the game and wanted me to play him. So I did. I played as Chaos while he played as the Space Marines. I hate Chaos and can never really utilise them to the best of their abilities. But boy did I cream him! Him being a long time C&C fan thought he would try and trick me. Attempted to send a small force to distract me to the south so that I would send all my units to one area while his main force snuck in the back. Little did he know that his main force was about to walk into my amassed army which was waiting to attack his side! What ensued was a battle of epic proportions. This firefight lasted so long that I managed to summon not one, but two greater daemons! He thought it would be a good idea to send 7 or so dreads against my wall of lascannon armed predators and missile launcher equipped turrets and marine squads. A brilliant victory for the forces of disorder if I ever did see one. And was my first online DoW game EVER! Now that I have my own net connection I'm looking at dabbling in some more online games now. Get back to how it used to be. So peeps, lemme know if you're planning some big games. I want in! Sleep permitting.

Gamespot has just advanced me up to Level 14. This is otherwise known as the "Ring King". Okay dudes, I don't know about you but that sounds like some kind of homosexual pornstar name. I will fight this!