Twenty-ten’s already here and we still haven’t got HAL nine thousands, but that’s probably for the best.  For one thing he was pretty terrible at graphics (outputting only plaintext and embarrassingly limited vector graphics), and for another we prefer our AIs not to kill us in the real world.  Instead it’s time to make New Year’s Resolutions!

Don’t leave!  They may be traditionally terrible self-scourging instructions to enjoy yourself less, which - for not entirely unrelated reasons - rarely survive to see a second month, but they don’t have to be.  Here at Lowpings we actually enjoy life instead of laying guilt-trips on ourselves, so we’re releasing resolutions which will enhance your enjoyment of online game servers.

1.  Try New Classes

The great thing about game server self-improvement is that you’re never digitally deprived: you don’t need to think green when firing plasma weapons, you’re getting exercise by sprinting every second of every day, and no matter how many health kits and hunks of raw meat your character absorbs he’ll never put on any weight (unless you count all the shrapnel).  Instead of giving things up you should take more on, and nowhere is that more evident than the wallpaper while waiting to connect to a TF2 server: the “time spent as class” chart.

Resolve to do better!

Spend some time as those cursed classes at the bottom!  You might not play them because you hate them, because you only play Sniper (in which case you suck), or because of the “Medic Malady” (if a team of twelve people are stupid enough not to have a medic, you don’t want to be the one looking after them.)  But each class is a whole new way to enjoy the game.  You might find you like them after all, and more importantly, you’ll learn how they think (and how to avoid and kill them when you return to your beloved first choice.)  A few days as Spy and Sniper is the most educational experience a Heavy can have.

2.  Try New Modes

Left 4 Dead 2 servers don’t offer many classes (at least until someone unlocks a way for Coach’s mass to count as extra health, or at least as cover), but there are more modes than the average Transformers episode.  Everyone ends up with a favorite - from the movie-style slog of the campaign to the pick up and play instant enemy action of Scavenge - and they’re all awesome.  But why limit yourself?

Whichever you play, pick a different one next time!  The mechanics may be the same, and the chainsaw might always be the best thing ever, but the mood differs with playtime and the bonding experience over the whole campaign.  Spitter goo detonating the racer’s fuel is an annoyance in Scavenge, but an adrenaline-soaked catastrophe after two hours of versus play.  And adrenaline-soaked catastrophes are awesome.

3.  Counter-Strike New Maps

Not every game rewards different modes.  Counter-Strike servers occasionally offer hostage rescue maps, but you can replicate the experiment by playing bomb defuse, randomly turning on your toaster, then declaring that you lost for no reason at all when the stupid machine goes off.  This will save you from smashing the screen when the hostages ‘hide’ inside a hail of terrorist fire.

No dust at all!

But the best playmode isn’t limited to de_dust, as infinitely playable as it may be.  Sites like FPSBanana offer an awesome selection of user-generated map, many polished by thousands of hours of competitive play.  And “competitive” on CS servers is a lot like “murderous” everywhere else.  Set up a selection, and enable an add-on like mapvote to find out what your players like.

4.  New Games

There’s nothing like a new game, even if it’s old (and therefore much cheaper!)  You’ve a fantastic first-person-shooter spectrum to enjoy, from the chunky gibbage of Quake servers to the frankly unlikely DIPRIP destruction derbies.  It’s a real concentration of joy – the first few rounds of a new game are an array of incredible sensations, literally blowing things up like never before.  We live in an incredible world where we can say things like that.

Enjoy more of it in 2010!

Valve’s recent adoption of “Die In Pain, Rest In Piece” is great news for those who love high speed, adrenaline and explosions.  That’s you, by the way.  A huge surge in the number of DIPRIP servers means budding Mad Maxers can find car-combat whenever they want, but the sudden bounty of vehicular violence has changed the way you have to play in two words: team deathmatch.

In the old days it was driver for themselves, and with only four or five cars flying around the refinery it was more cat and mouse than straight up combat.  Now we have teams of sixteen competing to steal each other’s flag, with only one small problem: for most players the “team” just means they can’t blow up half the cars.  On a Counter-Strike Server you’re forced into teamplay because you will just die otherwise, no question.  Team Fortress 2 servers have the idea right in the title, as well as quick-command menus so even the un-en-microphoned can co-operate easily.  But there’s something about tearing around the place in murder-mobiles that turns everyone into a rogue leather-wearing loner who plays by their own rules.

There are no voice-commands, and very few players use microphones for anything other than swearing.  So how can you take advantage of a team that isn’t a team?

1.  Run with the Herd

You spawn in your base with a horde of similarly-colored cars.  You see that lovely flashing objective on the other side of the map and the urge is to tear off and be the hero.  The only problem is that there’s another horde of slightly (but very importantly!) differently-colored cars over there and they will blast you into the stratosphere.  Stay with the pack, or at least follow other cars - that way they can “detect” incoming missiles, giving you the chance to fire back while they’re busy “exploding to smithereens”

2.  Run away!

The duel to the death is a powerful urge, but in team-based DIPRIP servers nothing is mano-a-mano.  While you’re locked in machine-gun aiming handbrake skids with an enemy one of his friends will cruise past and blow you from the face of the Earth without looking twice.  When you’re damaged it’s time to take off for a health powerup - every second you stay alive is a second you hold the battle lines away from your base.

A note on running: God, that turbocharger button is gorgeous, isn’t it?  It just calls for you to hammer it and take off at Mach 5.  But when you’re running from an enemy car charging away in a straight line is the absolute worst thing you can do - the increased distance makes it embarrassingly, and fatally, easy for guided missiles to track you.  Use the turbocharger to make a break for the nearest corner, pillar, building, teammate, anything solid that can take a missile impact instead of you.

3.  Stock Up

When you do get detonated (and you will.  A lot.) the urge is to charge right back into the battle and get some revenge.  But if you turn up at the high-speed war with nothing but the wimpy few missiles you spawn with you’re just in time for “Your Ignominious Death: Part II”.  Learn where the missile powerups are and make a quick supply-circuit every time you spawn.  Then when you get to the battle you can actually do something about it.

4.  Take one for the team

When somebody actual gets the flag barrel they have to be the priority - the points for a successful capture far outstrip those for a kill.  There’s a nasty tendency to treat the barrel like a relay baton, waiting for the current carrier to explode so you can snag the points, ignoring the fact that the reason they blew up (ten people machine-gunning him) will have the exact same effect on you.

Take one for the team instead.  It’s worth it in terms of sheer gaming joy as well as points.  Charge headlong into the pursuers, emptying your little-used mortar barrel at long range, ripple firing every missile you have (their tight formation behind your buddy makes them hard to miss) before turbo-ramming whichever car is closest to him as your heavy-machine gun chatters high calibre death into their flanks.

Shouting “WOOOOOOHAAAAAAA!” as you do so is technically optional, but you’re going to do it.

“Die In Pain, Rest In Peace” is fast, free, and makes Mad Max look like an old woman pushing a pram of kittens through a flower garden.  Proof that unofficial mods aren’t just model packs and unbalanced levels, D.I.P.R.I.P. is an astonishingly good total conversion for Half Life 2.  So good that the people who actually made HL2 recently announced “That’s so awesome we’re going to officially support it.”  It uses the the Source physics engine to kick more ass than most officially developed games and does a better job of Death Race than Death Race does.

Remember the awesome vehicle sections in Half Life 2?  Imagine that with cars which aren’t wimpy cage-constructions, don’t waste time worrying about the wimpy humans inside, and every other player is a real live human that you can blow to chunks.  The “kill everyone else for poorly explained reasons” plot is eternal as the idea of gaming, and it’s still more coherent here than in the recent Death Race remake. It’s also just as irrelevant.  Gaming like this is defined by what you end up doing, not why, and you will be doing awesometastic things: crashing through barriers and diving off bridges to avoid enemy fire, handbrake-spinning ballets of death, slaloming between crates with heavy machine-gun fire rattling all around and yelling as you unleash guided missile devastation upon ambushed enemies.

Your first game on a DIPRIP server is a learning experience.  Suddenly appearing in a field full of armoured cars with machine guns will tend to be, and at least this way you get more than one go.  The most vital skill is rapid weapon select - you’ll want to redefine those keys to somewhere closer than the number row (like those lovely extra buttons if you have a real gaming mouse).  The mortar is optimistic at best (though it’s a treat and a joy if you can range in on two people distracted by their close range battle), missile fire is for the mid-range (where you can trade between homing ability or sheer explosive force) and the light machine gun is vital for close combat as the only gun you can aim in directions other than “straight ahead”.

This is no clunky blastfest either.  DIPRIP rewards both shooting and driving, with daring skids and tight turns through the detailed environments making the adrenaline-soaked difference between life and death.  Bursting through walls, hay bales, and generally shouting “YEeeeeHAAA!” like a considerably more badassDuke of Hazzard.  The maps are varied, from the vast and lethal plains of Village to the tight turns of the heavily built up Refinery.  The scenery is vital as well as vivid, fantastically grim and detailed settings providing cover, ambush points and sheer speedrun getaways for demented drivers of all stripes.

The best example of DIPRIP destruction delight is the turbocharger.  Yes, turbocharger, as in “Jet streams of fire and jump over hills to ram into your enemies” turbocharger.  The more you turbocharge the higher the temperature rises.  In most games, hereafter to be known as “wimps”, overheating means it’ll shut down and can’t be used for a while.  Developers EXOR Studios cunningly realised that “slowing down” and “not turbocharging” weren’t exactly exciting concepts and you here can turbocharge as much as you like - as long as you don’t mind the likely consequences of overheating a system composed mainly of flammable liquids and fire.

Any game where you find yourself racing for a corner to shake incoming fire, flames streaming from your battered vehicle with “missile lock on” and “turbocharger overload” sirens competing for your attention?  Where a daring escape or overload detonation is a matter of microseconds?  That is an awesome game. A game that will be available on Steam.  For free.  If you love fast and furious firepower, you should play it.  If you don’t, I don’t wanna talk to you no more.