Godzilla

A remake that might be worthwhile...

Spec Ops: The Line

Whoa.

Rome Total War Intro Remake

Impressed. Also, wish my rig ran the game more like this...

Hitler Reacts to Total War: Rome II

Ok, it's flogging a dead horse at this point, but I still found it amusing.

Also, despite the video, the game is absolutely fanastic. More to come later.

"Super Secret Space Project"

So, almost two years after launch they're finally making space combat what it should have been in the first place? What it was in the 90's X-Wing games? That's the vibe I'm getting. I'd be ok with them making amends. 

Just don't ask me to pay for an apology.

Hegemony: Rome

Interesting...



Might have to reDL Phillip for a bit of nostalgia.

Rome II Naval Warfare Vid

Yes, please.

Impulse and Gamestop

Once upon a time there was a digital distribution platform called Impulse, used just like Steam to sell and access games and other software, primarily that which was produce by Stardock. I used it for my Stardock related purchases, and was generally pleased with it as it caused me less hassle than Steam did, back in the day.

Then along came big, evil Gamestop in 2011 who decided that in order to compete in the modern games industry, they also needed a digital distribution platform given the increased profit margin when the physical copy of the game is taken out of the equation.

I had ceased using Impulse in about 2010 when I began to prefer Steam, given their amazingly awesome holiday sales.

Well, earlier this year I had a bit of nostalgia kick in and thought, rather than purchasing a copy of a game again on Steam, I should log back into Impulse to regain access to my games. I did not fully understand the ordeal that would ensue.

I search for the app, find out that it's owned by Gamestop now. Ok, no big deal. Download it, and try to log in.

Problem 1: Gamestop has managed to take what was once a fantastic download manager and make it slow, buggy, and unintuitive. It's amazing. If the US government designed a digital distribution platform, I imagine it would be something like this.

Problem 2: They're forcing me to merge my Impulse Account with my Gamestop Account.

Great. Fantastic. I don't have a Gamestop Account. Ok, fine, I'll create an account for the sole purpose of account merging. Accounts created, merged. It was a bit confusing, but with a little Googling it was done relatively pain free.

What is this? It kept my old email address associated with my Impulse account. I don't use that email address anymore. No problem, I'll just hop into account settings and change it, right?

Wrong.

Problem 3: Unlike every other reasonable login system used by every other digital everything on the face of the Earth, you can't change your password. The password you have is set.

Ok, fine. I'll contact customer service. The solution?

Create a separate account entirely, and we'll transfer your games between accounts.

Ok... fine. Fresh account created. Email them again. Games transferred. I'm starting to wonder if I really wanted to play those several year old games just for nostalgia, but I finally get in, enjoy them. Happiness ensues.

But of course, the saga continues.

Get my desktop back from the shop, download app on this computer, attempt to log in. I'm prompted to merge my PC Downloads account and my Gamestop Account. Ok... I didn't even realize they were separate. Go to the merger screen, type in email address password.

PC Downloads account can't verify.

Go to password reset page thinking, "Well, I might not even have an account here. If it send me a password reset, surely I do, and the question is moot." Sure enough, I do have an account, and my password is reset. So, I mosey back to account merger, enter information and.... same error.

After resetting both accounts passwords several times, I give up, and ask for help from the customer service. Again.

After being talked down to like an idiot and being told to complete all the steps I had already completed (before giving me the change to say so), he checks out my account.

Last Straw: Apparently there was an error in the merger that he can't resolve, and the only solution is to create a new account.

No thank you, Gamestop. You're now more trouble than you are worth. I can just wait for my Stardock games to go on sale at Steam, and save myself the trouble.

If you're going to try and compete with Steam, you actually need to be competitive. I won't cry when you file bankruptcy and shut down. Know how many account issues I've had with Steam in sixish years? Not a single one. Someone, somewhere (probably on the corporate level) needs a reality check.

Too Many Cavalry...

I do believe a stronger hoplite phalanx would have fared better.

But it's still good to see that the AI is getting some buffs.

Dear Game Developers...

... unless playing a specifically stealth oriented game, no one likes stealth missions. Similarly, no one like escort quests. And please, for the love of all things good, please do not combine the two.

Exploring Rome 2

Another fantastic Rome 2 preview, with yet another Battle of the Nile preview towards the end. Obviously very much in a beta state, but still exciting nonetheless.

Obligatory

And now for a year's worth of updating...

Oh, yes. For Rome!

This is the preview you've been looking for...

My Brief Affair with Mobile Gaming, Part 2

Plants vs. Zombies

I don't know if there is a way to adequately describe how endearing this game is. The mechanics are a simple variation on a theme. If you've played any tower defense game before, you'll pick up on gameplay quickly. There are two significant differences between Plants and other tower defense games I've played in the past:

1. There is no twisty windy valley in which the zombies have to progress. Rather, there are six lanes, and the zombies only go straight in those six lanes, and are fully capable of attacking all six lanes at once. 
2. Sun (the resource of the game) isn't gathered at the end of a successfully completed level, like in the majority of tower games I've played, but is rather accrued over time via the sun itself and the assistance of resource producing plants, sunflowers and a particular kind of mushroom. 

These significant departures from the tower defense norm bring a fresh perspective to an often run down genre. The first major consideration is resource production and the real estate it takes up. Considering that your resource producing plants also cost sun and they're taking up valuable space that could be used by one of your other offensive or defensive plants the player is forced rather early on to experiment with build order in order to optimize production and defense on any given level.

For example, early on as a player I was hasty to put down my first pea shooter in anticipation of the forthcoming zombie horde. However, often I would place the pea shooter in one lane as the zombies approached in another. A little trial and error force me to learn that it's often best to build your first two sunflowers in one lane and then wait for the first approaching zombie before you build a pea shooter. This can guarantee you build it in a lane where it will be effective while simultaneously accruing resources to further production/defense.

The second consideration is the six independent lanes in which the zombies approach. Building up and defending one lane doesn't mean diddly squat for the other lanes. While later in the game you do acquire a few plants that defend multiple lanes at once, for the most part each plant defends its home lane and nothing else, meaning that you're essentially balancing six different defense games at once. Late game, the levels can get a bit hectic. 

With increasingly complex mechanics, such as the pool below with adds water zombies and of course water plants, the game stays fresh from beginning to end. Honestly, it's one of the first games in some time I've played from beginning to end essentially without break. It was over the course of a few days, but never because I lost interest - only because I have to rejoin the real world every now and again. 

If you've ever had any interest in tower defense games, I can't recommend Plants vs. Zombies enough. It's a fresh installment in a stale genre, once that will be sure to liven up your phone for an enjoyable time. 

My Brief Affair with Mobile Gaming, Part 1

As I posted recently my gaming laptop is having hard drive issues. This combined with my desktop's longstanding cooling issues forced me to break down and put one in the shop, resulting in a large incoming bill for a replaced liquid cooling system. During this time, I've tried to sate my gaming desires through my smart phone. Having downloaded many an app over the course of the past three weeks, a few really stood out to me and have made an impression on me.

I think the first I'd like to touch on is World of Goo. All this with the caveat that I'm only about halfway through the game.

How to describe World of Goo?

It has character. That much is for certain. 

It was developed by 2D Boy, an Indie game developer if there ever was one. More about them on their own page, here. This indie development shows. Not in a substandard, lack of polish manner. But rather, in the sense that this is not a game that would or even could ever be developed and pushed through a major studio/publisher combo today.

Aesthetic

I think this is probably one of the most striking, if not the single most striking aspect of this game. The world is a dark one. Almost cynical. There is harsh criticism of the industry standards of beauty present. There is heavy industrialization, with great smokestacks and industrial fires. The game says much with its artwork. 

The goo mentioned in the title seems to have some level of sentience in the world. You control the goo to accomplish various tasks given to you. The goo seems to be working towards an unclear purpose, all the while it's being harvested by the industrial machine for various purposes, presumably dark and nefarious. The secrets of the world are what you uncover as the story progress, and I admittedly have progressed little so I won't presume I know any more about the world.

About the dark aesthetic... I can't say I like it. I haven't finished the game, and I'm not sure I will, partially because of the aesthetic. It's almost depressing, and I think intentionally so. But at the same time it has a very real air of mystery about it, which is the one thing that might draw me back into the game. 

I'm torn, because while I don't particularly like the art style from a personal viewpoint, I greatly respect it. It is highly developed, and very clearly made for a purpose. Like Schoenberg's twelve tone works, while I don't enjoy the aesthetic, I do appreciate it intellectually. I simply think I'm not the target audience in this respect. 

Despite my inability to immerse myself in the general aesthetic, I think it bears mentioning before gameplay because frankly it left a bigger impression on me. World of Goo is many things, but it certainly isn't generic. The developers obviously had a very clear vision of the game they wished to create, pursued, and I think executed it with excellence. Goo has more personality than 90% of the games to come out in recent years, and for that I commend it.

Gameplay

Gameplay is enjoyable. It's a combination puzzle/construction game, where you fight physic and obstacles to invariably collect goo in a giant suction pipe so that you can conquer the next puzzle and collect more goo in a giant suction pipe, etc. I appreciate a game that has a more intellectual bent, where the focus isn't on action and explosions, but rather stretching your mind in new and interesting ways. 

The puzzle progression I think is generally well paced, starting out with one basic goo type in early levels, and over the course of the game introducing more goo types, each with its own attributes, then combining them together in puzzles of ever increasing complexity. 

My one complaint is that, after some time, you start having elements of some puzzles that requiring a good deal of careful timing. I'm not a fan of this. It is, to me, right up there with Escort Quests, Countdown Clocks, and Twitch Gameplay, of which this is a form. World of Goo does, however, allow you to skip levels, which I admittedly did when absolutely precise timing was essential because, frankly, I don't find rote memorization of timing sequences enjoyable. This is something I think I'll explore further in another post, particularly in regards to the most recent Tomb Raider game, but I'll spare you here.

The game did make excellent use of a touch screen, often requiring nimble motions to contruct a shape before physics could tear it down, made easier with the second nature of using your fingers for such a task. I think this would have been made significantly more difficult with the use of a mouse.

However, on the downside, when you have a swarm of forty or fifty goos of various types writhing around on screen, and you need to select a specific variety, it was often an exercise in frustration. Frequently, I found myself needing, for example, a balloon goo, but repeatedly clicking a standard black goo that once placed cannot be moved. Perhaps my screen is too small or my fingers too fat, but several times I found myself restarting a level do to a goo misplacement because of the selection issue. 

I don't know the solution to this, or even if it needs a solution. Perhaps this can be considered just one more challenge of the game, though I don't think that's the right approach. If I were a carpenter and had to repeatedly start over in building a piece of furniture because I reached for one tool and grabbed another, I think I'd quite carpentry pretty fast. This is, something, I think the developer should consider addressing should a sequel ever arise.

Impressions

Overall the gameplay was enjoyable, but it never quite completely pulled me in. I enjoyed it, but I was never totally immersed in it. I never had the 'Blinders' go up, making me oblivious to the outside world. I haven't been able to lay a finger on it, but this game never surpassed "Good Game" to me. The approach was fairly novel, and the personality was singular if not my cup of tea. It was a good diversion, but not quite as enjoyable to me as the next game I spent time with, Plants vs Zombies.

Battle of the Nile

My anticipation is growing. However, I'm just not sure about the physics. That artillery around 5:00 wiped out half a cohort in one well landed shot. More effective than a howitzter in Empire/Napoleon. This, to me is somewhat disconcerting. 

Then again at 5:20 when the scythe chariots clash with the Roman legionaries it's amazing how many of them fly twenty feet straight up in the air. You'd think those horses had scoops or the like up front. I get it. It's a graphical representation of the disruption caused by the chariots, but still... we're at least pretending to be an historical game, right?

I also feel obligated to mention the pacing. The whole battle seems... fast. The ships accelerate fast. The infantry move fast. Troops die by the dozen. And morale breaks fast. It feels like we're in for a much quicker paced tactical game, and I'm not really sure how I feel about that.

I am looking forward to a return to sword and arrow combat. Don't get me wrong, Shogun 2 had that aplenty, but what Shogun 2 lacked was character. All the Japanese clans had an essentially identical unit roster which made faction choice essentially boil down to starting position, with a couple of minor perks you may or may not even utilize. 

Going back to antiquity eliminates gunpowder from the equation an, with such varied cultures, will hopefully at least give the illusion to vastly differentiated armies. 

Overall I'm hesitantly mega excited for this game. I was drawn into the Total War series with the original Rome, and I sincerely hope this game can capture some of the nostalgia I have from that experience. 

Withdrawals

...from blogger? No. From gaming. My desktop has been bricked for some time now (I suspect cooling issues) and I've been forced to rely on my laptop. Well, now the laptop is acting like it has a corrupted hard drive or some other hard drive issue. So, the desktop is in the shop (for two weeks now... I'm growing impatient) and the laptop is collecting dust, all the while I'm dreaming of the new Civ V expansion, which I might add Europe is going to have access to before I do. Europe.

The French will play the game before me.

But hey, it's cool. It's my only three week window of zero responsibility the entire year that I can devote to gaming.

I swear, I'm being taught a lesson for something.

Obligatory

Disney Closes Lucas Arts

Via Game Informer:

"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles."

I know the studio hasn't produced much recently, but I was really hoping for new installments in the X-Wing series at some distant, far off point in the future.

I have to purchase a PS4...

To fully experience this series is all the reason needed...

Legacy of Romulus

Yes, please. =D

The Future of the Homeworld Franchise

Ever run across information about a game you once loved through sheer coincidence? After a string of Wikipedia cross referencing starting with EA, I found myself on the article about the now defunct THQ. Turns out as part of their liquidation, they've been shedding subsidiary studios and IPs like mad, some for profit, others closing for a loss.

Probably of the highest interest to me was a link to this article on Gamespot. Turns out the Homeworld IP rights will soon go up for auction in a court supervised sale. From the article:

THQ has announced that it will sell the remainder of its intellectual properties in a court-supervised sale. The publisher has already sold the majority of its studios and games following news of its bankruptcy last month.

THQ will now accept bids on franchises including Darksiders, Red Faction, Homeworld, MX; owned software including Big Beach Sports and Destroy All Humans!; as well as licensed software including Marvel Super Hero Squad, Supreme Commander, Worms, and more.

I also have to say I take interest in where Red Faction and Supreme Commander end up. Hopefully there will be some coverage of the results of these sales.

I also wonder how this is going to affect the Homeworld Touch/3 Kickstarter, and the same project on Indigogo. I really don't see any shot in hell of Kickstarter raising enough funds for this group to buy the franchise rights. No matter how much they fund raise there is an EA equivalent publisher who can top their bid by an even million. It's a nice gesture, but I'd be shocked to see it come to fruition.

This is one of the games I remember most fondly from my youth. The original game in particular completely blew my mind in terms of what a strategy game could be, particularly for its generation, and I would love to see a new iteration of the franchise further push the boundaries of the strategy paradigm, especially now that there is a real dearth of solid strategy titles being released into the market.

SimCity Part 2

So over the past couple of days the servers had stabilized and I was seriously intending to updated with many a screenshots, showing my various cities progress, anecdotes while playing, and a general review of the game. Despite its flaws, it has been an overall enjoyable game, though for me the jury is still out.

Unfortunately, I can't do any of that. Upon trying to load my cities today (any of them) after Patch 1.5 had been implemented, I was greeted with massive, massive lag (gameplay lag, not internet related) making the game nigh unplayable.  This is after two days of relatively smooth building.

But how can this be with Patch 1.5 having such promising notes as this?:

Update: 03/12/2013
SimCity Update 1.5
This update to SimCity contains the following updates and fixes:
General
• This patch fixes an issue that was causing the game to crash.
Server Improvements:
• Optimizations to improve latency. Region wall and city to city trading will be more responsive.
• Database optimizations that will improve the success rate for connections.
• Fixed an issue with rollbacks. Higher chance of success and less chance of getting in a rollback loop. 

Apparently 'fixed' means 'broke' in EA lingo. So this venture will be put off to another day. In its stead, more Skyrim, a solid, wonderful game that has worked for me since launch and is still enjoyable over a year later.

There Are No Words

This is why always on DRM is going to drive EA out of business:

That said, I did get a couple hours of play time in before this debacle. And I'll say, initial impression? It was glorious. The best city simulator I've played in years. 

But it doesn't mean a thing if you can't actually play.

I might be more positive with a more thorough review tomorrow, but today I hope EA is losing cash by the tens of thousands in refunds. 

I guess I should have gone for the new ME3 DLC instead...

The Roll of the Dice

...or the d20 at least.

A group of my closer MMO friends (specifically, that I have never met in real life) and I have recently started a Pathfinder group via Skype. The reasons for this are many, and maybe the subject of a future blog post regarding our jaded disenchantment with the state of the MMO industry at the moment.

Dystopian outlook aside, the experience has been fun. Only our GM has any clue what he's doing, the rest of us are green and fumbling along as we go. He's been kind and we've been introducing mechanics over time. I figure by the fourth or fifth session, we might actually understand most of what we're doing. At which point we'll add more mechanics no doubt.

I have to say, the most captivating aspect of the game came as a surprise to me: The dice roll.

If you know me, you know I'm kind of a control freak. "God Complex" may or may not be an appropriate term. So the fact that I enjoy letting fate decide my hand kind of caught me off guard. I'm still trying to reason out what it is. The uncertainty? Knowing I may have to completely redo my strategy on a whim because of a bad roll? I don't know but it's there.

I know at least of a part of my likes the extremely tangible aspect of the roll. Dice on wood. The sound. There's something very real about it. It's a nice contrast to the digital gaming world I'm used to.

Write Like the Wind

Not sure how I missed this. More or less made my night.

Age of the Hobbits

This. This is a thing.

To be fair, they were sued. The movie is now named Clash of the Empires.

USS Surak

Yes, this can only mean one thing. With the break and my recent re immersion into STO, I've given in and made an alt. Sometimes you just have to give in to temptation.