Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Old awesomeness: Zeus - Master of Olympus


Impressions games and Sierra are pretty much the creators of one single genre of city builders which have had a huge impact on city-builders in general. This type of game is quite the opposite of the Simcity type, where you focus on the larger scale city planning. These more small-scale city-builders are to name a few, the Caesar games, Zeus, Emperor and Pharaoh. As you can imagine, these games are near identical with the major changes being in the historical and cultural setting as well as a few minor twists here and there. Never the less, they are completely awesome.

Zeus obviously has the same core as the other games. The maps are relatively small and limited, forcing you to plan you buildings carefully. The gist of it is that you have homes, service and production buildings all working together towards the goal of earning you tax and trade revenue while making the population as happy as possible. The latter is absolutely vital as their homes will automatically upgrade to more advanced and luxurious types as you increase their comfort.



Micro-planning is key here. The impression city-builder has one unique feature; You lay out your road networks firstly, the important consideration being that all service buildings send out walkers, these walkers walk aimlessly forward across the road, straight forward and will not automatically walk to wherever you placed your homes. At you disposal you therefore have "stops" which block where these walkers can go. So, the obviously most efficient way to do this is a loop of road, as the walkers need to pass every home in order to give them the service they need, like water, food, building maintenance, entertainment and the like. In other words you citizens are quite a lazy bunch.

Naturally, the population you host should produce something. Those who are not occupied in service buildings such as the markets, fire departments and temples are put in farms and factories. The farms can be used either to just supply the population or you can overproduce if you have good trade connections. There also clay workers, potters, sheep hearders, cloth factories, wineries and the like. These, while also satisfying your populations needs, are important for sacrifice and for trade.

The unique twist of Caesar is that it also contains mythological creatures roaming the maps. A typical mission will be get X houses to Y level, sell Z amount of Cloth a year and oh, kill the murderous ravaging Minotaur who has half the map as his territory. In order to get the Minotaur dead you usually have to summon the classic Greek heroes. These heroes won't just come because you ask them but you to sacrifice and build temples in their honour. In other words you have to manage and let your city grow on a quite limited space to avoid the monster and then once it's dead and you can then complete the rest of the mission.

The above might seem bothersome but it is actually a very good incentive for keeping playing and its a fun and satisfying way of completing you missions, rather than just watching a spreadsheet report of the last year and conclude that you should be finished within 20 minutes once that cloth ships off. Awesomely enough, rather than starting over on every mission, you have one or two major capital cities and then half a dozen outpost cities, who produce a specific commodity needed to supply your major cities. So you frequently go back to your old cities to expand them as you gain access to new goods, like marble for example. This forces the player to plan ahead and keep his cities as space efficient as possible.



There are of course a few problems with the design as well. The most immediately frustrating aspect for new players, apart from the road system, which takes a while to get used to, is how you store goods. You designate warehouses which you can set to retrieve or just accept specific goods. Here is where you will spend a majority of time as the warehouses are quite small, furthermore, there is no easy way to determine how much you should produce, how much to keep and how much to export. An easy way way would be to just have an overarching slide that you could adjust to determine globally how large a percentage you want to keep etc. But no, quickly you will find yourself having a dozen warehouses with insanely complicated setups of what goods they store and how many pieces of that they will accept. You will almost always overproduce as the traders rarely accept any larger amounts annually. Knowing how many factories and how to manage trade and storage is thus an important but cumbersome aspect.

There is also a war aspect which has plagued this franchise throughout its lifespan. The offensive part is easy enough, you procure better warriors by selling the villas armour, weapons and horses while your more humbler population turns into simple militiamen. You then send them off out of the map and 10 minutes later you receive the results and the survivors. The defensive aspect however is a nightmare in every single of these games. You get a note saying there is an incoming attack and you then assemble your forces. If your cautious, you will have walls surrounding the important part of the city. However, the enemy AI is weird, stupid, fidgety and will come in from a seemingly random part of the map, they will also go straight for buildings while you try to chase them down and kill them. Controlling your forces is also a horrible experience and the RTS like system is close to unplayable. Usually its a better idea to just pay off the enemy and continue your peaceful existence.

Luckily though, Zeus is overall a great game and not overtly technical. It is a charming and warm game with tons of humour and life. It's simply fun to play and very engaging, unlike for example Simcity 4 which is satisfying in a completely different way but can quickly just get too heavy on you. While the small scale and focus on detail can sometimes hamper your enjoyment, once everything runs smoothly you will be having a very good time.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Tyranids confirmed!



A bit late on the news here but yes. There are now offical videos and images of Tyranids in Dawn of war 2. As an avid fan of the monsters you can imagine me rolling the floor spasmic with love for the world and Relic in particular. So far I have spotted Warriors, Carnifex, Hive Tyrant, Lictor, Raveners and of course gaunts. So far no genestealers reported, to my knowledge, but leaving them out would be no less that detrimental to the experience. So far the new game has turned out to be a real fanpleaser with the new elements added so I can't imagine they leave this out.

Yes Blizzard, for all your incredible games and wonderful storylines and creative direction, Tyranids remain the mother and far superior race to Zerg. They are like the dinky-toy version of Nids and while a huge fan of both, I still can't believe people who would argue that Zerg are not derived from the Nids.


Is that Ravener.... trying to get tanned?


That horrible fanboy discussion aside. We will not be getting a nid campaign (they are too badass for dialogue) as confirmed by Relic. There will be one long and in-depth Space Marine campaign, however it has also been acknolwedged that the Nids, Eldar, Orks and obviously Marines are all playable in multiplayer and skirmish. The inteview linked to above by IGN with Relic suggested that base building might still be in the multi-player aspect while removed and replaced by a tactical equiping interface in the Single player mission, as mentioned previously

Extended Dow2 trailer with alternate ending
Tyranid trailer from those brownnosed bastards
Interview with Relic regarding Tyranids

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Empire: Total war



So for a while now we have had the great pleasure of looking forward to the next chapter in history, filtered by the frequent need to main burn and kill everything on a scaled down map of what we in the west consider to be the "relevant" parts of the world. Nonetheless as this game is mainly focused around the era of colonialism it is not without surprise. Politics aside, there are some important changes to the core of the game that seem more than interesting. I'm suprised to see there has been a fair bit of ups and downs in the communities expectations, many revolving around the decision to not include the US in the main campaign.

We will now have real-time naval battles, at last! Should your armada collide with another on the turn based strategic map, the game will appropriately present you with a 3D simulation of the battle as have been the case for all other military engagements in the previous games. I predict that this feature will either make or break the game depending on how well they do it. The problem is of course that if you make it too advanced you will alienate a majority of players who are not familiar with the fundamentals of maneuvering ships, Ie taking winds, currents and the poor "handling" these vessels into account as compared to troops or vehicles who go where you click without further ado. The wiki article states that "dynamic weather has a major impact on naval battles", suggesting that it might be quite good.

Make it too simple and you will have a quite bland experience not unlike RTS games where you just drag a box and click the opponent. It will be interesting to see how they manage this. In any case it will be an impressive sight to see multiple ships unload a broadside on the opponents, turning the enemy to woodchips while ramming enemy ships with your own that have been lit ablaze. They key here is to make it properly dramatic and explosive (not literally). Artillery fire has in general been quite a boring part of Total War so far and I found myself frequently pushing the fastforward button, waiting for the ammo run out. They just have to ammed this somehow in a game that focuses mainly on musket and cannon fire.

I'm actually not that excited about the political aspect of the game and nor have I been in any of the previous games. Total War has always been ambitious but in the end, the game is about amassing armies and moving from country to contry conquering. I often found diplomacy to be quite an obstacle as oppoed to a tool when it came to winning. The main villain here is the incredibly random and twofaced AI that would make pacts and alliances one day only to stab you the next turn as soon as you thin your forces on a front. Put bluntly, diplomacy is worthless if your the only one using it.

Aside from that and the battles comes treasury and managing your population as the other half of the game. We used to have some arbitrary control of the taxes in cities, but this was more of a tedious routine rather than a policy. Ie you would click through you cities, trying to push your taxes as high as possible while retaining at least a yellow half-smiley in the happiness field. You then checked against your income charts to see how many more units you could train while still making some cash.

Now we will be givent the possibility to manage taxes for different social classes, of which there will be three different ones. How this will work and effect gameplay remains to be seen, as in the end it still should amount to quelling rebellion while making money rather than some sort of interactive social study where we try to fuel or prohibit different ideologies, as it should be.

The game now also introduces three different types of government that will in some way change the way you play. These are
absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy and republic. To my knowledge, no details have been released on what exactly the gameplay differences will be. But I assume Monarchy will mean more control but angrier people while republic is the opposite and constitutional is the middle option.

But the meat of the game is as always total war. In battles we will now be able to field music playing infantry and on the less merry side, a plethora of artillery, guns, muskets and other ranged types of ranged death. Armies will leave severed corpses and blood splatter, unlike previous games. Hopefully they will capture the total chaos the guns introduced to the battlefield. Historians often talk about how battles in the 1800s usually looked like a huge cloud of smoke and dust with people shooting randomly in the direction of the enemy. Friendly fire and the like was very frequent.

Historical characters will be introduced, such as Charles the XII and while that's a slight taboo in Sweden, it should be interesting to see if capturing Moscow is as hard as they say.
Overall I am thrilled that they introduced this era but of course, it was quite obvious ever since we left Medieval 2. Many are now speculating on what direction CA will take with this franchise, some are thinking early 1900s while others are speculating on an Asian setting with a return to Shogun or ancient China, the latter I think would be more likely an interesting. Will get back to you on that in 2010 or so.


Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney


More than just a popular source of memes, Phoenix Wright has become a very iconic part of the online gaming culture and has been subject to countless webcomics and other media. The pointing hand and the spiky hair has probably reached you dozens of times without you even knowing that this is actually a game. That is because the concept of basing a game on the court of law would seem like yawnfest. What about humor? Large breasts? Samurais? This is what we demand as young adolescent gamers today, and thankfully, this is exactly what Phoenix Wright delivers in an intelligent, hilarious, stylish and engaging package somewhat related to playing a defense attorney.

Gameplay/Story
You are Phoenix Wright, a fledgling defense attorney receiving his first case as the game begins. The story follows you and your clients and colleagues through four cases. A few central characters remain throughout the game and keeps it familiar. There is your nemesis, Prosecutor Edgeworth, Your mentor Mia Fey, her little sister Maya as well as officer Gumshoe. These characters form the framework of each case and provides you with important hints and evidence. Maya is your sidekick throughout the game, a quirky spirit medium (my least favourite character, although they are all great). The story is really the whole game here and without spoiling anything, its spectacular and immensely engaging. There is a main storyline as well as the four separate ones in each case.

You are a defense attorney as opposed to a prosecutor. You goal is thus to clear your client of all charges and, unlike the real world, also find the actual perpetrator. You do this by investigating the crime scene, interrogating involved witnesses and suspects while gathering clues and evidence around the scene of the crime. Do not fret, the key items you need for the trial cannot be missed, however if you don't pay attention you might miss important hints.

Actually that is the core of this game. Paying attention. You have to constantly take in all information that is given to you, consider it and try to find suspicious statements and motives even before the trial. You then proceed to the trial where the witnesses give their testimonies. And here comes the crucial part, cross-examining. You will now try to find contradictions by comparing what the victim says to the available evidence. Alternatively you can 'press' the victim for more information, sometimes causing them to slip up. As they start sweating and making mistakes they will revise their stories to cover the holes you find and finally they break, ripping hair off and crying while Phoenix smugly savors his success. That is of course assuming you are successful.

The crux is that you are only allowed 5 misses. A miss is when you present evidence that does not contradict the current segment of the witness's testimony. This is most of the time not a problem but quite frequently you will get confused or actually find a contradiction but not the one you are "supposed to find", and the judge annoyingly penalizes you.

This entire style of gameplay is actually quite similar to reading comprehension tests you do in school, except a lot of fun. The characters in this game are simply outstandingly portrayed and very funny. The game has so much personality that for the first few hours playing you will be almost ecstatic with joy over what good a game you're playing. The gameplay is extremely rewarding and there is nothing more engaging and dramatic then being on a roll and being totally in sync with Phoenix's line of thought, always one step ahead, in quick succession presenting contradiction after contradiction and ripping a testimony to pieces.

The game does one thing perfectly which is the key to its success. It makes the player feel clever, even when you are not. Most of the time you get a fair amount of hints and clues to what the game wants you to do, and should you sit back and analyze the situation you would find most of everything to be completely obvious, at least in the first few cases. But that's not how you play. The animation, music and dialogue all comes together to completely envelope you and no matter how obvious and simple the case is, you truly feel like an ace attorney all the way through.

The game is split up into 5 cases, 1 of which is "hidden". It start out simple and then cases get progressively longer and more complicated with more witnesses, more evidence, more twists and more drama. The cases are separated but they are tied together by a mysterious case from the past which all of the main characters are somehow involved in. You will face murder, framings, cover-ups and corruption among other things.

I only have one real complaint with this game, preventing me from giving it a perfect 10 and that is the 3rd case, which feels a lot like filler and is generally quite uninspired. The 4 others however more than make up for it.

Graphics/Sound
The graphics here are very stylized and appealing. It's without a doubt Japanese and very manga/anime. The game is very short on frames and animations but they are so good and so well done that you never get tired of them. The characters are all very strongly exaggerated and stereotypical, but none the less entertaining and nice to look at. The best part are the trials where its hard to tell if your watching an anime action fight or a trial. When you present contradictory evidence to the witness he is smacked back in despair and almost knocked out of the chair. The judge gasps, eyes wide and the prosecutor knocked back with panic. Its all completely off the charts exaggerated but it makes the game very vivid, dramatic and funny.

The sound consists mostly of a dozen or so music tracks. Some characters have their own themes while evidence gathering and trials have very different moods. Trials have the same tracks and starts out quite idle and sober at the beginning while progressively escalating until it reaches boss-battle levels of excitement. The music is overall very good, very skillfully used and never gets old.

Playtime/Replayability
There is no in-game clock but I would guesstimate that you will get about 20 to 30 hours out of this game. That is quite a lot for a game this linear and structured. The replayability will be nill for some, as once the puzzle has been solved, a lot of the appeal is lost. However, As with any game, if you let it rest on your shelf for a year, it will likely be a fresh experience again. You will most probably though want to move onto the sequels in the series before playing this game again.

Do whatever you can to get a hold of this gem. It is so worth the money and the time. While this game is seldom found in stores and quite rare and pricy on ebay. Do try! There are few games I would recommend as warmly as this one and I am usually quite picky. If looking on ebay, do include worldwide into your search as I hear its near impossible to get this on American ebay alone.