Player of Game

GameInformer's Top 200 Games of All Time Commentary

2009-11-16T23:05:00.011-05:00

For its 200th issue, Game Informer's editors have created a list of the top 200 games of all time. Although you can't see the article online, there's a summary here. Just for fun, I’ve bolded the ones that I’ve played. However, in general, most of the coin-op games listed I played in best-of collections or on the NES. In either case, I did not play them when they came out and thus really could never truly appreciate the value of most of them. This means that for the most part, I didn't comment on them. I’ve also written up some of my thoughts on the rankings, presented below.

1 -- The Legend of Zelda (NES, 1987)
2 -- Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1985)
3 -- Tetris (PC, 1984)
4 -- Grand Theft Auto III (PS2, 2001)
5 -- Half-Life 2 (PC, 2004)
6 -- Doom (PC, 1993)
7 -- Metroid (NES, 1986)
8 -- Final Fantasy III (SNES, 1994)
9 -- Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES, 1990)
10 -- Ms. Pac-Man (coin-op, 1981)
11 -- World of Warcraft (PC, 2004)
12 -- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1992)
13 -- Super Mario 64 (N64, 1996)
14 -- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3/360/PC, 2007)
15 -- Final Fantasy VII (PS, 1997)
16 -- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES, 1987)
17 -- Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)
18 -- Resident Evil 4 (GameCube, 2005)
19 -- Metal Gear Solid (PS, 1998)
20 -- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998)
21 -- Super Metroid (SNES, 1994)
22 -- Contra (NES, 1988)
23 -- Galaga (coin-op, 1981)
24 -- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS, 1997)
25 -- Street Fighter II (coin-op, 1991)
26 -- God of War (PS2, 2005)
27 -- BioShock (360/PC, 2007)
28 -- Diablo II (PC, 2000)
29 -- Half-Life (PC, 1998)
30 -- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360/PC, 2006)
31 -- Tecmo Super Bowl (NES, 1991)
32 -- GoldenEye 007 (N64, 1997)
33 -- Super Mario Kart (SNES, 1992)
34 -- Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis, 1991)
35 -- StarCraft (PC, 1998)
36 -- Civilization (PC, 1991)
37 – Sim City (PC, 1989)
38 -- Mega Man 2 (NES, 1988)
39 -- Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001)
40 -- Gran Turismo (PS, 1998)
41 -- Resident Evil 2 (PS, 1998)
42 -- Pokemon Red and Blue (GB, 1996)
43 -- Final Fantasy X (PS2, 2001)
44 -- EverQuest (PC, 1999)
45 -- Final Fantasy Tactics (PS, 1998)
46 -- Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3/360, 2008)
47 -- Super Mario World (SNES, 1991)
48 -- Deus Ex (PC, 2000)
49 -- Guitar Hero (PS2, 2005)
50 -- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2, 2001)
51 -- Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)
52 -- Pac-Man (coin-op, 1980)
53 -- Battlefield 2 (PC, 2005)
54 -- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox, 2003)
55 -- Ico (PS2, 2001)
56 -- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, 2009)
57 -- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PS, 2000)
58 -- Mass Effect (360, 2007)
59 -- Adventure (2600, 1980)
60 -- Arkanoid (coin-op, 1986)
61 -- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB, 1993)
62 -- Star Wars: X-Wing (PC, 1993)
63 -- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64, 2000)
64 -- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2, 2004)
65 -- Fallout 3 (PS3/360/PC, 2008)
66 -- Zork (PC, 1980)
67 -- Soul Calibur (DC, 1999)
68 -- Double Dragon (coin-op, 1987)
69 -- Dr. Mario (NES, 1990)
70 -- The Sims (PC, 2000)
71 -- Age of Empires (PC, 1997)
72 -- Mortal Kombat II (coin-op, 1993)
73 -- Rock Band 2 (PS3/360, 2008)
74 -- Tomb Raider (PS, 1996)
75 -- Super Bomberman (SNES, 1993)
76 -- Mario's Picross (GB, 1995)
77 -- Ninja Gaiden (NES, 1989)
78 -- Command & Conquer (PC, 1995)
79 -- Kingdom Hearts (PS2, 2002)
80 -- Final Fantasy II (SNES, 1991)
81 -- Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES, 1988)
82 -- Left 4 Dead (PC, 2008)
83 -- Okami (PS2, 2006)
84 -- Shadow of the Colossus (PS2, 2005)
85 -- Metroid Prime (GameCube, 2002)
86 -- Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube, 2001)
87 -- Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (PC, 1995)
88 -- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (PC, 2000)
89 -- God of War II (PS2, 2007)
90 -- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii, 2006)
91 -- Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2, 2004)
92 -- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (PC, 2002)
93 -- Skies of Arcadia (DC, 2000)
94 -- The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GameCube, 2003)
95 -- Silent Hill 2 (PS2, 2001)
96 -- Counter-Strike (PC, 1999)
97 -- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis, 1992)
98 -- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS3/360, 2002)
99 -- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PS2/Xbox/GameCube/PC, 2003)
100 -- Portal (PC/360, 2007)
101 -- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC, 2002)
102 -- Heroes of Might & Magic III (PC, 1999)
103 -- Donkey Kong (coin-op, 1981)
104 -- Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3/360, 2009)
105 -- System Shock 2 (PC, 1999)
106 -- Resident Evil (PS, 1996)
107 -- Gears of War (360, 2006)
108 -- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3, 2008)
109 -- Crash Bandicoot: Warped (PS, 1998)
110 -- Halo 2 (Xbox, 2004)
111 -- Tetris Attack (SNES, 1996)
112 -- Final Fantasy XII (PS2, 2006)
113 -- Earthbound (SNES, 1995)
114 -- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (PC, 1998)
115 -- Command & Conquer: Red Alert (PC, 1996)
116 -- Advance Wars (GBA, 2001)
117 -- Fallout (PC, 1997)
118 -- Team Fortress 2 (PS3/360/PC, 2007)
119 -- Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Xbox, 2005)
120 -- Mega Man X (SNES, 1994)
121 -- Lemmings (PC, 1991)
122 -- Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn, 1998)
123 -- NHL '94 (Genesis/SNES, 1993)
124 -- Warlords (coin-op, 1980)
125 -- Shadowrun (SNES, 1993)
126 -- Twisted Metal 2 (PS, 1996)
127 -- Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (PS, 1997)
128 -- Metroid Fusion (GBA, 2002)
129 -- Homeworld (PC, 1999)
130 -- Kingdom Hearts II (PS2, 2006)
131 -- Pilotwings (SNES, 1991)
132 -- Quake II (PC, 1997)
133 -- Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC, 1997)
134 -- Borderlands (PS3/360/PC, 2009)
135 -- Final Fight (coin-op, 1989)
136 -- Star Fox (SNES, 1993)
137 -- Madden NFL '99 (PS/N64/PC, 1999)
138 -- Call of Duty 2 (360/PC, 2005)
139 -- Wolfenstein 3D (PC, 1992)
140 -- Diablo (PC, 1996)
141 -- Civilization IV (PC, 2005)
142 -- Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (PC, 1993)
143 -- Assassin's Creed (PS3/360, 2007)
144 -- Burnout 3: Takedown (PS2/Xbox, 2004)
145 -- Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC, 2004)
146 -- Power Stone 2 (DC, 2000)
147 -- Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991)
148 -- Super Mario RPG (SNES, 1996)
149 -- Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (PC, 2002)
150 -- ActRaiser (SNES, 1991)
151 -- Fable (Xbox, 2004)
152 -- Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (PS2, 2003)
153 -- Asteroids (coin-op, 1979)
154 -- LittleBigPlanet (PS3, 2008)
155 -- Crackdown (360, 2007)
156 -- Gauntlet (coin-op, 1985)
157 -- Devil May Cry (PS2, 2001)
158 -- Pong (coin-op, 1972)
159 -- Battlefield 1942 (PC, 2002)
160 -- Thief (PC, 1998)
161 -- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (360, 2005)
162 -- Far Cry (PC, 2004)
163 -- Robotron: 2084 (coin-op, 1982)
164 -- X-COM: UFO Defense (PC, 1993)
165 -- Peggle (PC, 2007)
166 -- King's Quest VI (PC, 1992)
167 -- Doom II (PC, 1994)
168 -- Tempest 2000 (Jaguar, 1994)
169 -- Braid (360, 2008)
170 -- Ridge Racer (PS, 1995)
171 -- Bully (PS2, 2006)
172 -- Ikaruga (GameCube, 2006)
173 -- Lode Runner (Apple II, 1983)
174 -- Gunstar Heroes (Genesis, 1993)
175 -- Dig Dug (coin-op, 1982)
176 -- Castlevania (NES, 1988)
177 -- Tekken 3 (coin-op, 1997)
178 -- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS, 2005)
179 -- NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (coin-op, 1993)
180 -- Max Payne (PC, 2001)
181 -- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3/360/PC, 2009)
182 -- Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo, 1993)
183 -- NFL 2K5 (PS2/Xbox, 2004)
184 -- Vagrant Story (PS, 2000)
185 -- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES, 1995)
186 -- Marble Madness (coin-op, 1984)
187 -- Infamous (PS3, 2009)
188 -- Planescape: Torment (PC, 1999)
189 -- Kid Icarus (NES, 1986)
190 -- The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox, 2004)
191 -- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2, 2004)
192 -- Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GameCube, 2002)
193 -- Jak 3 (PS2, 2004)
194 -- Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (DC, 2002)
195 -- Ultima (PC, 1981)
196 -- Call of Duty (PC, 2003)
197 -- NHL 09 (PS3/360, 2008)
198 -- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox, 2004)
199 -- Tactics Ogre (PS, 1997)
200 -- Beyond Good and Evil (PS2/Xbox/GameCube, 2003)

Total Played 138/200. Wow. That's sad. I may have even played a few of the older ones a time or two, but I wasn't sure.

It’s hard for me to say whether this is a good or bad list, but this is the kind of thing I love to think about. I’ve played the vast majority of these games, barring the ones that pre-date my first console, which was around 1990. Of course, as I mentioned before, I didn’t play some of these games in a timely fashion (when they first came out), though I’ll try to limit my bias.

On first impression, I’m inclined to think that this list is rather good. Of course, everyone will find things to nitpick, but in general I like the list. Here are a few things that I would personally change:

Notable Snubs: Several games definitely deserve inclusion into this list. Here are some games that should have been included, in my opinion.

Secret of Mana. Since SoM was on their top 100 list in their 100^th issue (78^th place), I’m going to let their own words do the talking. Personally, this easily cracks my top 50. Seiken Densetsu 3, although it was never released in English, is also an outstanding game that should be on this list. A beautiful game in its own right, Secret of Mana is actually an important release in Square Soft’s history. Other than a few Game Boy titles, this really is the first time Square ventured outside the Final Fantasy realm and explored what else the RPG genre has to offer. Secret of Mana’s stimulating, real-time gameplay and breathtaking settings came together to create a near Zelda killer – a feat no developer has even come close to achieving.
Master of Orion: Arguably better than Civilization, though the former was more relatable and consequently more popular.
Thief II: Many people consider this to be the best game of all time. I disagree, but it is certainly in the top 100.
Paper Mario
MechWarrior 2
Wing Commander
Shenmue
Suikoden II
Xenogears

Games That Shouldn’t Have Made This List

Sonic and/or Sonic 2: While I’m sure Game Informer would have gotten a great deal of flak for including neither Sonic game in this list, they certainly should not have included more than one of these two. I would have supported including Sonic and Knuckles or Sonic 3d in lieu of Sonic 2, but, simply put, neither Sonic or Sonic 2 were that great compared to their contemporaries on other platforms, and there were even several other Genesis platformers, such as Vectorman, that were much better than the Sonic games, albeit less widely owned.
Call of Duty 2(not CoD:MW2): There is no reason for Call of Duty 1 and 2 to both be on there. Although both games were strong, they weren’t different enough from each other to both warrant inclusion, when other sequels like Civilization II don't make the list. Sorry.
Dr. Mario: For a game that was outclassed 6 years prior by Tetris, Dr. Mario should not have made this list. You may be nostalgic about this game (I know I am), but Dr.Mario simply does not compare well to its contemporaries, or even games that preceded it by half a decade. Or even other Smash Brothers
Crackdown: While there is certainly a case for this game, I think that there are plenty of other games that warrant the spot that this game took, and that Crackdown is a borderline inclusion at best.
Ridge Racer: While I loved playing this game at the time, it was simply the first good 3d racing game that I can remember. Otherwise, there wasn’t much special about it, and it was quickly outclassed by higher-quality games like Gran Turismo.
Samurai Showdown: Simply weaker than its contemporaries, Showdown is a great example of a game that should never have been considered for this list.
Mega Man X: I loved this game, but the Mega Man franchise is simply too short and too derivative for this type of list. With that said, Mega Man X is definitely my favorite Mega Man game. I will buy that Mega Man and Mega Man 2 were more revolutionary for their respective days (never played) but Mega Man 2 should most certainly not be ranked as high as it is.

Game Series Where the Wrong Game was Chosen:

Max Payne 2: Max Payne had a great single-player campaign and ushered in bullet-time, but Max Payne 2 was simply a much better game overall. While it could be argued that Max Payne was more the more ground-breaking of the two, the games were released only a few years apart and the second game was much, much more fun to play, in my opinion.
Quake: Quake II was a fun game, but Quake was the first truly 3d first-person shooter, and one that really broke new ground. The music was done by Nine Inch Nails, for Pete’s sake! I can still remember playing this at my uncle’s company on a LAN for the first time. It was something special.
Soul Calibur II: Soul Calibur was a fun game, but this pick was made on balance and variety of fighting styles, things that SCII had much more of.
Unreal Tournament: Unreal Tournament may be the better shooter today, but Unreal Tournament was the first game of its type and broke the genre wide open. Although both are probably strong enough and different enough to warrant inclusion (Unreal 2004 is much faster and its vehicles and new modes help to differentiate it), Unreal Tournament was simply the better game when compared to its contemporaries.

Games that are more than a little high or low on the rankings:

Half-Life (29) and Half-Life 2 (5) should be switched: I think both of these games are phenomenal, however, Half-Life was clearly the more groundbreaking of the two. Half-Life was the first FPS that I can remember being exhaustively modded, and is ultimately remembered as being one of the most modded games of all time, but it was first known for its incredible single-player campaign. Half-Life featured the best plots of any FPS to that date and its AI was years ahead of its time. If my best friend were to ask me which one to play today, I would say Half-Life 2, but this list is replete with other instances of games with superior sequels, though the originals were more groundbreaking at their time and are thus included in this list.
Fallout 3 (65): Some people may argue that this is one of the best games of all time, but I know more than a few people, myself included, that literally could not play more than a few hours of this game. While many have called it a first-person shooter, Fallout 3 is simply a VATS game with great graphics and an outstanding story. In my opinion, it is simply a first person shooter for people who hate first person shooters, again with a great story. Fallout 3 might just be one of the only games on this list that is a bad game, in my opinion. While I am willing to grant it a spot based on peer reviews, 65 is way too high.
Braid (128): Although short, Braid was priced as a value game, and it more than delivered value. Braid is simply one of the best, if not the best, platformer to date. I would have placed Braid in the top 100 games.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (64): This may be just my opinion, but I think this is still the most fun GTA title to date and is one of my favorite games of all time, even today. San Andreas was an outstanding combination of open-world sandbox play, an RPG-esque leveling system, a wide variety of mini-games, and shooter elements. While I will give a nod to GTAIII as a revolutionary game, GTA’s attempt at realism (particularly vehicle handling) was not terribly entertaining, nor did I enjoy the fact that the game would sometimes slow down dramatically and the controls always felt a little sluggish. I would probably swap the places of GTAIV and San Andreas, and probably drop GTA IV a little bit more.
Burnout 3: Takedown (144): Burnout 3, in my opinion, is definitely better than #144, as it’s one of the best non-hardcore racing games this side of Mario Kart. I would have ranked it around #50.

Other comments:

It’s interesting to see how GameInformer ranked some brand-spanking new games. Uncharted 2 (56), Batman: Arkham Asylum (104), Borderlands (134), Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (181) and Infamous (187) all make the list. I haven’t played Arkham Asylum or MW2 yet, but aside from those, these ratings feel relatively acceptable to me. Borderlands might be a touch high, but it definitely deserves to make the list. Uncharted 2 also seems a bit high; I would have put it around 80 or 100. Modern Warfare 2 feels too low, based on my impressions of the game pre-launch.

My biggest complaint with this list is that some franchises seem to only receive one or two mentions for several similar games while other franchises receive many more (the Call of Duty and Zelda games are less different from each other than other franchises such as the Sims that only warranted a single mention). Ultimately, I think it would have been better to list these similar games together in a single listing and treat them as a single body of work, if they are very similar to one another, or list them separately and make the list more competitive. GameInformer tried to split the difference, and I think it doesn’t work out.

Ultimately, it should be recognized that putting together a list like this is nigh-impossible, so although it may be fun to criticize individual choices, in many cases its simply better to leave lists like this a little bit shorter.

-Jon

Over the Weekend: Adventures in Kaiserreich

2009-11-10T17:38:00.016-05:00

The past two weeks have been pretty exciting for me, gaming-wise. I spent the first half of the week continuing to play Borderlands, and got in a little bit of playing time with Dragon Age: Origins starting on Thursday. I had a LAN party over the weekend with a few friends of mine, and as such I don't have enough to write about DA:O yet.

Kaiserreich, the game that I played over this weekend, is another matter. Kaiserreich is a mod for Paradox Interactive's Hearts of Iron II that simulates an ahistorical World War II scenario in which the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire) won World War I instead of the Entente (World War I's historical victors).

I'm a huge fan of complex simulation games. As a kid, Sim City 2000 and Civilization II were probably my two favorite games, and I've spent countless hours playing their successors, Sim City 4 Rush Hour and Civilization IV. My favorite aspect of playing games is that it gives me the opportunity to try hundreds of different experiences, and battlefield/theatre of war command games present an entirely different experience from almost anything that you could find in the real world. Europa Universalis II (which I'll probably write about later this week thanks to its recently-released For The Glory expansion) was the first game that got me hooked on the nation-building genre, and is still my favorite, but I've also really enjoyed playing Paradox's Hearts of Iron II.

In my opinion, Paradox's offerings, while they can be a little buggy and difficult to learn, are far and away the best strategy games out there. While the Total War games have comparable campaigns in terms of scope, they are really battlefield simulations tucked into a shallow framework that gives meaning to each battle. Paradox's games tend to eschew the traditional battlefield focus in favor of diplomatic, economic and societal focuses which emphasize the difficulty of effectively governing and building a nation rather than simply winning battles. They also generally allow players to play as any number of different countries or government entities which existed at a certain point in history, rather than limiting players to a handful.

Hearts of Iron II, being the most war-focused Paradox game, has more in-depth combat mechanics than other Paradox games. Still, the emphasis of the game focuses on fielding a strong army rather than scheming unique strategies for individual units. Within the main game, there are several different screens which allow you to control nearly every aspect of your country and its government.

After selecting a country and scenario and starting the game, you will be presented with a map of the world and several different game screen options from which to control your nation. On the main screen, you can see a map of the world, and a summary of your resources, along with lists of provinces, army units, navy units, and air units you control. Additionally, You can view the world map in a number of different ways, as there are several different map modes. The territorial map is pictured at right, but there is also a terrain map, a weather map, an economic map, a supply map, a revolt map, a victory point map, a diplomatic map, a region map and an area map. Each province is clickable, and doing so provides details about its terrain, resources, owner and controller, industry, transportation network and more. Units are also visible and can be issued commands on this screen. Finally, there are several tabs above the map which allow you to visit the other five main game interfaces. In the next few paragraphs, I'll discuss some of the more relevant ones.

The technology tab allows you to view the technologies that you will produce throughout the game and control your nation's technological research. On the left side of the screen are a number of "technology teams" which are used to research technology. Each nation can research between one and five techs at a time, but can have many more tech teams than these. Each of these tech teams has a skill level and individual specialties, as noted by the small icons under their name. While skill level provides a base rate of research, specialties increase that rate when a team's specialties match the specialty demands of a particular tech. Put in simple terms, specialties mean that you will want tech teams like Ford working on tanks and motorized infantry research while leaving nuclear weapons research to Albert Einstein. There are many, many different techs available in the game, so your teams will always be busy.

The production tab allows you to control your nation's economic activity. The two most important areas for any country are at the left and upper right portions of the screen. The left side of the screen is devoted to production, and allows you to build implements of war as well as infrastructure. As you can see in the screenshot, Italy is currently producing a series of motorized infantry units, a battleship, a tank, another motorized infantry unit series, and a bomber. However, due to its limited production capacity, only the first three are currently being worked on. Green units are currently being produced at full capacity, while yellow means that a unit is being produced at partial capacity, and orange means that a unit will not be worked on until objects above it in the queue have finished or production capacity is expanded.

Production capacity is controlled at the top right of the screen, along with several other economic activities. The total amount of economic activity for a country is equal to its modified IC, which stands for industrial capacity. This IC is divided between five different economic activities, namely consumer goods, production capacity (the topic of the previous paragraph), supplies, reinforcements, and upgrades. Consumer goods are required to keep the populace happy, especially during times of peace. During times of peace, citizens are willing to accept less consumer goods. Certain government choices can also reduce the amount of consumer goods an economy requires. Most players think of consumer goods as simply mandatory wasted IC, which is true in many cases. Consumer goods also supply money, which is used by tech teams to conduct research at full capacity. Supplies are consumed by army units at all times, and can also be traded away. Reinforcements allow you to place lost soldiers, while Upgrades allows you to upgrade obsolete units after your tech teams make new technological discoveries.

All of this economic activity requires resources, which can be found to the left of the production sliders and on the main screen. IC requires energy, metal, and rare materials to function, and all units require supplies and sometimes oil to operate effectively. You can track your production and consumption of these supplies on either screen, but there is also a trading interface if you are endowed with an excess or shortage of a particular resource.

The last main screen is the diplomacy screen, which allows you to control your nation at its highest level. Political orientation sliders are a hallmark of Paradox games, and Hearts of Iron II is no exception. Each nation has its own set of sliders which dictate its government type, values, and several different aspects of its society. For example, the Italian Federation (a reactionary federation of Italian states governed by the Pope in the Kaiserreich scenario) has a National Populist style of government with a closed (controlled) society, some free market enterprise. It also has a standing army, and its ruling body is hesitant but willing to go to war generally. However, given the current state of the world, they desire to intervene in current conflicts and world affairs. Each of these sliders has a different set of effects on player's diplomatic and economic options; for example, the Interventionism/Isolationism slider controls the cost of conducting diplomacy, the difficulty of normalizing relations with other countries, the amount of dissent created by declaring war, and the level of consumer goods that its populace demands. Global events, the influence of other nations, and even the player can control the orientation of the sliders throughout the game.

Also featured in the diplomacy screen is a list of government figures, which can have smaller but more manageable effect on a country. Most of these figures can be replaced at a cost of some dissent, which in turn reduces IC. However, the Head of State and Head of Government can only change from events, such as elections (which you will receive every few years in a democratic country), or deaths/coup d'etats (generally in more authoritarian societies).

On the left side of the diplomacy screen is a list of all countries in the game, together with a list of excess resources that they produce. As you might imagine, diplomacy and trading can be conducted from here. In the center of the screen is a list of the currently selected nation's diplomatic relations, along with its belligerence rating, which is basically a measure of naughtyness which controls the willingness of other countries to declare war on it, and the cost of declaring war on it. In the top right corner of the screen is a list of diplomatic actions that you can take on that country.

As you can see, the control that players have over a nation's affairs is already quite comprehensive. Yet once war is declared players must also manage their nation's army in war. War is conducted in a much more macro sense than most other RTS games, but is still more strategic than other games with a similar focus, such as Civilization. First of all, nations tend to specialize in one or several unit types that are a reflection of its resources (it is hard to field an army of tanks if you don't have much oil to run them) and its warfare doctrines, which are developed on the technology screen. Army composition generally determines the best way to fight with an army. However, there are also other considerations. Armies attack and defend more successfully when they have support from adjacent territories, air support from fighters or bombers, if their landing beach has been shelled before attempting to land, and if they have the proper equipment for fighting in certain conditions (for example, tanks don't fight well in hills, mountains, or cities). They fight less effectively when crossing rivers, when they have been repeatedly bombed or shelled, are cut off from supply, or are being flanked from one or more sides. The tactics of World War II are reproduced fairly effectively (encircling troops through the use of blitzkreig is the best way to deal with them), and the AI does its job reasonably well in combat. All in all, while you are still only giving general move, attack and context-sensitive support commands to your troops, Hearts of Iron still does a good job of giving you a feel for combat.

This post ended up getting pretty far off-track from what I originally wanted to discuss, but I will try and salvage some value regardless. If you like strategy games and are looking for something different, I highly recommend giving Hearts of Iron II or Europa Universalis a try. They are very difficult games to learn, but the payoff, in my opinion, is well worth it. There is simply nothing like it.

-Jon

Windows 7 Impressions

2009-11-03T00:01:00.004-05:00

The last week has been a bit slow for me as a gamer. Usually I'll only play new games for about a week or two before a new game comes out that grabs my attention, but Borderlands has been a highly resilient experience and I haven't really found anything in the last week that has pulled me away from it (Next week: Dragon Age: Origins). I've been replaying the game, which I purchased on Steam after my Xbox died, and having a good time of it with a few of my friends.

Anyways, in the spirit of keeping my blog updated (see the sticky note in the top right corner of my desktop?), I've decided to type up a few of my thoughts on Windows 7, as it may pertain to a few of you.

I purchased my copy of Windows 7 before it released and installed it on release day. Although I have Vista installed on my laptop, I'd never taken the leap with my custom-built desktop, which was still sporting the ever-stylish Windows XP.

The upgrade process was very simple. Although I'm pretty sure I clicked through for a clean install of Windows 7 like the upgrade advisor said I should, the installation process ended up upgrading to Windows 7, leaving all of my drivers intact, and moving all of my old installation files to a Windows.old folder. The process took about an hour

While I haven't truly put Windows 7 through its paces yet, my first impressions are pretty positive. Windows 7's interface is nearly identical to Vista's, save for the obvious differences to the taskbar. While I was hesitant at first to accept the taskbar appearance change, I think I've come to like the new one more overall. Unlike the old bar, in Windows 7 the taskbar shows previews of pages you can open if you hover your cursor over the corresponding icon on the bar (see the three Firefox windows open above). This is pretty useful and is definitely an upgrade over the Vista system, where you could only see the name of each window. Smaller taskbar icons also allow for more windows to fit onto the taskbar.

A key difference for me was also the addition of gadgets, which are surprisingly nice. I have installed two. The first is a webmail gadget which checks your email periodically (I think that's how it works, though it does seem to pick up on new email pretty fast) and chimes when you have new e-mail. When I first log on, the gadget is one of the first things I look at and can save me a bit of time if I don't have any new mail. It's also great to have when I'm multi-tasking, or working on a document for long periods of time, as it does a good job of alerting me when I have new mail. The weather gadget is also fairly nice, since it saves me the trip to weather.com every morning.

Vista's visual changes are take-it-or-leave-it, (I'm on the take-it side) but one other nice graphical addition has been the inclusion of dynamic backgrounds. Windows 7 allows you to set your background to change periodically, which is a nice touch if you get tired of looking at the same thing all of the time. I have a nice rotating setup of art from games that I'm following or a fan of, as well as some Halo 3 pictures I've taken while playing that game.

Performance-wise, I haven't had anything to complain about. One of my concerns when I was making my purchase (I opted not to go for Windows 7 professional, which includes some XP reverse-compatibility pack) was that I would be able to play all of my old games. All of the games that I have tried to play on it have run just fine. While I haven't booted up my copy of Sim City 2000, I have booted up copies of Alpha Centauri and some pretty ghetto Paradox Entertainment games, which have both worked very well on the new platform. Moreover, I haven't had any issues with drivers (though I'm running the 32-bit OS and I'm told that the 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7 have most of the driver-related issues). Since I didn't upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, I can't comment on the framerate changes I've seen in some of my games yet, but I can say that my framerates are not noticeably down from Windows XP.

On the included applications side of things, I also haven't noticed much of a difference, but Paint does seem to have a few more drawing options, which I've actually made use of for a project I have been consulting on. You can see the fruits of my labors at the right (sorry, can't share images from the project, but this will give you some idea of the additional capabilities). Notable additions include transparent colors, additional commonly-used art pieces (arrows, thought bubbles, speech bubbles, etc.) and different brush styles. While we're not exactly looking at Adobe Photoshop for Windows here, the additions are pretty substantial and were a nice surprise.

I've bulleted most of my other application-related observations to save me time trying to tie all of them together.

WordPad still does not have spell-checker, so you're going to still have to buy MS Office or go download OpenOffice for free.
Internet Explorer 8 is still worse than Firefox.
Vista's new games are back in Windows 7, though they got rid of my favorite one, Inkball. Chess Titans is definitely the best of the bunch if you haven't seen Vista's game selection.
Windows Live is another promising addition, but unfortunately I haven't done much with it other that look around.
If you're a math teacher, there's a handy-dandy math writer. You can do all sorts of crazy crap now.
Microsoft Security Essentials (not included but launched recently) is a great freeware security system.

If you were sitting on the fence about getting Windows 7, hopefully this article has given you a little more information. I tried to include most of the information that was relevant to me, hoping that you would find these same considerations important to you as well. In general, I'm pretty happy with my purchase, though there is nothing terribly special about the new OS. It's just a slightly upgraded experience that has some additional graphics support (DX 10 and 11). If you're tight on money, or happy with XP, feel free to stick with it, but if all of the bells and whistles in Vista and Windows 7 appeal to you, by all means, Windows 7 seems like a pretty harmless upgrade.

One of the benefits of a small readerbase is that you get 1 to 1 feedback, so if you have a question about some aspect of Windows 7 you don't see covered on other blogs/websites, I'll check for you!

-Jon

Borderlands Initial Impressions

2009-10-27T20:48:00.004-04:00

Well, I was planning on doing a full-blown review of Borderlands later this week, but 15 minutes into yesterday's play session my Xbox died (E 74 error message). So, while my Xbox flies away to Texas for a new GPU, I decided to write up my thoughts on Borderlands for the time being.

Simply put, Borderlands is fantastic.

Borderlands plays very much like a first person shooter with RPG aspects, and is similar to games like Mass Effect. In its first person shooter aspect, it plays very much like original Halo. Your character can hold between two and four weapons at a time, depending on how far you've advanced in the game, has a shield which automatically recharges after a short period of not taking damage, and a health bar that does not recharge. Key differences include Borderlands' compass, which generally provides the same information as Halo's radar but in a different format. You also have a deployable special ability depending on your character, which can be a turret, a hawk, an invisibility ability, or an all-out melee-only rage. Cover is handled in much the same way as Halo, meaning that instead of "wrapping" to cover with a button press as in Uncharted 2, Mass Effect, or Gears of War, you simply duck behind cover manually, as in Call of Duty or Halo.

As an RPG, Borderlands is like many others in that it allows you to customize your character in a number of ways. Although your gender and appearance is tied precisely to your class, there are plenty of substantial customization options to choose from. Like most other RPGs, Borderlands allows you to also customize your character's specialization as you level. Each of the four character classes has a skill tree, allowing players to specialize in one or two different roles, depending on your level. In addition, each class has an assortment of class mods that give them and sometimes their teammates passive bonuses. Oftentimes, these bonuses are to a few skill levels, but other bonuses include team ammo regeneration, team health capacity and regeneration, team shield capacity and regeneration, damage increases, and even team experience bonuses.

Borderlands' item system is probably the most dramatic way of differentiating playstyle irrespective of character class. In an earlier article, I listed some of my favorite elegant game mechanics, including Diablo's item system. Borderlands uses a similar system to Diablo II's Magic and Rare items. All of the guns in the game have one or more mods (four or five at most) to basic things like clip size, fire rate, zoom, accuracy, reload speed, and raw power. There is also a coloring system to items to differentiate them in power level relative to other guns that can be equipped at the same level. Generally speaking, an item with its name in green that can be equipped at level 10 is going to be better than a white-named item that can be equipped at the same level. This increase in power level is generally a result of having more or better weapon modifications to some sort of base item. Since there are also different gun companies in the game which tend to feature different sorts of bonuses, weapon statting in this game is truly a deep subject. As you play through the game, you will probably identify a few types of modifications that you like best.

Gearbox has also found a way to make some of the weapons feel very different from one another using several particularly unique weapon mods. Some of the more unusual weapon varieties include shotguns that use shotgun shells but actually shoot rockets, weapons that have burst firing (shoot more than one bullet/rocket at a time), and three varieties of elemental procs.

The grenade mods are another highpoint, as Gearbox substantially differentiates those as well. Although I wish that there were more levels of each grenade type available, there are a number of different grenade effects, such as sticky grenades which stick to enemies (duh), longbow grenades which teleport to their target instead of flying through the air, grenades that steal life, "cluster" grenades that spawn additional explosions, and grenades that are more powerful against health, shields, or armor.

The best way to experience Borderlands is clearly co-operative play. While the singleplayer mode is entertaining, working with teammates to take down baddies is ultimately much more satisfying, and potentially much more rewarding. Since there is no loot-sharing mechanism, I recommend playing with players that you know, but I've also played a few games where guns were shared reasonably well by complete strangers. Voice chat over Xbox live is fantastic, as it makes it much easier to coordinate with your teammates, but most of the encounters in this game can be successfully attempted without much strategy. Borderlands does a good job of letting you know when your teammate is down, and where your teammates are at all times.

One of the disappointing aspects of Borderlands is its reward system. While the aforementioned badguys often drop good loot, the best way of acquiring loot in this game seems to be scouring chests. While I haven't beaten the game, the easiest way for me to get loot at various points thusfar has been to find an easily accessible chest or couple of chests, create a game, loot the chests, start a new game, and repeat as desired. Complicating matters, there is one example of a chest in the first third of the game that seems to dole out level 22-25 items although all of the surrounding enemies are only level 15. Additionally, in the second area, there are two weapon chests in town. Starting a new game, looting the chests, and selling the guns back to the vending machines is only a three or four minute process, and is basically an infinite money cheat, if you have the patience to run it over and over.

With all that said, Borderlands is still an outstanding game, and is easily recommendable to fans of first person shooters that might be looking for something a little bit new, Fallout 3 players that wish it was actually a first person shooter, or loot whores in general.

And honestly, who isn't a loot whore?

-Jon

World of Goo Name Your Price Update

2009-10-21T15:38:00.003-04:00

Well, 2DBoy published their sales data for the first week (they've extended it) of World of Goo's Name Your Price sale. Turns out, this was a pretty profitable sale for them (see a list of #sales at each price point to the right, courtesy of Rock Paper Shotgun). 2DBoy is very happy with the sales that they made using this price point.

By launching this sale a year after release, 2DBoy has minimized losses of likely sales, while driving additional players to play World of Goo and generating a ton of positive sentiment and word of mouth advertising from fans. In addition, this sale increased purchases made on other services (week over week sales at full price on Steam were up 40%!).

I won't say that this is a model everyone should follow, but its always nice to see a developer (even an indie one) take risks with pricing and distribution.

Here is a link to the full data.

-Jon

Uncharted 2 Review

2009-10-20T18:21:00.007-04:00

Uncharted 2 - Player of Game Review
Innovation: 8/10
Mastery: 9.5/10
Overall: 9/10

If you've been following the hype and reviews of Uncharted 2 in the news, it should come as no surprise to you that Uncharted 2 is one well-executed game. For those that don't, Uncharted 2 is a behind-the-shoulder shooter/adventure hybrid that succeeds in almost everything that it does. From its well-written and genuinely funny story to its cutting-edge technical graphics and its streamlined, cohesive gameplay, Uncharted 2 ultimately delivers an excellent, well-polished experience.

I first played Uncharted 2 during the tail end of the free multiplayer demo and was blown away by the tight controls, effective utilization of cover, and variety of game types and maps available in the game. To be precise, most of the game modes that you will find in the game are similar to other multiplayer offerings in the shooter genre, but with subtle tweaks that make Uncharted 2 feel fully distinct, especially once its cover and climbing mechanics are accounted for. In several levels, there are portions only accessible by climbing or jumping, and moreso than other shooters, knowing jumping or climbing shortcuts allow you to move around much quicker.

Although I knew I would continue to enjoy the multiplayer aspect of the game, the quality of the singleplayer campaign was a pleasant surprise. Composed of both adventuring and shooter segments, the campaign is paced brilliantly and features an outstanding story based on Marco Polo's legendary expedition to China. The adventuring segments are probably the weakest aspect of Uncharted 2's singleplayer offering, due to their highly linear nature. This, in my opinion, is generally due to the fact that while some paths are obvious, other paths are forced onto the player. Multiple times during the game, I repeatedly attempted a very makeable jump simply to find that Nate would not grab onto the ledge or grip the wall because it was not how I was intended to proceed. Nevertheless, the adventuring segments do break up the action effectively, allowing you to destress yourself between Uncharted 2's intense shooter sections.

The shooting segments of the game, like the adventure segments, are usually on rails. As in Halo (another favorite game of mine, notice a trend?), the linear style of the shooting sequences allow the developers to more tightly script the action sequences, making the second-to-second play much more enjoyable in these segments. With that said, there are often several ways to move through the action sequences. Although you'll rarely notice it, there are oftentimes many different ways to tackle an encounter, and when I died, I often attempted to tackle the encounter another way. For example, in one sequence you approach a city center from one direction, and are trying to work your way around to the other section. You can stay where you are, and try and fight at a distance, move clockwise around the circle and attempt to take out a gun emplacement before the enemies swarm you, attempt to move counter-clockwise around the circle so as to avoid the stationary gun's fire, or charge right into the middle of it all and stay behind cover while shooting the enemies up with your close ranged weaponry. Oftentimes, your tactics will be dictated by the weapons you happen to be holding at a time.

Stealth is another way to tackle some of the game's shooter segments, and at times Naughty Dog forcefully pushes you towards it while at other times you are left to decide what is the best way to proceed. There are many times in the game where enemies will walk by a ledge you are hanging off of, allowing you to throw them down a cliff. Each of these clips comes with a snarky line courtesy of Drake, which definitely reinforces and rewards this behavior. While it is rare that you will be able to complete most of the encounters in the game using stealth, there are definitely several points in the campaign where you can accrue ten or fifteen consecutive stealth kills if you are careful and patient enough.

The plot of Uncharted 2's campaign is also worth applauding, as it is another of Uncharted 2's high points. Without spoiling too much, the plot revolves around Marco Polo's return from his expedition to China, and ties into the legend of the Cintamani stone. While this basic plot serves primarily as a vehicle to move from exotic locale to exotic locale, the finer details of the campaign are very well put together. First and foremost is characterization, which is easily the best in any game I've ever played. Drake is a very funny and lovable character, and his unique personality really makes the game's plot shine, even outside of cutscenes. His co-stars are also done well, each has their own priorities and system of beliefs, and are usually relateable in their own unique ways, although the game's main villain could have been developed a bit more. One of the biggest complements that can be paid towards a game's story is that it would make a great movie, but in this case, I would go one step further and actually see it in theatres (and I never see movies in theatres). It is just that good.

Like Uncharted 2's singleplayer, Uncharted 2's multiplayer is also a complete and satisfying package. There are several game modes including an impressive twist on capture the flag, king of the hill, a king of the hill variant in which only one hill is up for grabs at a time and teams must capture all five in order to win, deathmatch, team deathmatch, elimination, and two different cooperative modes. In the first cooperative mode, players attempt to bring a treasure back to their base as many times as possible, with the caveat that each successful attempt makes the next attempt harder. The second is basically a cooperative version of the best segments in the Uncharted 2 campaign. Each of these modes also contributes to a participation-based levelling progression system similar to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's skill system, along with unlockable multiplayer character models, giving players added incentive to lengthen their play sessions.

These modes are supported by a well-balanced weapon system and Uncharted 2's terrific cover system. The weapons all feel fairly powerful and are all useful for different occasions, although I personally feel that grenades are a little too powerful, and should be made weaker but more plentiful.

Overall, Uncharted 2 is a platform-defining game. Although I only purchased my PS3 in September, Uncharted 2 is the first game I have played that validated my purchase, comparing favorably to Metal Gear Solid 4 and Valkyria Chronicles, two of the PS3's staple games. The singleplayer game is gripping and genuinely funny; the multiplayer is well-paced, refreshing and balanced. Anyone who owns a PS3 needs to play this game. Uncharted 2 is the very definition of a killer app.

-Jon

Happy Birthday World of Goo/Name Your Price

2009-10-16T19:57:00.005-04:00

I spent a little bit of time doing some reading today and found a neat promotion going on at the World of Goo website. Apparently, the game has now reached its one year birthday, and to celebrate, its developers at 2D Boy are selling it at...you tell them.

That's right, World of Goo is on sale for the price of whatever the hell you want to pay. Personally, I downloaded it a year ago after playing the demo (which was spectacular) with my brother and didn't regret buying it at that price. Regardless, I heartily recommend that you purchase this game. World of Goo is definitely one of the more "oddball" games that I have played, and there is more than enough content for you to enjoy. World of Goo is compatible with PCs, Macs, as well as Linux, so as long as you aren't stuck on a home-brew OS you should be able to enjoy it.

Oh - you can also gift it to a friend using the above method, as well. Just don't go too crazy.

A quick conversation with one of my friends reminded me that a few musical artists have done this over the years, the names that came to mind being Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. I've never seen the numbers on a promotion like this but sales quantities and average sale price would be awfully interesting numbers to me.

I wonder how many people are going to fork over more than the MSRP $20?

-Jon

Halo 3 ODST Review

2009-10-09T16:30:00.006-04:00

Halo 3 ODST - Player of Game Review
Innovation: 7/10
Mastery: 8.5/10
Overall: 7.5/10

Before I begin this review, I should state unequivocally that I am a huge Halo fanboy. Although I try to play every well-reviewed game on the systems I own, the genre that I cover best is the First Person Shooter. The genre has come a long way since Wolfenstein, the first game of its type that I played. We've come from having a wide variety of strictly-better-than guns at hand to limiting ourselves to a handful; we've added vehicles and stationary guns; moved from a static health health system to health which returns over time; greatly improved artificial intelligence; progressed from not reloading to reloading mini-games. Not all of these changes work for every game, and in my opinion, Bungie's Halo franchise has just about perfected the genre.

Halo 3: ODST's campaign is a hastily-put-together, rough-around-the-edges experience that just so happens to contain a few of the most fun moments I've ever had within the genre. While the campaign is short and the out-of-mission point A to point B sections of the game are awful, the in-mission segments of the game are absolutely brilliant. There are two very well put-together vehicle missions, a great stand on the top of a tower in the center of the city, and several other highly-controlled and well-scripted missions that Bungie excels at. Of course, if you are a fan of open-world, sandbox gameplay experiences, you might resent how linear these missions are. But linear missions also allow the developer to create a more cohesive, tightly-knit narrative or experience, and on this occasion, there is definitely a great payoff. They also compare favorable to the more open-world experiences, which I found to be tense but ultimately unfulfilling.

I'll be the first to admit that Halo 3: ODST isn't exactly a value-packed purchase. Even at $50 (which is what most places are charging for it now), there is not all that much content to go around. I spent around 8 hours playing the game on my first play-through, and while I didn't look behind every corner, I wasn't going for a speed run either. The side story doesn't add much at all to the value either; it's basically a series of sound bites that you listen to while you're traveling from point A to point B.

Still, there are some other bright spots to the game. As the owner of a 360 with a paltry 20GB HD, I actually thought that the disc with all of the campaign maps wasn't a terrible inclusion; I was able to clear up a lot of space that had been used for DLC. And for all of you new Xbox 360 owners, ODST is actually a better value in my opinion than Halo 3, since it comes with everything you need to play 100% of Halo 3's multiplayer with no additional fee. Just keep in mind that your health is going to be working differently in multiplayer than it did in the campaign.

Firefight is the last thing I should talk about. For those of you not in the know, Firefight is Halo's take on Horde mode from Gears of War 2. And, like Horde mode before it, it is a ton of fun when you are playing with your friends. However, for some reason Bungie decided that it would be a bad idea to include matchmaking for Firefight. Let me say that again. Firefight has no matchmaking support whatsoever. This means that you will need a few friends if you want to play Firefight, which can be tough to get together, especially if your schedule is not incredibly open (read: not in high school or college). To me, this is a huge deal-breaker, as matchmaking support for Firefight would have added immensely to its value, and is a no-brainer. Oh well.

Overall, Halo 3 ODST is a middling game with some outstanding single-mission experiences and Firefight sans-matchmaking in store for the Xbox 360 and Halo faithful. For players who don't own a copy of Halo 3, ODST is a must-buy, since it includes everything that you'll need to enjoy Halo 3's multiplayer, Firefight, and, in my opinion, a campaign that is superior to Halo 3's.

Aion Impressions

2009-10-05T16:06:00.007-04:00

I've been playing a bit of Aion over the past few weeks, participating in both the end of beta and the first few weeks of release. Having recently reached level 20, I thought it would be a good idea to take a step back and evaluate some of what I've seen in this game.

It's very difficult to give an accurate, comprehensive review of a game without leveling to the level cap and participating in all of the end game experiences that are provided for players. Regardless, I thought it would be a good idea to type up some of the things I like and dislike about the game. Since I've spent all of my time playing on the Elonian side of Atreia, some or all of my comments may not apply to the Asmodian playing experience.

Likes:

Beginning area: The starting area of the game plays very smoothly and is fun. NCSoft has wisely decided to design menacing enemies to fight against--you won't be spending your first few levels slaughtering giant ants or garden rabbits.
Graphics: Aion is gorgeous, and looks much better in-motion than it did in the screenshots I saw before I purchased the game. I have a higher-end system (2.4 ghz Quad core, 9800 GTX, 3GB ram), but I was able to play the game with a great framerate at 1680x1050 resolution with most of the settings maxed.
Back-to-basics gameplay: This may not be a plus for you, depending on your particular preferences, but the pace of play in this game is definitely a little slower than World of WarCraft's. Although I've only played until level 20, to this point most of my combat involves maximizing cooldown usage. While you'll still obviously be doing all of your own targeting, the game helps you stay on target. If you are a melee character, your character always follows your target around if your target runs or is not right in front of you, provided you've activated auto-attack. This differs from World of WarCraft, where you have to chase down fleeing characters, or opponents can run through you, forcing you to turn around if you want to target them. All in all, Aion plays a little more like World of WarCraft's predecessors in the combat department.
There is a ton of information about NPCs available to you: When you are questing, you will notice that all quest NPCs relevant to your objectives are displayed on the mini-map and the game map. In addition, many of the mobs and nearly all of the quest NPCs are clickable inside of quest descriptions. By clicking on them, you can read a little bit of background on the NPC, see some information pertaining to what region of the world they inhabit, and where to find them. This is particularly useful for areas that you have not explored yet.
Personal stores: Have some useful loot to offload? Simply set up a store (hotkey Y) to put your items up for sale. While Aion has an auction house, the auction house costs money to use, and if you are in an area where people will find your wares useful, you can sell your items posting fee and commission free simply by setting up shop anywhere in the world. Once you have placed items from your inventory into your store and set prices (the game even helps you by making price recommendations), you can set a store message and click to immediately set up shop. I've had a number of people buy tradegoods and random armor/weapon drops from me. In addition, the game remembers what you put in your store, and what price is it set at, meaning that once you have stocked your store, anything that didn't sell during your first session is saved for the next time you open your store. This makes setting up shop a breeze, and is basically something I always do if I get up to watch tv, make dinner, or work around the house. It's also a great way to make you visually AFK if you're grouping.
Item "gemming" system: Most of the weapons and armor in this game have sockets. Players can customize their armor by adding different runes into these slots. Although there don't seem to be any "rune words" or bonuses for gemming an item with a particular brand of rune, the gem system is definitely one of my favorite things to see in a game. From a developer standpoint, it makes designing armor much easier, since players can use one set of armor to do many different things.

Dislikes:

Size of the main cities: Transportation in the game is a huge issue, but nowhere in Elonia is it more frustrating than the capital region, from what I've seen. Getting from one end of the capital to the other can take around five minutes, and if you want to get to an outlying hub for a quest or two, that can add an additional three or four minutes to the trip. The cities are so large, in fact, that there is actually a set of teleporters (2) to make travel easier. The main problem with these, in my opinion, is that they cost money to access, which frustrated me whenever I turned in a quest and ported back to the entrance just to remember that I needed to hand in another quest before porting back. Note to developers: Don't make your game frustrating. There is a big difference between challenging and frustrating. Challenging is when players can become frustrated fighting a monster or boss, but when they ultimately beat the boss, all that negative sentiment they've been building up makes victory all the more sweet. Frustrating is when you have mechanics in games that never provide for this experience. I'm never going to feel good about the hours I've wasted walking around your game because the transportation system is slow and inadequate.
Charging for everything: This goes a bit off of the point I was making at the end of the last bullet, but in this game, almost nothing is free. Money is very easy to come by, meaning that transportation, resurrection, item fees aren't overbearingly expensive, but I personally get annoyed when multiple costs are imposed on game actions.
Gold-farming spam: This has been widely reported on game websites, but farming spam is much worse in this game than it ever was in World of WarCraft or other MMOs I've played. Generally, I would say I received a gold spam broadcast about every second or two, and would receive a private message advertising a currency website about once every five minutes. I realize that fighting gold spammers can be difficult, but NCSoft has had over a year to fix it. Blizzard has definitely stepped up their game against gold farm spamming. I expected that NCSoft would have done a better job.

Overall, I've enjoyed the time I've spent with Aion. Aion is definitely the most polished MMO that I've played since World of WarCraft, and reminds me a lot of Dark Age of Camelot, which is probably the MMO that I've enjoyed the most. At the same time, Aion has made me re-evaluate how I spend my time playing games. While there was once a time in my life that I didn't mind spending hours upon hours questing or needlessly running around cities that are too big for their content, in the last few years my time has been at a bit more of a premium. While I've enjoyed the time I've spent with Aion, it has also made me realize that the MMO genre in general is just not the best use of my limited time.

-Jon

PAX Show Impressions, Part Deux

2009-09-16T13:58:00.002-04:00

In part 1 of this post, I talked about the exhibition floor at PAX this year, but the real reasons that you should go to PAX are here in part 2. What makes PAX stand out from all of the other gaming conventions in my mind is that it is the only convention that has a solid, well attended exhibition hall and several gaming areas replete with almost any game that you can think of, in both traditional and digital formats. While the exhibition hall floor was certainly exciting, I had more fun meeting people and playing games in the console and boardgame freeplay areas.

In both areas, the order of the day is to find something to play and someone to play with, sign out a game and/or some controllers, and go have fun playing whatever the heck you want. In the boardgame area, I had the opportunity to play several different boardgames, mostly with complete strangers. Nevertheless, I had a great time. The game that I probably enjoyed the most was FFG's Battlestar Galactica, an epic game in which some players, who turn out to be Cylons, are working against other players who are trying to navigate the ship through 4-6 rounds of play. I was playing with a group of four players who had travelled up to the convention together, and another player who, like myself, had never met them before. Ultimately, BSG ends up being a very social game; and although I'd never met any of the other players before, we still ended up having a blast (I lost).

The console free play area had a few copies of basically every non-portable system, from the NES to the Playstation 3, hooked up to 30-something inch HDTVs. After walking around the floor for a bit, a game of Halo 3 caught my attention in which two players were playing with max movespeed, minimum gravity, and the spartan laser cannon. Although I'd never met either player before, they invited me to grab a controller and join in on the action. A few hours and several game modes later, we found ourselves calling it quits for the day. Other notable games I played were Smash Bros. and Goldeneye on the N64 (which I remember being a little bit faster than it actually was).

If you've never been to PAX, I heartily recommend you do so. The tickets are cheap, the hotels are reasonable (if you have family in Seattle or Boston, even better), and the other attendees are great. I, for one, will definitely be going back again.

PAX Show Impressions, Part 1

2009-09-14T19:41:00.004-04:00

It's probably about time that I typed up my thoughts on my trip to PAX this year. To put it succinctly, PAX 2009 was definitely the best show that I've ever been to in my life. Although I have attended and thoroughly enjoyed shows like NYCC, SDCC, GenCon, and Origins, PAX takes the cake, no questions asked. While the exhibition hall was easily among the most exciting I have ever walked around, the boardgaming area and the console gaming area were an absolute blast (I went to the show knowing about neither), totally free of charge, and a great way to meet new people at PAX. There were also outstanding panels on both specific games such as the panel on Star Wars the Old Republic, and panels on games in general, such as Losing Should Be Fun. Although I'm not sure whether I will make the trip out to Seattle again for next year's show, I've definitely penciled in PAX East into my calendar between March 26th and March 28th 2010. I've written up some comments on the exhibition floor below.

The exhibition floor itself was huge, and there were a ton of different exciting games on the show floor this year. Among the games I expected to see at the show, I went to the show eager to see StarCraft II and Diablo III, Dragon Age: Origins, MAG, Halo ODST, Mass Effect 2, and Global Agenda. All games were there in playable form, although I unfortunately decided not to wait in the horrific line for Dragon Age, as I had played that at New York Comic Con earlier this year.

StarCraft II and Diablo III look fantastic. The screenshots that Blizzard has up on their sites don't really do either game justice; both look much better in action than they do in screenshot form. The competition at the StarCraft II booth was intimidating; but I mustered up the will to wait in line and play a game, and was swiftly served a defeat by the player who was playing against me. Diablo III was equally impressive. The Barbarian class was really fun to play, and the only negative thought I had leaving the booth was that I wish Blizzard had found a way to limit the playing time that some players took with DIII.

Halo ODST was also on the floor, and teams of four were lining up to play Firefight. Firefight was also a great deal of fun to play. It plays like the Horde mode in Gears of War II, or the segments in Left for Dead where players have to hold out in a specific location for a certain amount of time. The guns in the game felt really cool to hold and fire.

Mass Effect 2 was right by the entrance to the exhibit hall, and had long lines on Friday, but by Saturday and Sunday it was only a few minute wait until one of the TVs opened up, especially later in the day. While nothing I saw was too surprising, the game's new rocket launcher was a ton of fun to play with. The game definitely uses that "dark" look that BioWare has been going for (I wish that they would actually brighten it up a bit, but that's just me). BioWare clearly has a great game on their hands here, provided that they can figure out a better way to deal with the menu system in this game than in ME1.

Global Agenda was also very impressive. I will admit, I went to the booth expecting to be underwhelmed; everything that I had seen about the game make it look like it had outstanding potential but that it could also be horrifically flawed, and I was glad to find out that the former was absolutely true, and that the flaws were nowhere to be found. I had the chance to play two different classes in the game: a heavy, burly tank with a machine gun and rocket launcher, and a quick, stealthy class with the ability to cloak and a huge sword with which to whack away at enemies from behind. I'll talk more about the game in an upcoming post, but the multiplayer experience was fast-paced and exciting, and much better than I had been expecting it to be.

MAG was probably the only game on the list that I was slightly disappointed by, although the developers are clearly onto something. While the game looks fantastic, its framerate left a little something to be desired. While I don't doubt that the game runs smoothly at 30fps, as the developers claim, I've come to expect a little bit more thanks to existing FPSs, especially Call of Duty 4 . Nevertheless, I picked up a card inviting me to the game's beta, and I am looking forward to giving the game a more thorough shakedown when the beta goes live again on September 17.

As I expected, I also found a slew of other games that I'm very excited about. Here's a brief list, with links:

Torchlight by Runic Games
Brink by Splash Damage
Diplomacy (Sins of a Solar Empire Expansion) by Stardock
League of Legends by Riot Games
Split/Second by Black Rock Studio
Borderlands by Gearbox Software

-Jon

Penny Arcade Expo 2009 Coming Soon!

2009-09-02T00:40:00.005-04:00

I'll be going to PAX this week, mainly because my brother, who attends UW, offered me free room for the occasion. While there are a bunch of games I'm really looking forward to seeing in action, I'll be spending some quality time at the BioWare booth to get a glimpse of (and some hands-on time with) their Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG and Dragon Age: Origins.

Of course, I'll try plenty of other games out, and hopefully will have my impressions of them here to digest. While I'm not sure if I'll be able to do updates during the conference, I will certainly try my best to have one or two new posts by the beginning of next week.

-Jon

Shadow Complex Review

2009-09-01T14:41:00.006-04:00

Shadow Complex - Player of Game Review
Innovation: 8/10
Mastery: 9.5/10
Overall: 9/10

Once in awhile, a game comes along that redefines and reinvigorates a genre. While not always perfect, these games remind players of previous experiences, and ideally import novel ideas and modern dynamics into the gameplay of yesterday.

Chair Entertainment's Shadow Complex is just such a game. Based on Orson Scott Card's "Empire" universe, Shadow Complex is set in a near-future scenario built around a new American civil war. While the story-telling leaves a little to be desired, the gameplay in Shadow Complex is phenomenal, making Shadow Complex the best side-scrolling adventure of its type that I've played since Super Metroid (and possibly ever).

In Shadow Complex, you control a character named Jason Fleming, a nice enough guy who happens to be in the wrong part of the woods with his girlfriend at the wrong time. After stumbling on a secret complex, Jason eventually unearths and terminates a radical group bent on taking control of America.

Players begin the game armed only with a flashlight, but over time acquire many weapons and items which allow Jason to double-jump, run at blinding speeds, swim great distances underwater, and generally wreak havoc. Many of these items are left to be discovered in secret rooms and chambers, and generally involve the employ of the various items Jason stumbles upon in his adventures. Players also face down a legion of soldiers and several monstrous battle mechs, all of which move fluidly and are properly imposing.

The graphics are great for a downloadable title, and certainly do wonders in drawing players into the universe. While the game will occasionally hiccup after a large amount of speed-running (the ability), the frame rate generally holds up when it counts.

What makes Shadow Complex particularly impressive, in my opinion, is its speed running (the practice) potential. While I've never been one for it myself, I have from time to time had to pick my jaw up off the floor after watching some Braid, Mario, and of course, Metroid, speed runs. While it is theoretically possible to "sequence break" according to Chair, Shadow Complex has some very interesting abilities which enable the player to progress through the game's many puzzles in odd or unusual ways.

For my part, there were only a few things that I wish had been improved in-game. Shooting enemies who are not directly in front of you or behind you can be a frustrating experience, particularly early in the game with the pistol (later in the game, your guns are powerful enough that you won't mind). There are also a few items which are hidden in specific areas that don't show up on the game's map, like others do. Finally, a few bosses seem a little too simple (the axle one in particular), while another is actually frequently accidentally skipped over by players.

However, most of what Shadow Complex does, it does very well. The enemies are cool and fun to beat down on, the weapon upgrades are always rewarding, and item acquisition in general suitably makes the player feel more and more powerful. The music and graphics also reflect the game's atmosphere, and draw the player into the action.

While not perfect, Shadow Complex is and outstanding game that every self-respecting Xbox 360 owner should enjoy.

-Jon

PS3 Slim Unboxing/Initial Impressions

2009-08-28T14:32:00.000-04:00

I've been wanting to get a PS3 for some time now, and the PS3 Slim's announcement was the perfect opportunity to do so. I've owned the Xbox 360 since Halo 3's release, but could never justify a $500 purchase for a handful of games. That's not to say I was dying to try MGS4, Little Big Planet, Valkyria Chronicles, Uncharted, and Killzone 2.

I picked my console up from GameStop a few days ago and thought I would deliver my initial reaction to the system.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed. The form factor is nice, though I wish that there was a way to stack it with my 360 without blocking the 360's vents. (This is probably MSFT's fault, not Sony's). I really appreciate the drop in power consumption, (though I hear rumors that the processing power is a little lower), and also like the buttons on the front of the machine as opposed to the original PS3.

There was also a bit that I didn't like. While I appreciated the included wireless networking (Xbox 360's wireless card costs an unreal $100), I did not appreciate the fact that the unit shipped without any form of HD video output. The first night I owned the system, I had to play Valkyria Chronicles at 480p, which was terrible, and in my opinion, unacceptable.

OS-wise, the PS3 is far inferior to the 360, in my opinion. While the OS menu is clean, crisp, and easy to navigate, the icons generally lack any color and many of the themes and backgrounds available make it very difficult to read most of the native fonts. I also found the PS3's store a little hard to navigate. What I did like about the PS3 was the Home system, which, when completely implemented, should be awesome.

Software-wise, the PS3 delivers incredible values on its games. Most games that are more than a few months old can be had for $40, as compared to the 360 where most games remain at $60 for a year. Nearly all of the games that I previously mentioned (excepting Killzone 2), are at this smaller price point or lower. On top of that, multiplayer on the PS3 is free, as compared to Microsoft's $5/month Xbox Live Gold. Exclusive-wise, the 360 seems a slight advantage (I'm a big Halo fan, loved Mass Effect, enjoyed Fable II, and liked Gears of War).

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase. While I love my 360 a little too much to give up my XBL Gold subscription, I will definitely be checking from this point on to see if a title plays better on the 360 or the PC. Although I believe that the 360 is still a better system overall, the Slim is a huge step in the right direction for Sony. At the very least, I would expect to see as many PS3s as 360s under the Christmas tree this year.

-Jon

Realtime Worlds: Please License Your Music To Us!

2009-08-22T12:31:00.004-04:00

One of the trends I've been most excited about in the past few years has been that of crowdsourcing. It's no secret that fans of a particular game will develop outstanding mods (Counter-Strike, TFC, DotA) for it, if given the opportunity, but when gaming companies give people direct access to add content to the game itself, it can be a very rewarding experience.

Enter Realtime Worlds, developers of the Xbox 360's well-regarded Crackdown franchise, and their new MMO entitled All Points Bulletin (APB). APB is a crime-based MMO, with a criminal faction and a police faction. Players can style their characters, pimp their rides, and, to put it succinctly, do as they please with APB's massive city. But, unlike other MMOs, players can also license music that they create to Realtime Worlds, who have offered to put players' music into the game. APB will also feature an in-game music editor, meaning that players may actually be able to make music for the game inside the game. Or at least that's my theory.

I love this idea and would love to see more of it in the future. It is a value add for developers, who can now spend more time creating different content for players and a value add for players, who can potentially listen to their own music in game. Moreover, things like this really put the community front and center in the game, and generate a great deal of positive buzz for the game.

If you haven't checked out All Points Bulletin yet, you just might want to.

Especially if you have your own band.

-Jon

Civilization Revolution Comes to the iPhone

2009-08-11T14:27:00.007-04:00

When it launched last year, I was quick to download and play Civilization Revolution on the Xbox 360. Civilization has always been a favorite series of mine, and it was no surprise that Civilization Revolution quickly became one of my favorite games to play. A simplified and stripped-down version of the Civilization franchise, Civilization Revolution is best described as a gorgeous, easy-to-understand distillation of the best elements of the Civ franchise.

Naturally, then, when I saw that Civilization Revolution, or CivRev, was launched for the iPhone I was ecstatic. I suppose that I'm a bit late to the party, but an August 7th interview on Gamasutra is worth reading if you are at all interested in the game. It appears to be quite the value, as the application is priced at $10 (until the end of the day, you can snag it for $5), but contains all of the game code from the PS3, DS, and Xbox 360 versions of the game.

Civilization Revolution features 16 different civilizations, a number of different starting scenarios, and a whole lot of replayability. While I don't know that they will carry over the "scenario of the week" to the iPhone, I tend to play a game or two of CivRev a week (usually I will at least find time for the scenario of the week).

In my opinion, CivRev is, in a word, elegant. Among other things, the economy is wonderfully simple, the unit tree is quick to grasp, the graphics are great, and the gameplay is fast, making this perhaps the best entry in the Civilization franchise. While there is something to be said for the soup to nuts designs of previous Civilization entries, I really enjoyed this game's emphasis on the different countries (the starting techs, unique units, and special attributes are much more relevant than in previous games), and fast paced play of CivRev. If you've been holding off purchasing the game for some time, or don't have a current-gen console, the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Civilization Revolution is definitely something worth checking out.

If for some reason I find out I'm going to be travelling a lot during the next few months, I'll probably buy the game for the iTouch, but if you end up buying the game, definitely leave your thoughts in this post's comments thread.

Champions Online Pricing

2009-08-05T00:09:00.005-04:00

One of the biggest news items that I've come across over the past few days is Cryptic Studios' announcement of the Champions Online pricing model. Players will be able to subscribe to Champions online for $15/month, or, this month only, may purchase a six-month subscription for $59.99, or a lifetime subscription for $129.99.

The value proposition of MMOs is very different than traditional games. MMOGs tend to deliver vast amounts of content to each player for the cost of a game plus a monthly fee.

Lifetime subscriptions are very interesting to me from a value standpoint-after all, this lifetime subscription pays for itself after about 13 months. If this was World of Warcraft, I would definitely have gotten my money's worth already. At the same time, if you've never played the game, or have limited beta experience, its quite a leap of faith to take.

There are many things that can go wrong in even a well-designed MMORPG. The game could have a tough time attracting players, could release expansions that make the game less fun, or could suffer from a lack of entertaining end-game content, among other things.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Cryptic has sweetened the deal with guaranteed access to the Star Trek MMO, an extra 8 character slots, additional costume sets, and even an action figure.

Personally, I really like the lifetime subscription model, but I'll need to try the game before I buy it. For every MMO that I've really enjoyed and gotten into, I can name three more that I hated or didn't enjoy. Fortunately, Champions Online looks really well designed, so I'm seriously tempted by the offer.

Hopefully I'll get into the beta before the end of September.

-Jon

Cutthroat Capitalism: The Game

2009-08-01T17:00:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week, I found a neat little game called Cutthroat Capitalism in an article on Wired. The article was about high-piracy in the modern day, and focused on recent piracy off of the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

Many games are designed with the intent of informing players on a certain subject. I remember a few years ago I spent a weekend at a friend's house and we found this "game" on the Internet called Real Lives (the website which hosts the game has since been taken down) which simulates the life of a random person in the world.

In the game, you are born as a random person of a random gender in a random family based on real-world population distribution figures and live the life of a person in your country of birth.

We found this game highly entertaining and somewhat comical, although we were certainly making light of some serious third-world problems. In the game, your character (is that the right word?) will come into contact with diseases like malaria or polio, which have been all but eradicated from life as we know it. You'll also have to stay away from political protests, as you can be jailed or executed for participation in some at-risk activities. Smoking is also something that comes up frequently, and is highly addictive in-game (it's almost impossible to stop once you start).

It's tough to classify Real Lives as a typical game, and Cutthroat Capitalism falls into the same category, although it is a much simpler simulation based on a more narrow topic of interest. As a game, I didn't find it all that entertaining, but it is much simpler to understand than the article you can find the game in. It deals with most or all of the challenges that pirates face in the article: costs of doing business, the difficulty of commandeering a ship once you've found it, negotiating with the owners of the ship and cargo, etc. But it is still an interesting way of delivering content to the reader, and is much more gripping than the words on the page.

While I'm sure you won't feel obligated to kill a day playing it, Cutthroat Capitalism is an interesting look at the way games can be and are often used to draw an audience into the world of a story or article.

Madden 2010 First Impressions

2009-07-24T00:00:00.004-04:00

I played through the Madden 2010 demo tonight.

Wow.

There is a LOT to comment on.

Not all of it is good or bad, but overall I was pretty disappointed by the demo. I think of myself as the kind of person that tries to see the good side of movies I watch and games I play, so I don't make that comment absentmindedly.

I'll start with the good. One of the things that I always wished the series did a little bit better was tackling animations. If I've got a running back almost to the 1st down marker and its third down. I expect the running back to get his head down and fight for that yard. While you could always hit the button to dive, truck stick, or do some other trick, more often than not these animations would misbehave when a defender was present. When you didn't use the buttons, oftentimes you would get grabbed in a way that no player with his head in the game would allow himself to be tackled. The animations in this game are much more realistic, although I think the ball carrier does tend to roll a bit much.

The pacing of the game is also dramatically improved. I thought that Madden '09 was a little bit fast and loose, but this game feels much more under control and paced.

Another well-done aspect of the demo is that for the first half of the demo, notes roll up the bottom of the screen informing you about all the new features in the game.

But for all the good, I found a lot more not to like about the demo. For one, the game is littered with ads. I guarantee that you will see about 4 or 5 Snickers ads before the end of the first half. You'll also see Sprint, which I actually didn't mind as much because their ads are all over regular NFL broadcasts. Finally, there's in-game weather sponsored by the Weather Channel, which was really just unnecessary.

Then you have the length of the demo, which clocks in at 4 minutes for the whole game (there's only one mode, which is fine). While I don't see anything wrong with limiting the amount of time players spend playing the game, and thus encouraging them to buy the full version, the pacing of the game was so out of whack for me that it ruined my play experience. There were only three drives in the whole game; and my game went to overtime.

How is that possible, you ask? Well, on the opening kickoff I picked kickoff middle and proceeded to kick it to the end of the field. After kicking off, I let the game go on autopilot like I usually do, only stepping in to make a tackle. The problem: no tackle. The AI goes up 7-0. The remainder of the first half takes 2 minutes, entirely consumed by a six play drive that ends up out of field goal range because I didn't realize the quarters were so short.

In the second half, I returned the kick 20 yards and proceeded to grind out an 8 play drive that put me into the end zone with :00 remaining. I even had to take two timeouts. Since the score was 7-7, the game went to overtime. I received the kickoff, and couldn't get into the end zone with the ~55 seconds left in overtime.

Now, any criticism levied against me for not being able to get points out of two of my three drives is fair game, but I still thought that the whole situation could have been improved.

The most peculiar thing about the demo, however, is that neither team in the demo made it to the Superbowl last year. While the Cowboys and Giants (your only two options) are two really popular teams, I think Tiburon could have, you know, let demoers experience the Polamalu/Fitzgerald rivalry from the game's cover. I think it would have made sense. Maybe.

Maybe there's nothing wrong with the demo, and maybe I'm just a disgruntled Chargers fan who wishes his GM/coach had taken Polamalu when they had the chance. Idiots.

-Jon

Battlefield 1943 Impressions

2009-07-23T16:20:00.004-04:00

I must confess that I have been waiting some time to comment on Battlefield 1943 because I was thinking about doing a full-fledged review for it. However, I've decided that this game, although it has and will change gaming, does not do so from a traditional gaming perspective.

Before you think that I'm down on this game, though, I would like to say that I think Battlefield 1943 is an outstanding game. Most of the time that I have spent playing games over the last few weeks (that I can talk about) has been playing this game with a few friends over Xbox Live.

Simply put, Battlefield 1943 is a well-done download-only first person shooter that brings me back to the glory days of Battlefield 1942. Available on both Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, Battlefield 1943 is a great-looking and relatively simple first-person shooter that is tons of fun to play, especially with friends. The weapons are simple and relatively well-balanced in my opinion, though many people are quick to criticize the infantry-stopping capabilities of the semi-automatic rifle. In addition, the ability to squad spawn makes it easy for players to get back into the action quickly and team up with friends. Vehicles are fun to ride in and drive, and although the mechanics can be a little wonky (collisions seem to have pretty weird physics), this may be because the engine is borrowed/simulating the BF1942 physics engine.

The game shipped with three different maps, though a fourth map has since been unlocked on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 which features a dogfighting game mode. The original three maps are outstanding in general, and will immediately validate your $15 layout. The fourth map seems to be hit or miss with people (I wasn't a huge fan, to be honest). There is a lot of value here, and although there is certainly less content than say Castle Crashers, the replayability factor is very high. Therefore, as a game, Battlefield 1943 is a fun but not wholly revolutionary adventure that is well worth the cost of admission.

What is more interesting to me, as a game designer, about Battlefield 1943 is its download-only format. One of the best aspects of the download-only system is that it is never a pain to switch between games when a friend of mine signs on to begin playing. Several times I have been watching a Netflix movie while doing a little work on my laptop, when a friend signs online, sends me a party invite, and whisks me away to the Southeast Pacific. As a fan of the Halo series, I remember often finding myself in the middle of a Mass Effect marathon when I was interrupted by the same friends, but didn't feel like breaking out the new CD, loading it into the drive, waiting for the new game to load, etc. In Battlefield 1943, no matter what I'm doing, I'm only a party and game invite away from the action. Ultimately, this makes it much easier for me to consider dropping my campaign progress for a little down and dirty Wake Island action.

Ultimately, its clearly the distribution format that is truly revolutionary here. While I don't know what kind of cuts are taken from sales of the game, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to hear that EA and DICE make about as much money off each sale of this $15 game as they do from a $50 game purchased at retail (okay, maybe a little surprised).

Regardless, the proof is in the pudding and Battlefield 1943 has proven to me that a company can release an outstanding AAA title as a download-only purchase on consoles. While I would hope that everyone and their grandmothers don't immediately abandon traditional distribution methods for their games (my 360's hard drive only has 20 GB of space, dagnabbit!), I am keen to see what other offerings lie on this road in the future, and if these offerings can be supplemented by additional downloadable content packs.

Hopefully.

-Jon

Race for the Galaxy Review

2009-07-12T23:15:00.002-04:00

Race for the Galaxy - Player of Game Review
Innovation: 9/10
Mastery: 9/10
Overall 9/10

I was up at a friend's house for the 4th and we played one of my favorite games, Race for the Galaxy, which reminded me that I haven't written a review for this game yet for this blog. As you can tell by the above scores, I think of this game quite highly.

Race for the Galaxy, or "Race" as we call it, is an outstanding economic development game which is dripping with complex mechanics and heavily codified. There are few to no words on most cards besides the title. Yet all of them are fairly easy to parse once you begin to understand the symbols used on the cards. This is one thing that I really like (although when I played this game with my parents, they couldn't understand anything).

The game mechanics are fairly complex, but the simple overarching theme is that the cards in your hand are game resources in two senses of the word: they can be played from your hand to the table but they can also be used to pay the costs of playing other cards which are more relevant to your current strategy.

The other key mechanic is the turn structure system. Turns in Race are shared, meaning that no one person is the "active" player at any one time. I strongly prefer these sorts of games as it means that everyone is pretty much in the action at all times unless the group is waiting for one or two people to make their decisions for the turn. What occurs in the turn, however, is not always (and actually is quite rarely) the same. At the beginning of each turn, all players may select one phase that they wish to occur in the turn. There are five phases, with one additional subphase which occurs only for the players that take the particular subphase, meaning that in a standard three or four player game, not all of the phases will occur. Even in five player games, usually only three or four occur, and I've played quite a few games where all players take the same phase.

In addition, players who take each phase receive an advantage when that phase occurs, which incentivizes the players to think about what bonuses they need the most and not always care about the actions other players will take. Still, there are plenty of opportunities for gamesmanship, as I often rely on another player to take the settle action so I can settle a windfall world and trade away the free good.

In addition, the game is reasonably well balanced; although not every strategy is as powerful as every other, all of them are good enough to win with if you draw enough of the cards that you need to pull it off.

Race is definitely a game that makes you think on your feet. While you may have one plan at the beginning of the game, all too often you don't draw the cards you need and need to modify or even completely scrap your old strategy. While I think some people find this annoying, and think of it as being too luck based, to me it is a point of excitement.

Race for the Galaxy, in my opinion, is one of the most unique and interesting boardgames (can I call it that) out on the market today. It is a must-own for anyone that is interested in trying many different types of games, as there is very little on the market like it.

----End of Review---

One of the interesting things that has come out of my games of Race for the Galaxy with my friends is that there are some people who can't stand this game because it is entirely too luck-based. While I see some merit in their arguments, I can't help but wonder if they are simply approaching the problem in the wrong way. In my opinion, to win Race, you need to constantly re-evaluate your strategy whenever you draw new cards, as they often don't quite mesh with the plan that you had before.

One of the things that I've noticed about a few of these players is that they are for the most part Magic: the Gathering and Poker players, two games with an "out" as a central concept. In Poker or Magic, an "out" is a card that wins you the game if you can draw it, or at least keeps you in. Given their background, and although I will be the first to admit I've never actually watched them play a hand, I think that they may be overcommitting to a strategy, and not realizing opportunities which arise in the first few trades or explores in the game.

Of course, I could be totally wrong about this. Since they didn't really like the game, my experiences of playing the game with them are rather limited. Still, it is an interesting theory, and something to keep in mind in the future.

-Jon

Kodu Game Lab Impressions

2009-07-04T23:03:00.003-04:00

So, word on the street is that Best Buy is going to be selling PS3s with Metal Gear Solid 4 and Killzone 2 for $400 tomorrow, and I'm thinking mightily about buying them. But in the mean time I have been playing a little more of the 1vs100 beta, Europa Universalis II (one of my favorite games of all time) and an XBLA Community Game called Kodu Game Lab which is the topic of today's post.

Kodu Game Lab is basically a simplified gaming editor for the Xbox 360. It is available in the community games section of Xbox Live for $5, and to keep my thesis succinct, it generally kicks ass and is absolutely worth your $5.

I've fooled around with other game creators from time to time, authored a Warcraft III map and Starcraft map (and I once joined someone else's game who was hosting a game of my map, spike!), and of course do game design for a living, so I was pretty excited to try the game out.

The game creator is a little tough to work with, but it does a good job of easing you into all of the options by having you program AI, place objects and more in a few sample missions which resemble a bit of a campaign of sorts. After that, there are a few simple finished and unfinished games for players to play around with and mod, but the meat of this whole proposition is the ability to make your own game from scratch. The assets in the game are a bit limited (and by that I mean that there are only a few different objects that you can use for the main character or enemies) but that doesn't detract from the game too much.

So far, I've spent a bit of time modding one of the included Galaga-esque games to make it a little more exciting and challenging, but haven't come up with anything really interesting or creative. I should have more time to mess around with the game in the coming weeks though, so hopefully I will think of something exciting.

I really recommend that you give the game a try. There are very few games on the market which offer so much value for such little money. The included games are nothing really special, but they're probably worth the $5 if you don't have anything better to do. Still, if you would like to play around with a pretty simple level and game creator, Kodu Game Lab might just be an Xbox Live offering that fits the bill.

-Jon

Battlefield Heroes in Open Beta/Released

2009-06-26T13:11:00.003-04:00

There are conflicting reports on gaming websites this morning which are simultaneously claiming that Battlefield Heroes is in open beta and that it has been released, but either way, it is available for public consumption. I played it for a solid month awhile ago, and had a great time playing it. It is a very good casual game for players new to the FPS genre or just looking for a way to relax from their pulse pumping games of Counterstrike or Team Fortress 2.

Battlefield Heroes is also a great game to play with your friends if you can find your way onto the same server. It's hard to get too wound up playing the game, and it is alot of fun being in the same tank or plane at the same time as someone you know. More than that, since the game is free, it's a great way to play a FPS with someone you know that doesn't have a top of the line computer or isn't willing to drop $50 on Call of Duty or Halo.

I'll probably be playing the game a little bit this weekend, just to see what has changed. Go download and try it today!

Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers Review

2009-06-21T14:04:00.006-04:00

Let me preface this review by saying that since it is a timely review, I'm not going to bother to evaluate this game in a long term sense. This review focuses mainly on whether or not you should buy this game. If you want to save yourself some time, I've copied and pasted the final three sentences of the review here for your convenience:

Although in several areas it can disappoint, overall it is impossible to argue with the value proposition of Duels of the Planeswalkers. Whether you are new to the game, playing for the first time in five years, or already play in local FNMs or PTQs, if you own an Xbox 360 there is no reason you shouldn't also own this game.

This week, I was sick as a dog, which gave me a good opportunity to play Stainless Games' new Xbox Live Arcade game Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers. Right now, the game costs 800 MS Points, which is the equivalent of $10. At that price point, this is a fantastic game that should be in every gamer's collection. This is especially true if you also play Magic: the Gathering in paper, since you get a free $15 card (my friend's estimation of the value, not mine) with purchase.

Singleplayer Campaign

The singleplayer campaign for this game is pretty straightforward: challenge each of the decks to two duels and beat them over the course of the campaign. You will be playing against the AI, which is reasonable but nowhere near perfect. After each win, you will get a card to add to your deck. The confusing decision that the designers made here is that they allow you to grind victories against the same AI-controlled opponent over and over again. While you have to beat all of the opponents in the ladder in order to unlock all the decks, once you have unlocked all of the decks you can just play the same easy-as-pie opponent over and over again, depending on which opponent your deck is strongest against. Although I did not beat the entire campaign with all of the decks, I did beat all of the opponents with the Elf, Jund, and mono-green decks, which were the only three I attempted it with.

AI

The AI is probably one of the poorer parts of the game, overall. It is difficult for me to criticize it entirely, since I'm sure it is very substantial. It does make good decisions most of the time. However, there are many areas it could definitely improve:

Mulligans: I'm not sure that it actually takes mulligans. I've seen it missing its second turn land drop before. It may take mulligans, but I've never seen it go to 6.
Attacking, causing it to be dead on board: I can't tell you how many times I have three guys in play, and the AI has three guys in play with a few meager points of life left, but one of them is phantom warrior. In this case, regardless of my life total, or his, he will swing with it. In many of these circumstances, the AI literally causes him to be dead on the board, regardless of any tricks I may be holding. It seems like there should have been a line or two of code telling it not to attack if the extra creature that gets through deals lethal damage.
While getting in for an extra 3 with giant growth is nice, its much better to 2 for 1 with it by making your attacking or defending creature 2/2 a 5/5, which is bigger than the other guy's 4/4, thus making him down a card while you are up the creature (which you would have normally lost) or the damage (4 points of life ~1 card) and down the card in hand. 2 for 1.

Magic: the Puzzling

Another play mode of the game is Magic: the Puzzling. This gameplay variant is interesting and definitely showcases some of Magic's potential. Unfortunately, certain considerations (like card drawing) convinced Wizards and/or Stainless games that all of these puzzles should be a "can you find a way to win this turn, after drawing your card" question, which to me reduced their complexity. A few of them took me a couple tries, but most were fairly easy. I beat them all in a single sitting. I wish that I had earned a deck unlock or something more substantial than simple achievement points doing this, though. Overall, this was a quick addition to the game that didn't add any long-term value to me.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer modes are, in my opinion, the highlight of the experience. As of the second night after release, there were already a fair number of people playing the game online, although actually joining a game is a bit finicky (this may change as more people begin to play online). There are several multiplayer modes available:

Coop campaign (not online)
1v1
3 player FFA
4 player FFA
2v2 2 Headed Giant

One of the reasons that the multiplayer stands out as the game's best mode is simply because it feels like the Magic I know. I'm the kind of guy that would rather win big occasionally than win consistently and multiplayer is, as a result, one of the formats that my playstyle is particularly suited for. The use of headsets also makes multiplayer stand out, because it gives you that sitting around a table feeling that not prior Magic virtual game has done before. It also fits better with the cards, which tend to be on the not constructed playable side of things (i.e. you would never see most of these cards at a PTQ in paper Magic). My favorite mode, specifically is probably the 2v2 2 headed giant mode, which is a nice combination of teamwork and slow paced play (yes you get to see both player's hands, so you can help your partner play).

Coop Campaign

The Coop campaign is also awesome, because it's a great way to get your friend to play with you without having to worry about them being intimidated by your prior experience with Magic. While you can't play it online (to my knowledge), a friend and I played through most of it and it is quite a bit of fun. The elf deck is absurd in this mode, btw. One interesting thing to note is that you can unlock cards for decks in the Coop campaign, so you can use this to approximately double your unlock rate vs. single player play.

Deck Construction/Balance Issues

Deck construction in this game is not what you would expect given that you are playing Magic: the Gathering. While in the paper game, you have almost complete control over everything you play, in this game each deck has a core deck which you can unlock additional cards for, and then you may choose which of those unlocked cards you wish to play. Since most of the decks' unlocked cards are of the bomb variety, you end up playing almost all of them. The notable exceptions, however, are the "tooth" cards which basically all give you an additional point of life whenever someone plays a spell of a specified color. While these cards are alright in multiplayer (particularly 4 player FFA), in singleplayer or 2v2 they're atrocious and should almost never be played.

My theory for these deck restrictions is this: Stainless wanted to delicately control the balance of the metagame, and the best way to do that is to have all of the decks' potential under control. Because there are a couple of bad/undesirable cards in most of the decks, it is basically impossible to modify the decks into unstoppable, efficient killing machines. If everyone could take the elvish warriors from the elf deck and put them into the green deck in the grizzly bears slot, or move the grizzly bears into the dragon fodder slot in the Jund deck, you could risk improving one deck too much and throw off the balance of the metagame.

However, if this was the reason, or even if it wasn't, Stainless should have done a better job of balancing the metagame. Some decks simply seem to be much better than others, particularly the elf deck, with which a decent draw can destroy almost any deck in the metagame. The blue, black, and red decks barely seem to be in the game at all, and the white deck is basically a FFA only affair, since its bombs are basically Serra Angel, Wrath of God (I'm told, haven't seen it yet), and Mass Calcify. The Naya deck seems to be completely trumped by the green deck, which simply trades some creature efficiency (no 3 mana 5/4) and removal for no mana issues and Overrun.

Expansion Opportunities

The most promising aspect of the game are the expansion opportunities it seems to present down the road. Adding onto this game should be fairly simple: just release a new deck for another 100-200 MS Points. Assuming that enough people download the base game, I'm sure future expansions are in the works. Heck, there's already a deck in the campaign that player's can't unlock yet. (Maybe I need to beat the double Tezzeret decks at the end of the Coop campaign, haven't done that yet).

Overall Impressions

Duels of the Planeswalkers is simply an outstanding value for 800 MS Points. While it's not perfect, it is certainly the most attractive Magic: the Gathering client ever, and gets most of the important aspects of Magic right. It is also easy to learn, beginner friendly and generally a rewarding first Magic experience. While it has its faults, these are more than made up for by the innovative, streamlined experience it provides and the enormous amount of content that you are purchasing for ~$10, even before you include the promo card which is worth the cost of admission alone. If you've always wanted to learn Magic, or even if you simply want to see how much better Magic Online's interface could be, I highly recommend that you take a look at this game. Although in several areas it can disappoint, overall it is impossible to argue with the value proposition of Duels of the Planeswalkers. Whether you are new to the game, playing for the first time in five years, or already play in local FNMs or PTQs, if you own an Xbox 360 there is no reason you shouldn't also own this game.

-Jon

1 vs 100 Beta

2009-06-08T22:22:00.006-04:00

So, my roommate and I just started playing the 1vs100 beta tonight. It is darned impressive. I grouped up with my cousin, his sister and a few of his friends and had a blast. The game is completely free to play (I haven't looked into the post-beta but I remember thinking that it was free to play then as well).

Anyways its a great, social game that really pulls players together, even if they aren't in the same room (and they most likely aren't). My roommate got in on the action this evening and we are penciled in to playing it every night for the rest of the week.

I have the history and geography pretty covered, but am atrocious at the pop culture stuff (my roommate helps cover this deficiency somewhat). Regardless, I am still looking for more help. If you are smart and own an Xbox 360 with a gold XBL subscription, definitely hit me up. I might be a little late tomorrow (I work until 7PM, starts at 7:30, boo). Hit me up if you fit the above qualifications. My username is JohnnyJohstneft.

-Jon

Elegance in the Free Realms TCG

2009-06-07T22:51:00.003-04:00

So last week I got my first comment on my blog in my Elegant Game Design article. In it, I was discussing elegant games and game systems, and I included the destiny/gem system from the Free Realms TCG in my list.

Now, this inclusion hardly compares to some of the other systems I listed, as my commentor duly noted. The gem system is certainly not as complex as most of the other games that I've included. Yet, I feel it is worth including simply because how the gem system plays into every aspect of the game, is a key consideration in deck construction, and presents interesting design space for future releases of the game, should Topps and SOE ever wish to release additional expansions.

The basic gist of the Free Realms TCG is as follows. Skip the next two paragraphs if you just want to read about the destiny/gem system. The Free Realms TCG is played on a normal game field like Magic: the Gathering but there are only spaces for each player to control three creatures at a time. Players play cards from their hand to their "inventory", which is basically land in Magic, except that it has no color. Any card can be played as a land, but most players play "resources", which are similar to quests in World of Warcraft. These can be played face up as land, and there is generally some benefit which can be harvested from turning them face down. In addition, resource cards generally have good "destiny", which I will get to in a bit.

The cards in your inventory, give you coins every turn that allow you to play more powerful creatures. When you play a creature, you put it in one of the three slots on your side of the board. Once you have spent all of your coins for the turn, or wish to spend no more, the remainder is lost. Then you can attack with your creatures. Creatures either battle the creature in front of them or attack the opponent directly if there is no creature in front of them (so in the above picture, if the red player was attacking, if he chose to attack with the Mauthe Dog it would battle the Chicken Bomber, and if he chose to attack with the Forest Troll Archer it would "hunt", which basically means hit the opponent). When a creature hunts or wins a battle, it scores a card. When a player has scored 12 cards, he or she wins the game.

Destiny draws come into play whenever two creatures are battling. In battles, the attacking creature's attack is compared to the defending creatures defense. Tricks, the game's equivalent of instants, can be used to augment a creature's abilities in battle temporarily, but the attack/defense values are also temporarily increased by destiny draws. In its simplest form, players simply reveal a card from the top of the deck and add the number of gems on the revealed card to the relevant combat stat of their creature. However, the color of the gems also commonly matters, as creatures frequently have text in the form of : Effect; where G is a gem color. In this case, if a required gem is green, and the player reveals a green gem, the effect will trigger. In many cases (such as on the above troll and chicken cards), a proper revealed gem will further increase the attack or defense of the creature. However, there are many creatures who cannot be destroyed if a combination of gems are revealed, who draw a card if the correct gem types are revealed, or untap if the appropriate gem types are revealed.

Therefore, destiny does a number of things for Free Realms:

It makes battles more exciting and random.
It enables the designers to put exciting abilities on creatures while simultaneously reinforcing the need to battle with those creatures.
It allows the designers to add color restrictions to the game without making it difficult for decks that are "off-color" to actually play their cards, since gem color is (at least for now) strictly affiliated with a color in the game.
It unlocks a great deal of design space without significantly adding to the game's complexity.

And, like any other elegant system, it is very easy to understand.

If you haven't tried the Free Realms TCG, and you enjoy examining well-designed game systems, you owe it to yourself to visit the Free Realms virtual world and participate in its Trading Card Game. I do not need to qualify the statement 'The Free Realms TCG is a very well-designed game.'

-Jon

Elegant Game Design

2009-06-02T15:37:00.005-04:00

One of the terms we throw around in my office when referring to games is the term "elegant". Now none of us are really game design theorists in the traditional sense, and the word isn't really used much in game reviews, but it is a very fitting description of some games. One of the blogs that I follow is PlayThisThing!. One of the writers there is Greg Costikyan, who contributed a chapter on Europa Universalis (one of my favorite games) to a book entitled Well Played 1.0, edited by Drew Davidson. You can read the book online here, although I recommend you go out and buy a copy for yourself if you really liked it (I did).

One of the other chapters is written on the well-known Advance Wars series of games for Nintendo's mobile Gameboy and DS platforms. Advance Wars is one of the best examples of elegant game design I can think of, and seeing that the chapter on elegant game design in Well Played 1.0 was writted on this game was quite reassuring.

First, let me define my terms. To me, an elegant game or system is one in which there is a great deal of complexity which is slowly introduced to the player or is immediately very understandable. Basically, elegant game designs will almost always be fairly complex but very easy for the player to parse, or are at least structured in such a way that players learn how to use the system fairly easily and are never frustrated by it. Occasionally, I might call an overly complex but not that hard to understand system elegant, but that would be pretty rare. (This might be the case with my Final Fantasy Tactics nomination below.) These systems should also be fairly intuitive to the player, and to some extent, make sense in the real world, or at least in the game world.

Elegant game systems should also be the aspects of games that stand out to the player as being truly interesting and entertaining. By their very nature, they are the most polished aspects of the game.

Of course, the next thing that came to my mind was a mental list of other "elegant" games that I have played over the past few years. I spent most of last week thinking about it, and came up with a pretty good list. I'm actually thinking about taking some of the ideas I've been tossing around and throwing them into a white paper, which would probably help to distill my thoughts even more, but in the mean time I can use this post as a bit of a rough draft. I also did some thinking on some of the mechanics that might fall into the category, so those are also on the list.

Generating the list was surprisingly difficult. It was also a little more eclectic than I imagined. My list of elegant games/game systems, in no particular order:

Advance Wars
Civilization: Revolutions
Braid
Portal
Soul Calibur (I've heard that Street Fighter IV should go here but haven't played it)
Vegas Showdown
Sim City 2000
Item System in Diablo II
Ability/Job System in Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy VII's Materia Systems
Gem System in the Free Realms TCG (No, really, I'm dead serious)
Mana in Magic: the Gathering
World of Warcraft's Talent System

I'm sure I missed a ton of stuff. Please flame me in the forums.

-Jon

Coop, Continued

2009-05-25T00:08:00.003-04:00

I have spent a little time recently talking about the resurgence of cooperative play as seen in Left 4 Dead. This weekend, my cousin and I have been playing Gears of War 2 in coop, which I have never done before, and have been having a really fun time. In some sense, Gears of War 2 is a much better coop game than most other FPSs in my opinion, with L4D being the notable exception.

As a single player game, I have never been terribly impressed with either of the Gears games. This is not an insult to Epic, but for some reason the series has never really been exciting for me. Personally, I think the guns lack personality (which is saying something when the assault rifle has a freakin' chainsaw on it, see above for a double chainsaw assisted kill). Basically, all of them feel more or less the same. There is the single-shot rifle which I usually use mid/long range, the aforementioned fully-automatic AR/chainsaw creation, a handful of pistols, and some awkward weapons which are always interesting but a little awkward to use effectively (mortar, et al.).

You also have the Gears themselves, who are big, hulking nasty brutes with hearts of gold. Unfortunately, their body armor slows them to the point that controlling them can sometimes be a pain. While the controls are a far, far cry away from the "please kill me now" control experiences of games like Stormrise, some aspect of the movement system has always put me off. It lacks the clean, smooth, responsive movement of Halo 1-3.

But Gears of War 2 is an absolute blast to play coop. It's still no Left 4 Dead, but it's a great experience working with the teammates, reviving them when they fall, and flanking enemies or racing to get a chainsaw kill/bash the head in of the last baddie who is barely clinging to life. The all-too-common forks in the road also work masterfully in the game, allowing you to cover and set up on your best buddy's flank. This is a much more fun coop experience than Halo 3, which for some reason always felt a little watered down and not very tactical, probably as a result of the level design and the respawn system.

The Xbox Live system, of course, really makes the magic happen, as you get about two-thirds the benefit of having your ally right there with you, but don't have to split off any precious screen real estate.

I haven't really gotten into horde mode much yet, but our experience with it has been very positive thusfar, and I'm looking forward to trying it some more in the next few weeks.

-Jon

Schizoid Impressions

2009-05-23T01:22:00.005-04:00

Well the weekend is here, and seeing as I am finally getting a chance to stay in the city this weekend, I can try out some new games. However, my cousin, who doesn't play games not named Magic: the Gathering, is also in town, which may dampen my efforts somewhat. Not that that's all a bad thing.

I did talk him into playing the Schizoid XBLA demo with me though. Schizoid is billed as a simple coop game in which a team of two ships, orange and blue, team together to fight hordes of alien monsters. The twist is that unlike other monster slaughtering games, there are no weapons. Ships can merely ram into one another. The orange ship pwns all the orange monsters, but gets pwned by the blue monsters, while the blue ship pwns the blue monsters, but rolls to the orange monsters. Pretty simple stuff.

Anyways, the game has something like 136 levels. We had a pretty good time playing the XBLA demo, but not good enough to make me want to slap down the money for the full game. Schizoid is overall a pretty intense experience, if the last few levels of the demo were any indication. There are tons of mobs all over the place, and it will take some pretty coordinated teamwork, but the game feels a little simpler than it could have been. The power-ups that I played around with were definitely fun, and I wish I could have seen some more. However, I wanted Schizoid to prove to me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it a great, arcadey, coop experience, and it didn't quite get there.

If I had another dedicated player who wanted to really give this game their all with me, I would probably get it, but given that I don't have anyone living with me that would be willing to make the sacrifice, I suppose Left 4 Dead will have to do for now.

-Jon

Golden Joystick GotY Awards

2009-05-19T17:10:00.011-04:00

Well, I started taking my blog seriously a little too late to post during most of the GotY awards earlier this year for 2008, but I can use the Golden Joystick GotY awards as a proxy for those, I suppose. The awards are supposed to be awarded to outstanding games released between May 22, 2008 and May 22, 2009. I say "supposed to" because some of the chronology in here is a little messed up, and some of the games that shouldn't be on the ballot are. Some games that should definitely be in more categories, like Braid, also are suspiciously absent from some categories.

Anyways, I'll go through my ballot (pictured at right) and talk about my decision. I know, in fact, I hope, that some of you vehemently disagree with my position. It is, after all, inevitable, but also fosters creative and enlightening debate. With that said, on to the awards!

Family Game of the Year - Free Realms: This one was one of my easier decisions. While World of Goo was certainly a tempting pick, I couldn't get past how different a game like Free Realms is from the average MMO, and how much potential it has to change our perceptions of MMO games. From beginning to end, it is designed to be a safe and fun place for the entire family. Players of all ages can get into the game, and it is simply a phenomenal game.

Handheld Game of the Year - Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars: I didn't get to play many of the games that were up for this award. While I liked Pokemon Platinum and Chrono Trigger, neither of these titles really added substantially to gaming. Rhythm Heaven was probably an excellent alternate choice, but I didn't have a chance to play the game. However, GTA Chinatown Wars re-examined the original GTA games and reworked them to be much more entertaining, intuitive and exciting. I really enjoyed the time that I spent playing this game.

Mobile Game of the Year - Bejeweled 2: This was definitely the category that I am least familiar with, but Bejeweled has really taken hold in casual gaming and my bosses (for whatever reason) really love it. I am not as big of a fan, but I certainly cannot deny how popular this game is. I didn't feel bad voting for it because there was nothing else that really stood out to me.

Multiplayer Game of the Year - Left 4 Dead: This decision, for me, was a complete layup. No game has defined multiplayer gaming so much this year as Left 4 Dead. A year ago, I would have told you that competitive multiplayer, much as I might not like it, was the preferred choice for the vast majority of gamers. L4D was perhaps the single most important game in the shift towards co-operative play that has occurred in the last year, and has completely changed the way that at least I view multiplayer gaming. While I can't say that most players now prefer co-op play, we've definitely at least moved in that direction. The game is also an absolute blast to play, which always helps for these sorts of things.

Nintendo Game of the Year - Okami: Again, another category that I am unfamiliar with, but this is one where I felt Okami was simply the best option. The second best option on the ballot, if it had been there, would have been Mario Kart Wii, but despite coming out a week or so after Okami, it wasn't. Decision made. Sorry Mario. Awkwardly enough, neither should have been on the ballot. The other game I was thinking of, Wii Fit is MIA. It has certainly sold well enough to be here, and unlike Okami or SMK Wii, released during the correct timeframe. Does GJ really think it isn't a game?

The One to Watch - Diablo III: I'm sure Diablo III in this spot will be one of my more controversial picks, but I am definitely an ARPG kind of guy, and really enjoyed Diablo II and D2X. More than that, the game looks and seems to play great. It is definitely the game that I am most looking forward to, though some upcoming MMO's like Global Agenda, the new Star Wars MMO, and other games are certainly outstanding nominees.

Online/PC Game of the Year - World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King: I picked the World of Warcraft Expansion in this slot due to both its popularity and the quality of the game as delivered. WoW, to me, is clearly the best MMORPG out there, and is certainly deserving of the online award. For the PC, the biggest contenders in my book were WoW, Braid, Fallout 3, L4D, and perhaps Warhammer 40K DoW II and Empire: Total War (they probably aren't, but I am a big fan of both games). WoW was simply a quintessentially PC game that continues to define gaming and online play with every release.

Playstation Game of the Year - Metal Gear Solid 4 Sons of the Patriots: Another category I wish I was more familiar with, but MGS4 seems to be a hot pick for GotY overall and certainly looked outstanding to me. I wish I owned a Playstation, but don't, and this was the only release this year that really made me want to buy one. Positive word of mouth was probably the biggest reason for this selection.

Publisher of the Year - Rockstar Games: This decision was easy because this studio was responsible for not one but two award-winning games this year. Although I found the car controls and framerate issues in GTA IV annoying enough that I didn't really want to give it any general GotY awards, I certainly don't feel justified in denying this award to the fine folks at Rockstar Games.

Retailer of the Year - Valve (Steam): No single retail outlet has had as dramatic an impact on game sales this year as Valve's Steam Client. Steam has brought games back from the dead, spurred game sales, and become a one-stop-shop for all varieties of PC games. In addition some games only work through Steam, making it tough to discount this platform as the most important game deployment and distribution platform since Xbox Live and Apple's online store.

Soundtrack of the Year - Braid & Burnout Paradise: This is not something I'm really concerned with, but Burnout Paradise has a fantastic soundtrack. My first choice for this award was Braid (and I did write in to GJ over it), but I certainly don't feel bad about picking Burnout Paradise here either.

UK Developer of the Year - Criterion: The quickest connections that I made here were Rockstar North to GTA IV and Criterion to Burnout Paradise. There was no Lionhead Studios (Fable II) option. Given that restriction, I simply feel that Burnout Paradise was the better game for me. Although GTA IV certainly has an immersive and well-developed world from beginning to end, great foot controls, and an outstanding story and cast of characters, framerate issues and awkward car handling (am I faulting a game for being too realistic? Yes.) really detracted from my enjoyment of the game. While the storyline and shooting controls were good enough to get me to finish the game (this is a huge compliment, I almost never finish games unless I really enjoy them), I really wished that the car controls and graphics were a little bit more appealing to me. While Burnout Paradise was a huge step forward from Burnout Revenge, I couldn't say the same about the transition from San Andreas (one of the best games I have ever played) to Grand Theft Auto IV. Needless to say, I have a great deal of respect for both of these studios.

The Ultimate Game of the Year - Left 4 Dead: This decision was really tough. I feel like if I had played MGS4 I might have a different pick here. To me, it came down to Left 4 Dead, WotLK, Braid (which wasn't an option, sadly), Burnout Paradise, and Warhammer 40K DoW II (again, a personal favorite that probably shouldn't win). Of these, I simply felt that L4D was the most complete and revolutionary gaming experience here. It was certainly a tough decision.

Xbox Game of the Year (why is this here and not with all of the other system awards?) - Braid: Sorry Call of Duty fans, Braid was simply the best 10 hours of game that I played all year. While it was tough to pick Braid as an overall Game of the Year since it was so short, I certainly didn't feel bad about picking it in a more narrow category.

Whew! That was a long one!

-Jon

Left 4 Dead Player Count Over Time

2009-05-15T12:20:00.004-04:00

This ties back into two of my recent posts on Games on Sale and Today Only Left 4 Dead ON SALE. QforQ, a community manager over at GamerDNA, a neat website that tracks your gaming interests, recently released an image that tracked the "engagement level" of L4D's players on GamerDNA.

This image is pretty interesting to me because it shows the magnitude of the impact that a sale, free to play weekend, and/or holidays can have on a game's sales.

I would be hesitant to take this graph at face value, however. I'm not sure how these numbers are calculated, but GamerDNA has certainly been growing fairly rapidly in the last few months, which could have affected these results. In addition I would assume that more people have been linking their Steam accounts to Gamer DNA, which could also be affecting things.

However, the conclusion that I do feel comfortable drawing is that free weekends, new content, and limited-time price reductions on games do significantly drive game sales. I also feel safe saying that I am really looking forward to seeing more of these charts in the future.

Thanks GamerDNA!

-Jon

Defense Grid: The Awakening Review

2009-05-14T18:57:00.000-04:00

Defense Grid: The Awakening Review
Innovation: 5/10
Mastery: 9/10
Greatness: 7/10

Tower Defense is a simple game system that is casual-friendly and can be quite advanced when you get down to it. I've been playing Tower Defense games since the Warcraft III days, and they are one of the best time-wasters I know of. Widely available on websites such as Kongregate and Newgrounds, there are literally hundreds of different Tower Defense games out there, which for the most part have their own special game elements to them. Plants vs. Zombies, PopCap's newest game, is an interesting take on the genre. However, if you are looking for the "best of breed" Tower Defense game, look no further than Hidden Path Entertainment's Defense Grid: The Awakening.

I purchased Defense Grid last weekend on Steam for a paltry sum of $5 (It's still on sale for $5, this week only) after its graphics piqued my interest, I read a few reviews, and played through the game's demo on Steam.

Like many other Tower Defense games, in Defense Grid you are given the task of deploying towers along a path to protect an area from an unending assault of mindless mobs. While most TD games allow you to either place towers in predetermined areas out of the mob's path or allow you to create your own path for the mobs within a certain area, Tower Defense features both types of gameplay. You have a variety of towers (10, with three levels each to be precise) with which to inflict punishment on the baddies, and each has its own strategic purpose. Most enemies (particularly as the game goes on) have resistances, immunities, or special aspects that make them resistant to certain damage types.

Defense Grid starts out pretty easy, but ramps up the difficulty significantly by the end of the game. In addition, since you can receive bronze, silver, and gold medals based on your performance in each level, there is a fair amount of replay value for most levels. In addition, you can increase the speed of the game at any time by holding down the F key, which is great for figuring out a level quickly or fast-forwarding through the time between waves. Lastly, the game saves your progress for you in the middle of levels, allowing you to load previously saved progress. This is something that is pretty unique for the genre and definitely a welcome addition if you don't have the time to play through some of the later levels several times over.

Although the balance of the various towers and the monster variety make this game stand out, it is also Defense Grid's cores system that makes this game the best Tower Defense game out there. In most TD games out there, monsters begin on one side of the screen and make their way to the other side. In Defense Grid however, monsters begin at point A, move to the power generator where the cores are stored, pick up cores and either return to point A or advance to another point B. If you kill them while they are returning cores, the cores will slowly waft their way back over to the generator. However, if all of the cores are gone from the generator, mobs will be able to pick up the cores which are making their way back, which significantly increases the pace of the game at some points, and acts as another factor in your building decisions, since it is no longer always best to build at the points along the path that mobs will pass the most en route to their final destination. While this sounds pretty elementary, in the later levels of the game this delivers a true challenge to the game, and significantly increases the intensity and exhilaration that the game provides, while somewhat helping with the game's immersion factor (something lacking in nearly all TD games).

Defense Grid isn't terribly innovative, but completely master's the Tower Defense mini-genre, and is worth the purchase for any fan of Tower Defense games out there. In short, if you are looking for the current definitive Tower Defense experience, look no further than Defense Grid: The Awakening.

-Jon

Twilight Imperium Impressions

2009-05-11T10:51:00.006-04:00

News has been a little slow lately, which has been unfortunate because although I've wanted to write up a few more entries, I haven't been seeing interesting enough content worth discussing as of late. I've spent the last week or so playing Left 4 Dead, which I finally spent enough time playing to really get into. I've also been replaying the campaign for Dawn of War II, a game that appeals to me personally and I think has been underrated by the gaming public.

This weekend, I spent the week up at a friend's house near Albany NY. We saw the Star Trek movie in IMAX (which was insane by the way, go and see it now) and geeked out on board games.

We played one game of Power Grid, Puerto Rico and Twilight Imperium 3rd edition each, and several games of Colossal Arena (which is a great game for casual gamers and also great when you only have three or four people. I don't recommend playing it with more than four).

Power Grid and Puerto Rico are two games that we have played before and have really enjoyed. Power Grid in particular is a fantastic game, though our first few game experiences were significantly hampered by one of the worst rulebook layouts I have ever seen.

Twilight Imperium, though is the topic of the post. Twilight is one of those games that tries to be the "game of the ages" and attempts to bite off more than it can chew. The game costs about $80, and the rulebook for this game is intense. The basic jist of the game is that you control a space faring empire that is trying to take over the galaxy. The gameboard is built during each game and can be balanced or very one sided. There is battle, trade, sabotage, exploration, technology, alliances and mission systems which must all be understood by each player, and a lot of book-keeping to go along with the game's relatively slow pace.

It took us about two hours of explaining the rules to the new players (only three of the players knew how to play the game) before we finally felt comfortable starting the game up. We had taken some time beforehand to make sure that all player's starting stacks were somewhat balanced (so one person didn't have too much production, influence, etc). We were also playing with all of the errata for the game (yes, there is a lot of errata in this game), including a custom change for the Imperial action to make it require players to control Mecatol Rex in order to get the 2 Victory Points.

Still, after all that errata, it really wasn't a good play experience. The game becomes bogged down with several of its elements, and many mechanics seem to reward sitting back and hoping that the other players take each other out with you moving in for the kill. We quit about 5 turns into the game simply because noone wanted to make an aggressive move until we got bored enough and had played nearly all of our units.

The biggest problem with the game for me was simply that I got caught between the two "best" players at the table in my estimation. I had a pretty defensive race, which I didn't realize when I picked it but was made abundantly clear as the game went on. At one point I wanted to move on the player to my left, but the best that I could do was attack one of the worlds adjacent to his homeworld, beat up his small fleet there, and get counterattacked by his fleet at the adjacent sector after he had built at his homeworld in the interim.

The whole experience made me realize one thing about game design: design games that encourage people to take risks and PLAY THE GAME. By the time we stopped, no-one could tell who was in a strong position simply because it was so difficult to identify all of the ships in one space, so even evaluating attacks required us to broadcast our intentions to the rest of the group.

I think TI might have worked better in another group that was more risk-taking and perhaps had a better grasp of the rules. Still, it is sometimes fair to judge a game on the merit of a single playthrough, and although I will probably end up trying TI again at some point, I can certainly say that the game would be better off if it was a bit easier to understand and encouraged players to take risks.

-Jon

Game Preview: Ruse (Ubisoft)

2009-05-05T19:02:00.000-04:00

I've been spending some time the last few days browsing the internet for games and gaming news (as I am oft want to do) and have come upon this fascinating-looking game coming in 2009 (according to GameSpot anyways, it was announced at GDC in March).

Ruse appears to be a tactical RTS game set in World War II. Needless to say, the graphics engine is fantastic, but the graphical element most appealing to me is their zoom feature, which appears to seamlessly transition from unit-on-unit combat to a master campaign or battleview. The pacing of the game is pretty fast (see a preview of the game action here).

Some of the game mechanics are also very intriguing. The game's namesake mechanic seems to be very interesting indeed, as you can create fake units to deploy or break the enemy's code to see their battle plan. Although I won't profess to be an expert on the game, it seems that there is an Advance Wars sort of balancing system to the game, which is great. I loves me some Advance Wars.

I, for one, will be keeping up with the game as it moves through development.

-Jon

Today Only Left 4 Dead ON SALE

2009-05-03T18:22:00.006-04:00

Today only, Valve's hit game, Left for Dead, is on a 40% sale ($23.99). While I have a zombie/horror aversion that keeps me from being a huge fan of this game, I spent a few hours playing it and can say without a doubt that it is the best co-op gaming experience out there right now. If you have a few casual gamer friends, let them know too. This is an outstanding game that everyone should try, at least once. It will likely be on your now playing list for quite some time.

-Jon

Sign Up for the Battlefield Heroes Beta!

2009-05-03T17:54:00.003-04:00

So I have not been blogging for about a week now, but there's a pretty good reason for that. I just got into the Battlefield Heroes beta, and have been immensely enjoying that. I won't talk about it too much for fear of breaking my NDA (though the NDA does a terrible job of telling me what I can and can't do).

However, I will tell you that the game is excellent, and since I got the chance to play the game at New York Comic Con, I can at least tell you things which pertain to what I learned at that convention.

Battlefield Heroes is a fairly traditional multiplayer shooter with highly stylized cartoonish graphics a la Team Fortress 2 that is monetized through appearance and exp-boost microtransactions. While you can outfit your character with new weapons and abilities, all of that stuff is free, meaning that the most advantage you can derive from microtransactions is faster leveling.

Gameplay wise, the primary game mode is a Conquest gametype, where each team starts controlling one of four flag points on a map. Each team also starts with a number of reinforcements. When you kill someone, the team loses a number of reinforcement points which varies depending on how many flags you control.

The game is fast and loose with physics, and it's sort of hard to take the game too seriously, which is great. There are several basic weapon categories and vehicles which are difficult to handle initially, but great once you get the hang of it. On top of that, the graphics are great and really sell you on the whole package.

This post feels like a little bit of a cop out since I'm not actually saying anything, but if there's one thing to take away from the post, it's to go to http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/, sign up for the beta, and keep your head up for more information about this fun, casual FPS that almost anyone can get into.

-Jon

Games on Sale

2009-04-27T23:56:00.006-04:00

So, I've been a busy guy for the last couple of days, with the nice weather we have been having in the city and all. I spent most of the day Sunday wandering around Manhattan's Best Buy stores, hoping to spike (acquire) some of the $10 Xbox 360 games that are on sale this week. I found most of what I got, but Soul Calibur was an early morning affair, I am told. I still managed to snag a copy of Pure and Unreal Tournament III, as well as a copy of Operation Darkness, which by all accounts is pretty sub-par but intrigued me enough to waste $10 on it.

All of this has gotten me thinking: Is it just me, or are games going on sale an awful lot lately? Ever since Steam started really upping the number of games it has on sale at any one time, and has started publishing numbers on the dramatic week on week sales increases this causes, everyone seems to be following suit. It makes perfect sense--many games only sell very well during their first few months--and gamers tend to be cheap, for whatever reason. (I myself am definitely in that category, no denigration intended).

In fact, for about the past year, but moreso in the past month or two, almost all of the non must-have games for me have been purchased because they were on sale: Prince of Persia, Braid, Armored Core 4 (I loved the original), Band of Brothers Hell's Highway, FarCry 2, and Burnout Paradise are all firmly in that category.

Is this something we are going to see more of? I daresay it seems to have been working so far. There was an article a few weeks ago about how Steam's free weekend of Unreal Tournament III single-handedly rejuvinated the multiplayer interest in that game.

As for my take on things, it's certainly not something that you want to do if your game is highly successful. I would never reccomend that Blizzard does something like that (actually I would love it if they did). Its just not needed in my opinion. However, if done well, like through the free weekend program, or the 1 year after launch sale that is well advertised, I think it can be fairly profitable. Games are always a low variable cost proposition, and especially with the trend towards online multiplayer, active player count is always essential to keeping interest in the game up.

Have you been buying games on sale? Have you found anything that you wouldn't have found otherwise? What games would you seriously consider buying if they were on sale, that you wouldn't otherwise consider?

-Jon

Demigod is not DotA

2009-04-25T10:46:00.004-04:00

So, I've spent the last few days playing Demigod online. Just played my first online match this morning.

I'm not sure I'll ever get around to reviewing the game, but I felt it was worth my time to comment on it at this point.

First of all, this game is NOT that similar to DotA, or Death of the Ancients, a popular Warcraft III custom map/mod. This game is really more similar to the Aeon of Strife games that came before it. For starters, there are many more units on screen in a typical game of Demigod than in a typical game of DotA, and there are more than just melee and archer creeps. There are also angels, which are basically flying creeps, siege weapons (and they appear every wave as opposed to every 3 or 4), and healing creeps. In addition, like in the AoS lines of games (there were quite a few variations), you can upgrade your creeps, adding extra unit types and making them stronger. Like in AoS, these upgrades are essential to winning the game.

In addition, the emphasis in this game seems to be much more on the right click abilities than the left click abilities. What I mean by this is that when you are fighting against other heroes in this game, a higher percentage of your damage comes from white damage (your regular attacks) than spells, which is a pretty significant change. In addition, movement is much slower in this game. It takes forever for your unit to cross the screen (but a screen is a much bigger portion of the map in this game too.

The last thing that makes this game like AoS rather than DotA is the item system. To this point, I haven't seen a single recipe in this game, nor have I seen items with really crazy use effects (like hex staff or wind stick, or even Aghanim's Scepter aka Ult Staff).

When all is said and done, I think that this game is probably less skill intensive overall than DotA. The item system isn't as intricate, the heroes are a little bit blander (but much more customizeable), and the pacing of the game is a little bit slower overall.

That's not to say I haven't been having fun with the game. The graphics are very good, and I did really enjoy the various AoS mods in their heyday. The four "Generals" in this game can be quite challenging to use effectively, though I prefer the four "Assasins", particularly Regulus, aka Sniper. See the screenshot above for more information on how much I like him (In the screenshot, I am JohnnyJohstneft).

In short, if you like DotA but haven't played AoS, played AoS and liked it, or just want to try something new, this game can be quite a bit of fun. The online multiplayer still seems to be a little laggy, but the state of the game has improved substantially in the last few days.

-Jon

Demigod and Customer Service

2009-04-21T22:36:00.003-04:00

So, one of the games that I have been looking forward to playing recently is an Action RPG/RTS Lite game called Demigod. At this point, I have not actually played the game (I should be getting a copy of the game in the mail in the next day or two), but issues surrounding the release are certainly worth commenting on.

Demigod has been plagued with a number of launch-day related issues, ranging from Gamestop selling copies early to mass pirating of the game, server instability, and much more. The reviews of the game vary wildly, as many review sites are hammering it for its launch day issues, and different reviewers have different levels of experience with the mod it seems to be based on (Death of the Ancients is a Warcraft III mod that is perhaps some of the best player-created gaming content of all time), and even ARPGs in general.

Through it all, Gas Powered Games and its publisher, Stardock, have been very upfront with the community regarding proposed solutions and their long-term view for the game. See the latest community update here.

This is something that I touched upon yesterday in my Braid review, and would like to talk about in the future using Burnout Paradise, but there has been a recent (am I correct, or does it just seem that way) trend in the industry towards being upfront and honest with the end user. This is awesome.

First, there is an implicit recognition that both parties in this relationship, the developer (or publisher, distributor, etc.) and the consumer, are both human. Take it from me, but there is nothing a game designer/developer wants to see more than people genuinely enjoying his game. Lost in the anti-EA threads and the over-commercialization arguments et al. is the concept that there are real people trying to make an honest living designing games, to go along with the fact that the consumer isn't someone that should be taken advantage with crappy sequels, shovelware, and shoddy games.

So if you enjoy playing a game, take the time to tell your friends about it, participate in forum banter, add positively to the community (no intelligent, mature person wants to read Guild Wars vs. WoW flame fests), or even write a letter to the developer letting them know how much you enjoy their game. I think it is fantastic that fans have been mailing Stardock fan art and even cookies.

In the meantime, I will be eagerly awaiting my copy of Demigod in the mail. I'll give you my impressions on it soon.

-Jon

Braid Review

2009-04-21T00:04:00.008-04:00

Braid - Player of Game Review
Innovation: 9.5/10
Mastery: 10/10
Greatness: 9.5/10

So, it has been awhile since I've posted a formal review. My roommate and I have spent a good deal of time playing this game which you have probably heard of called Braid. While Braid appears at first to be a run of the mill side-scroller, don't let first impressions fool you. Braid may just be one of the most fulfilling gaming experiences that I've had the pleasure of playing. From beginning to end, Braid is one of the most finely crafted, innovative, and polished games on the market today, if not the most, ever.

Simply put, Braid is a side-scrolling puzzle game that plays with the concept of time in fascinating, dynamic and non-intuitive ways. Braid presents a relatively simple story--that of a boy/man/prince trying to find his princess, who is always, as a friendly walrus will frequently remind you, in another castle. To find his love, the protagonist plays his way through a series of worlds, each of which forces you to play with the flow of time in a unique way. There is the introductory world, a shadow world, a world in which movement affects time, a world with an object that slows time, and more. Each world is made up of several stages, in which there are several puzzle pieces to find. By obtaining all of the puzzle pieces from each world, players finish a picture of that world, and by finishing pictures in all of the worlds, proceeds to the final world in which the plot is resolved(?).

Braid is so unique from a game design perspective that it is easy to stop there and forget some of the other things that its creator, Jonathan Blow, has done.

First, Braid has an elegantly crafted and ultimately mind-blowing story. While it might not be that gripping at first--trust me--just keep reading the books as you go along. At some point in your experience, there will be a complete 180 degree shift in your understanding of the story. When that moment occurs, it's hard not to sit back and gaze in awe at how well you are led through the game, then violently shaken and forced to accept a second reality. In addition, there is at least one entirely different and revolutionary interpretation to the story which was brought to my attention by my roomate. It is crazy, and the more that I hear about this "alternate" understanding, the more I believe that it may be intentional. The plot, while not initially promising, should not be dismissed as one of Braid's strongest aspects.

Visually, the game is artistically profound and, again, well designed. Kudos to David Hellman, the lead (only?) artist, for creating such an impressive work. While technically, the graphics will not astound you, the visuals are fantastically crafted, and fit in with the game's storybook setting perfectly.

The sounds and music in Braid are outstanding as well. The music in particular, really brings out the somber, lost, and confused element of the game, and draws you in to Braid's fantastical world and sets the tone for the game. The sound design is strong as well, though there are few sound effects that really stand out (the ones that will always do it for me are the bunny/cat sound effects).

Puzzles are mind-bending and complex, but rarely too difficult to figure out after a long period of time. Many of them have multiple solutions. Most importantly, however, none of them are rehashes of other puzzles. Though some of them put you in similar situations (the boss battles come to mind), each of them has a different execution strategy. Moreover, the solution that you find first to a puzzle is rarely the best, as my roommate proved to me during his speed run (although I'm sure some of you have done better, I was more than impressed with his 39 minute completion time). All of them are elegantly designed, and force you to really tinker with your understanding of the flow of time in relation to the game world you are currently progressing through.

All of this would make for an outstanding recommendation, but the final piece of the puzzle to me lies in the fact that Braid's designers and developers seem to be truly wonderful people. Jonathan has given several speeches at gaming conventions, David has released the game assets for public consumption, and the music is available online. Braid has now been ported to the PC and Mac, where players can even create their own masterpieces using Braid's new level editor.

While Braid isn't exactly the only game you'll find yourself playing this year, I highly encourage you to go download a copy yourself. Regarding the statement that video games can indeed be art, I would submit Braid as exhibit number one in its defense. Braid is so phenomenally designed and executed on so many levels that it is hard to label it anything but a masterpiece.

My Brute

2009-04-17T17:44:00.004-04:00

I usually don't do two posts in one day, but with tax season behind me, I have some time to do a little extra posting, and this article ties in pretty well with some of the complexity posts I have recently written.

I found a simple flash game the other day thanks to one of my coworkers, who commented that it was a cute little game. Another coworker of mine and me both signed up, just to see what it was like.

Character creation is fairly simple. Simply select a name for your character, and then click the change appearance button (it's not actually labeled, but its to the bottom-left of your avatar) until you find something you like. Then click the recolor button (just below your avatar to the right, looks like a bunch of splotches of paint) until you find something that looks acceptable to you. Click validate, and you're done!

Whatever you do, don't customize your avatar and then choose your name. Every time you type a letter, it changes your avatar completely. Don't ask me why. It's completely mind-numbing why they would do this, and I wasted a few minutes trying to find another avatar I liked.

Once you're in the game, there's nothing to do except find an opponent to battle. Simple and clean. Just select your opponent from a list of six, or type in a friend's character's name to initiate a battle against them. If you win, you will get two experience, if you lose you will only get one. You have three battles a day (though you get 5 on the first day).

The battles look great. The battles are simple and fun to watch, with cute characters holding a variety of weapons fighting to the death in a large room. As the battles play out, you get a good feel for what each of the abilities and weapons do, which is very nice, in my opinion.

All of this so far is great. But that's it. Those among you may have noticed that you don't actually do any configuring of your character in the game--that's right, you don't get to customize your avatar any way except for cosmetically. When you begin playing, you are given some stats, abilities, and weapons at random. When you level, you receive another stat, level, or ability at random. There's no equipment, no talents, nothing for you to do.

Why would you "play" a "game" like this, you might ask? I have no clue.

Look, I'm all for simplicity in games, but I still require that there is actually a game to play. I don't want to simply roll random characters and battle those characters against other players.

That's not to say that no-one will like the game. The coworker of mine that played the game ended up playing it for a few days because he liked watching the battles play out. I could totally see players getting a good character and playing the game daily just to watch their characters win battles. But I can't imagine anyone playing this game for such a long time.

It's so disappointing to see a game that initially appealed to me so much be so utterly worthless. All it would have taken is a little more weapon balance and giving players the ability to level up their characters or equip them with weapons and armor.

Sadly, this is not the game as-delivered. Maybe some day someone will make something better.

Civony (Renamed to Evony as of 5/12/09)

2009-04-13T17:58:00.006-04:00

So I have been playing a bit of this new game, Civony, over the past few games. Civony is a browser-based nation simulation, but instead of limiting the number of things you do a day, encourages you to play it for a minute or so every 15 minutes, and encourages you to spend about an hour or so a day doing dedicated gaming. I've played a number of these games before, all the way back to Earth 2050 in my high school days, but I found this game in particular interesting because you are constantly doing things, and receive continual feedback from the game.

The beginning of the game is also fairly beginner-friendly thanks to a series of quests at the beginning of the game that allow you to chain up development until you are about ready to go conquer a neighboring plot of land. This is markedly different from other games in the genre, which generally require you to figure the system out before you can actually be a productive member of society. In most other games of this sort, half of the reason to join an alliance is so that you can figure out how to keep even a basic country afloat.

At the same time, this game is fairly complex, and extremely time demanding. I apparently joined this game on opening day, and got into a very good alliance (I totally lucked out, we just happened to get pretty good recruits). In the process of trying to understand the game's economy, I got my civilization (is that what you call it) into the top 100 for about a day.

However, the novelty of the game has begun to wear off as I realize just how much of a time commitment this game requires. Generally speaking, in order to act relatively efficiently, you need to log in two or three times a day and spend a good deal of time doing actions. However, you are never actually "playing" in the traditional sense. Instead, you are simply queuing things to build and research in each of your cities, allowing each action to work until completion, at which point you take a new action.

The game's economic model also seems to need work. Because of the way that beginner quests reward players for completing objectives, some resources were much scarcer than they should have been on opening day, while others were far too plentiful. This likely has to do with the intended long term balance of the game, in which technology factors largely into success, but at this time, causes players to be frustrated with the game, as everyone seems to be always trying to trade their items for gold.

Still, the game appears to be phenomenally successful thusfar. According to people I spoke with in-game, Civony's first server went live only a week before the second server, and the second server had only been up for a little over a day before Civony launched a third. It will be interesting to see how much revenue can be driven off the game, but it certainly has an incredibly strong userbase for this point in it's life cycle.

As for me, my time with Civony has probably come to a close. Although I found its economic model to be interesting, and I liked that it rewarded active participation on my part, it is consuming too much of my time for something that I am not finding to be rewarding. You can certainly accuse me of not giving the game a fair shake (the 7-day beginner's protection period has almost expired), but the other cities in my immediate area's power pales in comparison to my own (many of them have never even played, it appears), and I have no doubt that steamrolling them would simply require me to exert the effort.

I encourage all of you to check this out (unlike most of the free online games I have tried, this game was actually something I could see myself playing over the long haul if I wasn't constantly trying to find new games). I could certainly see many of my friends become absorbed into this game world. You can find it at http://www.civony.com/

If anyone tries it, let me know how it goes.

The Last Remnant

2009-04-12T11:31:00.005-04:00

I'm not going to do a full-on review, because I haven't finished the game yet, but I've been playing quite a bit of the Square Enix game The Last Remnant, which was recently released on the PC. I've been on an anti-complexity kick lately, and this game gave me a bit of an opportunity to talk about when complexity reduction can go too far.

Now I'm sure noone would actually accuse Square Enix of crafting a game that is altogether too simple. The game's steep learning curve is noted in almost every review I've read of it. But I think they made some decisions with specific mechanics that aren't quite right in terms of rewarding players for understanding the implications of some of their game systems.

The Last Remnant is a somewhat traditional JRPG which eschews a traditional combat system for a system like the one in ogre battle, with a significantly less complicated tactical map. Players control several groups of units, each of which can be assigned general commands, rather than specific commands. Which specific moves each group uses is determined by the game's AI, though with many commands players will see what actions the units will take when they assign the command.

Personally, I think the combat system works very well overall. For the most part, the game's AI makes good decisions, although sometimes I find myself wishing that my healer took the heal action instead of the high damage character which acted right before the healer. I feel like this specific instance happens alot, but other than that, the AI is pretty good about taking actions for units.

Outside of combat, however, I feel that the game is unnecessarily complex, given that players have so little control of their units' progression. Throughout the game, the only unit that you get to really have full control of is the main character. Your other units' skills and equipment selection are fully automated, though you can prevent your units from using certain skills in combat.

All of this would seem okay to me, if it wasn't for the fact that the item system in the game is so unnecessarily complex. You can create and modify your own items using items that enemies drop in battle. However, it is almost never worth doing this, because I always find myself looking for at least 1 necessary component to improve my weapons, and whenever I find a new weapon that I can finally craft, a better one has become available in one of the game's many shops. On top of that, since these items still cost some gold to create, I generally find that trying to collect and build items isn't really worth my time and effort. While this may change as I progress further in the game, the item system, because of its complexity, really isn't worth bothering with. In other words, there is no tangible benefit to trying to understand the system.

On top of that, since you only control the equipment of your one character, and that character only has five item slots, all of this crafting information is largely useless. The only character that you can improve through active item crafting is the main character, and by the end of the game, he is only one of thirty active units in your army at any one time. Your other units will take items from you to improve their equipment from time to time, and will sometimes ask you to take them to acquire an item, but this requires no actual understanding of the item system to do, and only requires you to look around for mobs that drop the particular item they are looking for.

All of this is frustrating to someone who enjoys complexity as I do. But still, if Square was looking to create a beginner friendly game, they should have just made all of the equipment purchasable in the store without forcing players to acquire specific components for all of it. If they were looking to create an exciting, highly complex system for players like me, they should have allowed me to customize the equipment of all of my units, and perhaps given me the option of auto-managing the equipment of other units. The system that is in place in the Last Remnant has the downsides of both, and the upside of neither.

In short, if game companies are worried about a game's item management system being too complex, just add in an auto-manage feature, or leave it out of the game entirely. It is such a shame that such an interesting item system isn't worth experimenting with.

-Jon

Complexity in Games

2009-04-08T23:50:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about complexity in games, specifically board games, recently. Several individuals that I have been speaking to (and whose opinions I value) on the matter are of the opinion that all of the best games can be explained in a sentence or less, and that all of them have shallow learning curves.

Now, call me a masochist if you will, but nearly all of my favorite games have steep learning curves. This may be the economist in me, who is a fan of all sorts of modeling and game theory, but there is just something special about sitting down for an hour with a game and figuring it all out. Many of my games, not surprisingly, fall into the simulation and puzzle categories.

I specifically take issue with the idea that people love rolling dice. There is something interesting about leaving your fortune in the hands of lady luck, but I find that it is always overshadowed by frustration when your carefully laid out strategy is demolished in a heartbeat due to a few bad rolls of the dice.

Not that I prefer games that are all strategy. Players should be able to balance off of each other (this is why I prefer 4 player games to 2 player games). Players should be able to walk away from every game session with a sense of accomplishment (I may have lost the game, but man, I laid the smack down on Mike when he tried to invade Africa!). And luck can have a proper role in games. I think that Catan and Vegas Showdown are two games which handle their luck elements very well.

-Jon

Monopoly vs. Catan

2009-04-06T15:56:00.000-04:00

Wired had an excellent article two weeks ago on German styled board games.

Follow the link:
Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre

The article focuses on Settlers of Catan, a fine game that is mechanically more dynamic than traditional American board games like Monopoly and Risk. While still a relatively simple game when compared to other German board games such as Puerto Rico or even Power Grid, Settlers is a game that seems to walk the fine line between simple and complex.

When I was a kid, I was sure that by the time I was an adult, board games would be a thing of the past, and that people would be looking primarily to video games as a stay at home social activity. While the second half of that is probably true, the first half is certainly not (or at least that is my experience).

The truth is, I don't think that most popular American board games are any good. Risk is far too simple (though I will confess to being a fan of the 2210 variant and I haven't played the updated board game), Monopoly is just a dice-fest with little to no strategy, and Scrabble's game board is so agonizingly painful to play on that my friends and I replace the double and triple word tiles with additional double and triple letter tiles (Word games should encourage you to build long words that open up additional playing opportunities for other players, not limit your vocabulary to words that don't open up double and triple word tiles for your opponents).

I'm glad to see that some more complex board games are making the transition to mass market. As a game designer, it means that more and more people may be interested in the kooky and crazy games that I would like to develop. As a gamer, it means that I might actually be able to find other players for more challenging and fun games such as Power Grid or Race for the Galaxy (take it from me, don't try and teach your parents that one).

If you've just tried Settlers of Catan, or another more complicated board game for the first time, feel free to comment on your experience, and I encourage you to continue trying newer and more complicated games. As time goes on, I will be posting more and more recommended board games to this blog, but if you are looking for a recommendation right this second, I will simply point you to http://www.boardgamegeek.com.

Jon

Update

2009-04-06T15:38:00.000-04:00

I'd like to think of the past two months as a bit of a hiatus, but that would be lying.

I'd sort of fallen off of the horse--I'll chalk it up to a mix of getting a few new wonderful games (Braid, Empire: Total War, Warhammer 40K DOW2, among others), and being preoccupied with work and other developments in my personal life. Regardless, I think it's time to revisit this blog and continue developing content for it. I'm still excited about getting this off the ground, so I'll begin by posting some things that I've been thinking about in the last few days.

Review: Castle Crashers

2009-01-07T22:32:00.000-05:00

Castle Crashers

First, a foreword: I spent quite some time thinking about the first game I would review on this website. Obviously, I decided on a game that I am fairly passionate about. However, as my first review, I also picked something that I could handle without biting off more than I can chew. I also picked a game that will highlight the difference between Player of Game and traditional gaming websites. Although I will give you a feeling of how much I enjoyed the game with every review, as a game designer I am also interested in the unique or particularly well-done aspects of a game. This manifests itself in each game having a dual score: the first serves as a traditional score, while the second is a reflection of a game's Greatness, a measure of the lasting impact this game should have, will have, or has had on gaming.

I look for two key things in every game I play: Innovation, and Mastery. A game without either is simply not a good game, but mastery traditionally accounts for a larger percentage of typical game reviews, while innovation is typically relegated to a bonus point category. First, let me loosely define these terms: Innovation represents the new things that a game does, while mastery applies to the refinement of gaming activity and the perfection of game design. Traditional gaming websites, I feel, are weighted more towards the Mastery aspect of this equation than Player of Game will be. While not every game will execute perfectly on innovative design (see Europa Universalis), I try to give credit where credit is due.

Games that might score lower on Mastery, but higher on Innovation include Spore, Europa Universalis, and Elder Scrolls III. Games that might score low on Innovation, but high on mastery include games like Halo 3, Warcraft II, or the Soul Calibur series of fighting games. Games which would score high on both scales include Grand Theft Auto 3, Half-Life, and World of Warcraft. Due to this rather unusual system of grading, you should not be surprised when I bestow a higher measure of Greatness on a game like Spore than I would on Warcraft II. In addition, you will find that my reviews almost always heap more praise on a game than is reflected in the Greatness score. This is because I find it hard to look for faults in excellent games.

With all of that said, nearly every game that I review here will be a good game, will be worth your time and effort (some highly innovative, but not terribly fun games will make appearances here), but some games simply have more potential than others to change the face of gaming. It is this measure of Greatness (capital G) that I will try to distill from each game that I review.

With that, on to the review!

Castle Crashers

Traditional Review
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Graphics: 9/10
Audio: 9/10
Overall: 9.2/10

Player of Game Review
Innovation: 5.5/10
Mastery: 9.5/10
Greatness: 7.5/10

Synopsis: Castle Crashers is a masterful side scrolling beat-'em-up that fuses strong base mechanics with top notch artistic design and solid multiplayer capability to create an arcade experience that we all can enjoy. While Castle Crashers does not extensively toy with side-scrolling convention, it executes so well that I find it difficult to resist employing the label "genre-defining".

Innovative Features: Dynamic and unique boss battles that are somewhat unusual for traditional side scrolling beat-'em ups, leveling system and melee combo attacks.

Masterful Features: Well adjusted difficulty setting, outstanding multiplayer experience, highly approachable, strong sense of humor, graphics (artistic).

Castle Crashers is an addictive and humorous sidescrolling beat-'em-up brought to us by the lovely folks at The Behemoth. As an Xbox Live Arcade download, it can be downloaded by anyone with an Xbox 360 and a high speed internet connection. One of the most popular XBLA (that's Xbox Live Arcade) downloads, Castle Crashers is at the forefront of a resurgence in old school gaming that has occurred in the past few years.

In Castle Crashers, you play as a cartoon knight who is tasked with saving a group of princesses, bringing an evil wizard to justice, and restoring order to the world. By completing a series of levels (you can revisit old ones you have already played), you will level up your hero and ultimately defeat various forces of evil, and shenaniganry, that have beset the land.

When you begin the game, you start with a basic melee weapon capable of performing two different attacks, and a single spell power. As you defeat enemies, acquire items, and learn new skills, you will gain an assortment of new melee attacks, a ranged attack, and even some nifty spells in your particular school of expertise. You will also gain access to upgraded weapons and a variety of pets, whose abilities range from allowing you to walk faster in water to periodically knocking down enemy combatants.

The environments in Castle Crashers go a long way towards making this game the sublime experience that it is. Environments are varied, and often bizarre, but always attractive and pleasing to the eye. What the game lacks in technical graphic prowess it makes up for in masterful artistic design, with a bold and pleasing color palette that never disappoints. Moreover, it reinforces the sort of action that is playing out on screen; it is hard to take the game too seriously, which significantly adds to its multiplayer appeal. The musical score in Castle Crashers is dynamic and well-chosen; it adds to the atmosphere and is definitely catchy, while the sound effects are meaty and draw the player into the action.

Yet what the game does best is create an experience that you feel comfortable sharing with your friends; its relatively low learning curve (as compared to most modern games) allows even non-gamers to get in on the action, which is great because its multiplayer is a blast.

Up to four players can get in on the action; these can be players on four different systems across the globe, using Xbox Live, or four players sitting across the couch from one another pounding soda and potato chips. Either way, the game is a hoot, and the multiplayer experience is at the heart of what makes this game so special. Players will fight over power ups and kissing the princess, work together to defeat impressive (and well-balanced) bosses, and laugh together at the particularly odd experiences they are bound to encounter during adventures.

While the multiplayer is one source of lasting appeal; the other comes from mastery of game elements and the lesson that Pokemon taught us: Players freakin' love catching 'em all. During your many adventures, you will slowly accummulate a mass of weapons with which to dispatch baddies, but the aforementioned coterie of lovable and adorable pets, each featuring a unique ability is particularly gripping.

Special mention should also go to the game's unique, well-inspired, and often hysterical bosses which you must dispatch from time to time. Each of them has different mechanics (it's not just the tank and spank from beat-'em-ups of yore), and nearly all are hilarious and fun to fight. While each of them is challenging, most everyone should be able to figure out how to beat them eventually (playing Castle Crashers will help with this quite a bit).

Overall, Castle Crashers is the type of experience that everyone can enjoy. While I would be hard-pressed to call it a particularly innovative game, its mastery of common beat-'em-up mechanics is without parallel, and this mastery is ultimately what makes the Castle Crashers gaming experience so rewarding.

Introduction

2009-01-07T22:18:00.000-05:00

I play games. A lot.

Enough that I feel qualified to write about them.

Player of Game is my attempt at both cataloguing thoughts on my favorite pasttime, and creating a resource than fans of gaming can learn from and enjoy. I've been gaming since my parents bought the family's first computer when I was 3 years old. Although I'm young enough that I missed the first wave of gaming, I still feel that I have grown up with gaming, and that gaming has grown up with me. In the time since I laid my hands on my first game, I've tried to play every good game that I can get my hands on. I've since learned a lot about gaming, and as a professional game designer, am looking more and more towards leaving a mark on a hobby I have become so passionate about.

Although the idea of a personal blog is appealing to me, I am more interested in making this space a forum that multiple people can contribute to. My dream is that my content becomes driven as much by my readers as by myself; I don't just want to use this as an idea repository; I would like this to become a source of knowledge and information for myself and others.

So please, feel free to comment, email me articles, recommend games, or propose crazy ideas.

Enjoy!

-Jon