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Some games I want

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

. 2 Comments

Since it’s almost Christmas…

In no particular order:

Sonic Adventure / Sonic Adventure 2: Battle / Sonic Heroes / Shadow the Hedgehog (GameCube): I haven’t played a Sonic game since the first 2D ones on the Megadrive, and I miss the blue guy. I think I’ll start with the first two, which are already Player’s Choice games, and can be bought cheaply.
Doom 3 (PC): I’ve only tried the demo, some months ago, and my PC is too slow to play it properly. But I’d like to play it in full when I get new hardware, a couple of months from now. I know a lot of people were disappointed with the game, as they were expecting a rocket-fest such as multi-player Quake, and Doom 3 is more of a horror game - but I’m curious about it.
X-Men Legends 2 (GameCube): loved the first one - the 4-player mode was great! I want more of it.
Mario Superstar Baseball (GameCube): one more for the post-lunch gaming sessions at home.
more tactical RPGs (several systems): after “discovering” Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, I want more. Most of them are for the GBA, it seems…
an RTS (PC): probably Age of Empires III, but, again, I need to upgrade my puny PC first…

Looking at that list, I realize an interesting fact: that after being a computer (8-bit, 16-bit, PC) gamer for most of my life, my tastes have slowly been turning to consoles more and more. I still play and enjoy PC games, but most of them are older ones - and, except for Civ 4 and the R:TW expansion, I haven’t bought any recently. I guess that would change if I had a more powerful PC, but… I don’t know. Not only do console games not have compatibility problems or hardware requirements that cost an arm and a leg to fulfill, but they’re… different. And they still feel “fresh” to me, while PC games increasing feel like what I’ve been playing all my life. Maybe I simply needed a change.

But it’s a fact that, for the past few months, I’ve been spending much more time on the GameCube than on the PC.

Now playing: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Beyond Good and Evil

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

in 2000s games, GameCube games, Now playing, PC games, PS2 games and Xbox games

. 2 Comments

I haven’t had much time to play games, in the last few days. This weekend, I was ill (though, in the immortal words of Monty Python, “I got better”), and there has been a lot of other stuff to do. Still, I had a little time to “maintain my sanity”, and I’ve been playing two games, mostly.

The first of them is Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, on the GameCube, which I’ve already mentioned a couple of times here. It keeps getting better and better - good story, interesting characters, more decisions to make, and, best of all, the need for different strategies in every level - not simply “advance and kill everyone in your path”. It’s really a joy to play.

The second one is a bit older: Beyond Good and Evil, also on the Cube (this isn’t an exclusive, though, it’s also available for PC, PS2 and Xbox). I’ve had this game for about a year, but for some reason had never got around to play it… until now. And it’s brilliant.

IGN’s review, quoted on the back of the box, describes it as “Zelda for grown-ups”. While I don’t think that it’s a perfect description - among other reasons, because the Zelda games aren’t really for kids - it’s certainly a quick way to explain to people what the game looks and plays like. It’s an action/adventure game, with a great story (involving control of the media by the government - guess that’s where the “for grown-ups” bit comes from), and absolutely endearing characters. For instance, one of your “party members” is Pey’j, a pig-like humanoid - whose personality, voice acting and mannerisms make him more “human” and lovable than more than 95% of video game characters. Jade herself, the character you control, is one of the few female characters that is feminine without looking as if she’s just there for making male teens drool.

BG&E has been called “the best game nobody played”, as, while every review out there described it as brilliant, it almost didn’t sell. But you can probably still buy it, and cheaply, too. If you like the 3D Zeldas (Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker), go buy it immediately; if not, or if you don’t know them, at least take a look at it; rent it, or something. It’s a work of art - so much that Peter Jackson recently contacted the main author, Michael Ancel, to create the game version of his next movie, King Kong.

Laser Squad Nemesis (PC, 2002)

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

in 2000s games and PC games

. 0 Comments

Remember Laser Squad, already mentioned here? Still one of the best turn-based tactical games, and, at the time, completely unique. Later, the author, Julian Gollop, created the X-Com: UFO Defense series, also known as UFO: Enemy Unknown (the first game will have its own entry here, in the future), which is still popular these days.

But in 2002, 14 years after Laser Squad, Julian created one of the best play-by-email games ever, Laser Squad Nemesis.

If you try out this game, it’ll seem overly complicated at first - so many options, so many buttons, and, truth be said, the game could really use some decent tutorials, and a help system. Not to mention better graphics and sound. Those weren’t the priority, obviously, but one thing doesn’t prevent the other.

Oh well… what remains is still a fascinating game, especially because you’re playing against other, living people (unless they’re dead, but then again, zombies can’t play games). Basically, each player has several points to “buy” the members of a team, choosing from 4 different races: the Marines (standard humans, mobile but fragile, need a lot of teamwork to survive), the Machina (slower but tougher, with a lot of ranged firepower), the Spawn (think the Zerg from Starcraft) and the Grey (Roswell-style aliens, with mind control, shields, etc., but very fragile). Then, each player must defeat the other one - either by killing the other entire team, by having more kills than the other if they reach the previously set turn limit, or by destroying some special Headquarters units in HQ games.

As I said, the game is turn-based and played by email (though there’s an optional web interface which allows playing without an email account) - you download a small file, open it (which fires up the game), see what happened in the previous turn, then set new orders, and send a newly created file to the server (which is an option in the game client, no need to do it by hand). When the other player does the same, both receive new turn files. Rinse and repeat.

A very interesting feature of the game is that, unlike in the original Laser Squad, or most similar games, in LSN every turn happens simultaneously. That is, you send your orders, the other player does the same, and then both happen at the same time - each turn consists of 10 seconds, and everything happens as the players ordered - though, of course, they don’t control what the other player does.

Try it. The game is subscription-based (very cheap, too), but you can try out some missions before paying. Here’s the link: Laser Squad Nemesis official site.

The Longest Journey (PC, 1999)

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

in 90s games and PC games

. 5 Comments

In the 80s, adventure games - where you take the role of a fictional character, solve puzzles and live a story - were quite popular - never a “mainstream” genre, but one of the most successful “niche” ones. Most games then were text adventures, where descriptions were text-based (possible with a static picture at the top of the screen), and the game had a parser which was able (up to a point) to understand what you want. I’ve talked about one of them, The Hobbit, before.

In the early 90s, as more powerful computers became available, the genre shifted a bit, to graphical adventures. Many of them were from Sierra (Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, etc.) and from LucasArts (then LucasFilm Games) (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Monkey Island, etc.). These were much more successful, as players no longer had to do that scary thing called “reading”, or that even scarier thing called “imagining”. One of the best ones, which I’ve mentioned here before, is Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.

But in the late 90s, adventure games mostly vanished off the face of the earth. People, it seemed, wanted only first person shooters, and endless revisions of sports games. Thinking, solving puzzles and interacting with other characters were, apparently, out of fashion.

Then, in 1999, there came two amazing adventure games which, while not making adventure games highly successful, at least were a blast to play, and sold very well for adventure games. One of them is Gabriel Knight 3, which I’ll talk about in the future (hint: “The Da Vinci Code” is but a watered-down version of it). The other is Funcom’s The Longest Journey.

And what a magical game it was.

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New games: first impressions

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

in 2000s games, GameCube games and PC games

. 2 Comments

Those 3 games have arrived, 2 days ago, but due to work (and work and work), I haven’t had almost any time to play them. Still, here are a few initial impressions:

Civilization IV

I love the new interface, presentation and music. And the new technologies narration by Leonard Nimoy is fantastic. However, I haven’t had much time to dwell into the game itself. Most of what I know about it is from reviews.

Civics come from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, though it was called “Social Engineering” there.

Religion is a new concept in the Civ series, and it basically works these way: the first civilization to get to each of 7 particular technologies (e.g. Meditation for Buddhism, Polytheism for Hinduism, and so on) has one of its cities become a “holy site” for that religion (think Mecca or Jerusalem). The religion then spreads through trade routes, including to other civilizations. Cities can have citizens of several faiths, and you can build temples. You can also build missionaries to influence other cities (especially those of other players) more directly.

Both civics and religion are used in diplomacy - civs tend to like other civs with the same state religion, or using the same civics, more - and the other way around. They may even suggest changes to yours - such as Mao asking you to change to State Property. And you can also suggest changes to them.

Religions are, in game terms, the same. Political correctness and all that. Not like Europa Universalis 2, where each religion had particular bonuses and penalties…

Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion

Looks extremely promising, but my puny PC can’t really handle R:TW decently. Although load times are better than Medieval’s, the battles are much less smooth. And I have to lower the detail a lot for it to be playable - which, oddly enough, makes it look worse than M:TW (with maximum detail).

One to “devour” when I get a newer PC. Must… get… rich…

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Only played through the first 2 missions (including the training one), so I have seen virtually nothing of the game. It’s like Final Fantasy Tactics / Shining Force - either a tactical RPG, or a tactical strategy game with heavy RPG elements. Lots and lots of classes, weapons and so on, with a nice story, and turn-based. Looks great, but I’ll only have anything to “report” after I spend some more time with it. Work, work, work…

Darklands (PC, 1992)

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

in 90s games and PC games

. 6 Comments

Ah, the hours and hours I spent with this one. Why aren’t there more games like Microprose’s Darklands?

Too intellectual, I’d guess. Or too original. People, unfortunately, do seem to want more and more of the same.

Darklands was a computer role-playing game. “Ah, another Tolkien rip-off with elves and orcs and dwarves, where you do quests and, mostly, kill monsters for experience points (XP), which make you level up, then be able to kill bigger monsters, which give even more XP, and so on”, you may think.

And you’d be right for, well, almost any other CRPG (the exceptions are those which aren’t medieval, but futuristic, for instance - and the rest of the description still applies).

But not Darklands.

Continue reading ‘Darklands (PC, 1992)’

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (PC, 1993)

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

in 90s games and PC games

. 1 Comment

Chalk this one as another “don’t play anything else until I get to the end” game. The year was 1993, and the game was Sierra’s Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.

Written by Jane Jensen, whose games I’ve never missed after this one, GK is a mature adventure game, set in New Orleans. The main character, Gabriel, is a horror novelist who begins to investigate a recent succession of apparently Voodoo-related murders, in order to get inspiration for the plot of his new book. Little does he know that he will get much more personally involved with them than he ever thought possible… or desired.

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Medieval: Total War (PC, 2002)

Published

Dehumanizer

3 years ago

in 2000s games and PC games

. 1 Comment

This game has a big problem. The load times. For some reason, in my Athlon XP 2000 with 1 GB of RAM and a fast hard drive, they’re huge - not “read a book”-like, but, still, 30-60 seconds to load a battle and 30-60 seconds to come back to the main map are, IMO, too much. Especially since Rome: Total War, their more recent and even more detailed game, actually has shorter load times.

That’s the problem. In almost every other respect, Medieval: Total War is virtually perfect.

M:TW, like its predecessor Shogun: Total War and its successor Rome: Total War, is a historical turn-based strategy game with fantastic real-time battles. These are really wonderful - no other game, except perhaps Close Combat, simulates a battle so well - and that one was squad-based. This one, though, can have armies of 10.000 men. On each side. And they all move, shout, fight and, possibly, die.

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