I present to you today’s level, Jet Storm: Customize your own Top-down Jet! And really, with a name like that, what more is there for me to say? I’m highlighting this level because I think it is the perfect companion piece to Hawkeye Fierce’s excellent Game Diary of A-10C Warthog. If you play that game and this level, I think you’ll see what I’m talking about.
On the kingdom screen you can select one from a number of quests. Once the quest is selected you can chose an approach: each hero might have a different way of going about it. If Varric the merchant took up the case of the lost boy then he’d clearly throw gold at the problem. Sebastian the monk would look to The Watcher (god, you, same thing) for guidance. Our good King Hawke will solve the problem through diplomacy. The first step is to talk to his advisor for guidance.
After the jump, the game is afoot! Continue reading →
The battle for Leningrad was one of the more horrific episodes in a war full of horrific episodes. At the same time, it’s a fascinating drama, full of intriguing angles. There’s the Finnish angle, where the Finns first declared war and then Carl von Mannerheim’s army basically stayed put for three years north of the city, resisting German pressure to launch an assault. The whole “Road of Life” across frozen Lake Ladoga is a ready-made movie script, and was the subject of numerous Soviet films. And the siege itself is an amazing catalog of events of both heroism and barbarism. So of course the most important philosophical, ethical, and historical problem this battle raises is: what kind of tires did the Russian ice trucks use, and are they properly modeled in the game?
After the jump, Leningrad or bust Continue reading →
In the context of talking about a demo of Battlefield 3 at a Chicago comics convention, this blog mentions that the console version will support 24 players, whereas the PC version will support 64 players and larger maps. Which is fine and all. Some very good games support only 24 players. Killzone 3 is just fine with 24 players, although it doesn’t have tanks, helicopters, and planes zipping around. Homefront seems to get along just fine when the vehicles roll in, and it’s only got 32 players and pretty expansive maps.
But I do have to wonder what a tricky act it is to balance gameplay when the console version will have such a markedly different player density. I guess the bottom line is that one of the reasons MAG and Killzone 3 are so good — one with 256 players, the other with 24, and both exclusive to the Playstation 3 — is that they only have to make and tune one version of the game.
Yesterday I told you that Dragon Age II didn’t have a soul, and that was why I thought it would always be in the shadow of its predecessor, Origins. I’m not entirely sure how far I want to take this analogy, but even if Dragon Age II has no soul, it has plenty of heart.
After the jump, I let go and learn to love again Continue reading →
And I’m on the pavement thinking about what the hell happened.
I just got my ass kicked for the first time in Pokemon White. And right properly. I feel my jaw clamp down. Now what?
In the previous entry I mentioned a tipping point. A point of no return. I was talking about building my team in that entry, an entry that was written in a time I like to call ‘the salad days’. We are past that now. Back then I was waxing cute about builds and choices and forgetting and whatnot. Back then, yesterday, I was winning every battle easily. And I mean every battle. Wild Pokemons. Trainers. Etc. Winning them all. I figured that’s what the game was about. Winning. [Don’t you dare go there Christien. I’m serious. Don’t you dare.]
After the jump, is you is or is you ain’t Continue reading →
Tactics Ogre features a very powerful and unique system called World, which lets you travel back in time to previously experienced events, giving you the chance to do them all over again.
Did you get to a battle early on where a unit was being attacked by brigands and you didn’t have the skill or tactical savvy to save it, so you let it die and moved on? Use World to travel back to that map later and try again! This time he or she just might join you…
After the jump, ripping the fabric of space, time, and saved games Continue reading →
The above screenshot from Dead Island looks great when it comes to rendering a wide-open Caribbean paradise with an incredibly long viewing distance. But at what price? Count the zombies in that screenshot. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Oh, you’re done already. That didn’t take very long, did it?
The Chrome engine used in Dead Island can certainly do terrain (see the ATV racing game Nail’d), but I’m guessing hordes of zombies aren’t on the menu. And with a view distance like that, wouldn’t you be able to see the zombies in the distance, even if they were in manageable packets of five or six at a time? Or will this be like an MMO, where creatures fade into the middle distance as you get closer? I don’t mean to be too hard on Dead Island. But given that the problem was solved so beautifully in the Dead Rising games, and given that shambling hordes are a core value of zombie mythology, I wonder if a year from now we’ll remember Dead Island as a trailer instead of a game.
“I’m busy!” Seriously. I am. I’m walking around, eating, sleeping, washing, looking at art, practicing strategy and swordplay, or pursuing daily work goals to keep my moodlets up. And if I have time between all that, I’m chasing after quest goals or chatting up a potential bride-to-be. She’s a pointy-eared druid. Hawke’s getting over his fear of elvish waifs with magical tendencies at long last.
What any of this means, after the jump Continue reading →
