Ever get frustrated because you couldn’t quite figure out how to make a jump? That was driving me crazy a couple of days ago. I spent about twenty-four hours believing the jump was impossible. It had to be a glitch. It wasn’t. I was just doing it wrong. But I spent an awful amount of time trying to will that ledge a little lower, a little closer, so I could make the jump.
Forget that frustration. In today’s level, The Mind Factory, the platforms obey you.
With young Princess Bethany ushered back to the castle, Varrick can get back to his quest for the lost fountain. The book was a bust but perhaps the peasant locked up in the stocks will know where this mythical font lies. Firstly, however, our merchant friend needs to tend to his profession and today that means a trade mission.
After the jump, who is Drusilla and what does she want?! Continue reading →
Victory conditions are wargames’ great balancers. Without them, you’d have to play many games for fun, because one side would have little chance of winning. No one thinks that the Germans had any chance of winning the Battle of the Bulge, in the sense of achieving their strategic objective, which was the capture of Antwerp. But failing that, how can you call any other result a victory? Germany was going to be completely laid waste in the next six months, so who cares if the Panzer Lehr brigade made it to Dinant? Pacific theater games are the same way: the chances of the Japanese defeating the U.S. militarily, or forcing a surrender, were probably nil. What would a Japanese victory in the Pacific look like, anyway? Rising Sun over Sacramento? Unlikely. So for a Japanese player, you might just have to make it to September 1945, which would be a month longer than the historical Japanese lasted. That’s the whole, “Can YOU do better than Admiral Yamamoto?” slogan from Avalon Hill that I remember 25 years later, whereas I can’t remember the specifics of a scientific article I read last week.
After the jump, math, geography, book quotes, and 100+ bombers Continue reading →
Somebody–we’ll call him Mr. 42–asked me the other day if I knew where to find the moves for my Pokemons, because finding the moves might reduce my frustration with the game. This was an exceedingly fair question considering my previous entry in which I said, repeatedly, that I had no idea what to do with Bide. I have indeed figured out how to check out the moves of my little dudes. That’s not the problem. The problem is match-ups.
Which again became glaringly apparent when I descended into the museum basement for my rematch with Lenora.
after the jump, Throh-down Continue reading →
The contrast between racing and driving is monumental. Most days we all drive; few of us ever really race. It should come as no surprise then that game developers almost always let us race, giving us the kind of escapism that is gaming’s greatest strength. It doesn’t matter how we race. It could be with stock cars, finely tuned rally cars, British touring cars, or even just an old car on its last legs. But by doing this the game industry sullies the noble automobile. Sure, it’s fun to get out there and test your mettle against a swarm of other motorists but it’s only an ephemeral adrenaline-fueled moment from the greater wonder and soul of the motoring experience.
For a long time, I was content with that. But I’ve watched too many episodes of Top Gear. At some point, Jeremy Clarkson burrowed into my head and his reverence for motoring made me realize that developers have never just let us drive.
After the jump, Test Drive 2 is not about racing Continue reading →
Social interactions are as big a part of Harvest Moon games as taking care of your farm. Already in Leaf Valley, I’ve made friends who’ve taught me how to care for chickens and cows, mine, cut lumber, and fish — and in most cases, paid me for it. But you know, I don’t want to come home to an empty house forever. It’s time to pick my wife.
After the jump, meet the future Mrs. Whatever-My-Last-Name-Is Continue reading →
