Erstwhile infield rival Chase “Frenchie” D’Arnaud got promoted alongside me, up to the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians. I know we had our beef, but it’s cool now, honestly. He’s playing shortstop over on that side of the bag, and I’m over here playing second base. Hell, I might even turn the fielding back on for a little while so we can turn some double plays together. And here’s the kicker: Chase D’Arnaud is a real life dude! Goes to show you what I know.
After the jump, random hearts Continue reading →
Xenoblade Chronicles is the latest RPG from Monolith Soft, the Japanese developer of the Xenosaga series. It was released last summer everywhere in the world except for stupid America, where it comes out next week because we’re slow, dumb, loud, and too busy playing Mass Effect 3.
Despite the prefix, Xenoblade Chronicles has nothing to do with the Xenosagas. I don’t know this first-hand, since I’ve never played a Xenosaga game. They were on the Playstation 2 when me and my PC were busy playing Western RPGs with the Dungeons and Dragons license. The occasional Final Fantsy excepted. But I read on Wikipedia that Xenoblade and Xenosaga are separate things, so I know it’s true.
What I can tell you from experience is that Xenoblade Chronicles is one of the best RPGs I have ever played, right up there with games as diverse and superlative as Planescape: Torment, Lord of the Rings Online, The Witcher 2, and especially Dark Cloud 2. I am head-over-heels in love.
After the jump, the story so far. Spoiler-free, of course. Continue reading →
I’m going to get a little technical in this diary entry. In order to understand how Unity of Command works, I need to explain a complicated wargaming concept: colored dots. Hold on, I have that backwards. Let me start over.
After the jump, shift your prejudice of wargames Continue reading →
It’s my Road to the Show player’s virtual birthday, and the Pirates organization has given me two very special gifts… a promotion to play Triple-A baseball with the Indianapolis Indians, and the return of my starting second baseman job! See, the disappearance of my advancement goals wasn’t some glitch or show of organizational apathy. It was simply a dark, quiet room full of friends and co-workers, waiting to jump out and shower me with love and presents.
After the jump, built to Lastings Continue reading →
Most games start the campaign slowly. They introduce concepts and situations at a deliberate pace to keep you from being overwhelmed. Unity of Command, on the other hand, starts with the Second Battle of Kharkov (pictured). It’s listed as a “hard” scenario. Wait a minute, that’s not fair!
After the jump, German high command could learn something from videogame design Continue reading →
It’s August, hot as balls in Altoona (play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian likes to tell me the game-time temperature), and the season is scooting along. At some point along the way, I’ve lost my starting status and been demoted to the backup second baseman for the Curve. I’m getting spot starts at second base and right field (my secondary position is as an all-purpose outfielder) but sometimes a couple games will fly by without my insertion, the schedule’s calendar boxes filling in with simulated results I took no part in. What have I done (or not done) to deserve this?
Afer the jump, absentee landlord Continue reading →
Unity of Command is billed as an operational-level wargame. That’s totally wrong. It’s actually a game about moving big heads around a map to rub an eraser over colorful enemy territory. That’s my first impression, anyway.
After the jump, wargaming with a kart racing aesthetic Continue reading →
I’m finally in Pirate gold, with a yellow bat to match. It feels good in the hands, with a thin grip and extra weight on the end so momentum can help make up the strength my arms lack. The pitch comes in looking big and fat, and I take a whack, knocking it deep in the alley between the left and center fielders.
After the jump, I’ll Show you mine if you Show me yours… Continue reading →
Confession time. For a series that I count as among my all-time favorites, I’ve never finished a season, or played a Road to the Show career through to retirement. I went years-deep on the latter back in 2007 on the old Playstation Portable version before my locker was broken into at the YMCA and my system stolen. They tried unsuccessfully to purchase thousands of dollars worth of sneakers with my debit card, but ultimately had their purchases invalidated. The career of Mets second baseman Seth Berkowitz was tragically cut short, however. Unless they kept playing it. That would be weird.
After the jump, a subway series Continue reading →
Sony Computer Entertainment of America missed a trick. They could have partnered with Majestic (makers of fine baseball apparel) to allow you to purchase customized, real-life jerseys based on the ones you appear in throughout your Road to the Show career. Let the game creep into your real life as your in-game jersey appears in your mailbox with your name sewn on the back for the low, low price of $99. I would be powerless to resist. The ‘buy’ button that launches the PSN store could pop up during your first appearance in uniform, which in my case was batting practice before my first scheduled start at second base. Dusk was descending, and Wynton Marsalis’s rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner echoed from the stadium speakers. It was a stirring, pastoral scene, and would have been an opportune time for commerce to have its way with me.
After the jump, striking out on my own Continue reading →
I click the age option as high as it will go, just out of curiosity. It stops at forty-five. So I could create a forty-five year old rookie if I wanted to. I’m highly skeptical of what kind of future that player would have, though. I could try and forge a late-blooming phenom, like Roy Hobbs in The Natural (though even Hobbs was a comparatively spry thirty-five when he finally made it to the big leagues), but Road to the Show is at heart a role-playing game, and at the outset I’m only given a meager allotment of experience points to divide amongst various skills. This is a game that makes a point of showing you the list of retirees after any given season, along with their reason for exiting the game, be it age, injury, or ineffectiveness. I can’t help but think my forty-five year old rookie would show up on that very list after one, maybe two seasons tops, and shitty seasons at that, toiling away in some minor league backwater, batting .238 for the Tulsa Drillers, never even sniffing the major leagues.
After the jump, rolling an alt Continue reading →
The Senator faction is one of Conquest of Elysium’s weirdest factions. Because in a game full of crazy imaginative fantasy races with unique gameplay mechanics, the vanilla humans are the weirdos. This faction is basically Ancient Rome, but with occasional Greek revelers and Gandalfy wizards thrown in for good measure. To offset their plainness, they get a hearty bonus to gold income and trade capacity. Trade is a way to buy or sell your other resources. Got extra iron? Sell it with trade! Need more iron for your heavy units? Buy it with trade!
The Senator leader is — I hope you guessed it — a senator. This unit is good for not much of anything. He is awful in battle. His fist does one (1) point of damage. He has no special abilities. He cannot summon anything, gather anything, or cast any spells. He can’t even orate. As far as I can tell, he’s supposed to stay at home and eats grapes. Considering how many games I lose because I get my last commander killed in battle, the senator could be single most useful unit when it comes to not losing the game.
So why am I fighting the AI faction’s senator in battle?
After the jump, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s whether the AI loses first Continue reading →
The High Cultists are basically the Cthulhu faction in Conquest of Elysium. They gather sacrifices from human settlements and spawn freaky hybrid soldiers from wells in coastal towns. They can summon powerful horrors that wreak havoc, hopefully in the direction of hostile enemies. You can’t really tell a horror what to do. To paraphrase Woody Allen, the horror wants what the horror wants.
High Cultist cultists have access to a spell called Soul Slay. It’s a pretty simple spell. It overrides all but the most powerful magic resistance, ignores a unit’s armor value, and paralyzes its target. It also does 1-999 points of damage (pictured!), which makes the armor negation and paralysis pretty much irrelevant. Given that a typical general has 10 hit points and a giant has maybe 125 hit points, you can safely assume Soul Slay will kill anything it hits.
So it’s pretty much game over for any faction going up against a few cultists with Soul Slay, right?
After the jump, spells in this game are out of control. Literally! Continue reading →
Conquest of Elysium 3 is so streamlined that you can easily zip through a game on your lunch hour, scooping up units and marching them across the map to discover and conquer new lands. I figure you can easily finish a game in one sitting. Less than that if you lose.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here is a game that will reward however much time you’d like to spend with it.
After the jump, when is an hour way more than an hour? Continue reading →
The dwarven life cycle starts with diamonds, which is kind of like real life. Diamonds come from mines. Well, some mines. You might instead find rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Save these for later. For now, you need diamonds for the Dvala, which is what you call a dwarf queen. She wants diamonds before she’ll put out. Lots of diamonds.
After the jump, everything you always wanted to know about dwarf sex but were afraid to ask Continue reading →
