Every war has to start somewhere.
Because mine is turn-based, it starts with XXVIII Corps attacking across the Niemen River into Lithuania. The opposing Soviet rifle division immediately routs. The game tells me they lost 2999 soldiers. Seems like a lot.
After the jump, is it enough? Continue reading →
My rogue is literally dripping blood, covered from head to toe in viscera and spatter from the horde of Darkspawn that have fallen to my intrepid group of heroes. My party is ragged, tired, bloodied, and low on health potions. The first wave fell easily, wheat before the scythes of my twin blades. The second wave slowed us, but we held strong. There were more though…always more.
After the jump, will our heroes survive the onslaught? Continue reading →
So now, after all that preamble, it’s time for me to learn how to play this game. Fortunately, developer Eagle Dynamics has included some very nicely put-together tutorials. They’re conducted by a combination of voicover direction and highlights over the relevant system or control. They are not without a few issues and omissions, which I’ll discuss in a bit, but overall they are some of the best flight sim tutorials I’ve been through.
After the jump, I learn to stay in the air and shoot things. Whee! Continue reading →
Welcome to this Pokemon game diary, Reader! I’m very happy to have you here. (B)
Here you will find your Hopes and Dreams discovered! Many adventures await. And any questions you have you can ask me at any time! (B)
Very good, Reader. That’s a great observation! Good question, and I’d like to say more… (B)
…but for now, just ignore that and shut up and keep reading. (B)
Honestly. (B)
This is a column. It’s not interactive. What, did you think you were playing a game? Silly Reader! (B)
After the jump, playing is not fundamental— Continue reading →
Let’s talk about breasts, boobs, and women in video games for a brief moment, shall we? The old gaming message board memes about big breasts and anatomically incorrect armor have been playing out for years. Many people have treated the subject with far more wit and perversity than I am able to in a few paragraphs. My focus is narrow though — the lovely lasses of Dragon Age 2 — and this game is a godsend for you digital boob-watchers out there.
After the jump, she’s not really my sister. So it’s ok to look. Continue reading →
Board wargaming is almost an aesthetic, and believe me it pains me to use that word as a noun. After all the counters are placed, reinforcement charts filled, turn record tracks assigned, but before the first move, the game is all possibilities — possibilities which play out on that same map that you laid out before you started. Berlin might end up with a “Soviet control” marker on it, but for now it is your ultimate sanctum, with your most valuable factory and headquarters units, and leader counters, all safe from immediate harm. In a different game, Hougoumont starts with stacks upon red stacks of Wellington’s finest, which later sharply outlines the moment when it is all clear except for the blue of Bauduin’s 6th Division. And in yet another, placing a single Confederate gray counter on Washington likely means you’re starting to pick up and sort all the other pieces for storage back in your counter trays, agonizing over that last battle die roll and arguing over the river bonus. In between, lots of cardboard infantry did a lot of marching.
After the jump, War in the East speaks its own language Continue reading →
Warthog’s many many pages of control settings partly explains the lack of mainstream acceptance of flight sims. The control systems for modern aircraft are enormously complex, thus the control systems for flight sims must be too. Also, pilots don’t use a keyboard and mouse to get around, so you need specialized equipment to meet the demands of flight sims. Warthog is more demanding than most in both respects, but it also has an interesting philosophy behind its control scheme. This makes setting up the controls both easier and harder than in most other flight sims.
After the jump, the lengths some simmers go for total control Continue reading →
My name is Adam and I have a confession. I’m addicted to using two weapons in RPGs. I will always take the dual wield option. It doesn’t matter what type of game I’m playing, how bad the build is, or how much more I could min/max my way through with something else. I am going to use two weapons, usually swords, and hack and slash things into virtual oblivion. I have done it throughout my gaming life, and my neurosis runs so deep that after taking one dual wield character to level 85 in World of Warcraft, I started another dual wielder of a different class and am leveling him up. Why? Because he dual wields bigger weapons. Yes, that actually happened.
After the jump, Dragon Age 2 satisfies our hero’s bloodlust Continue reading →
Spoiler: gravity wins. That’s me about 5 minutes into DCS Warthog. It happened as I was turning. Or rather, it happened as I was trying to turn, when suddenly the A-10 fell out of the sky like several tons of bricks. See, as I mentioned in the last installment, the last modern sim I played was Falcon 4.0, which is based on the F-16 fighter. The F-16 is a very nimble aircraft. You can roll it 360 degrees with a flick of your wrist. You can zoom up into the sky and do loops and other acrobatics with ease. This means my instincts for flying the Warthog are all wrong. I tried to bank the A-10 over and pull back on the stick to make a tight turn, just as I would in the Falcon and, well, turns out there’s a reason why one of these planes is named after a graceful, deadly bird of prey, and the other is named after a pig.
After the jump, my introduction to the game is followed shortly by my introduction to the ground. Continue reading →
That right up there is the cockpit of my (simulated) A-10C. Every single switch and button works. To fly and fight effectively in Eagle Dynamics’ latest sim, DCS A-10C Warthog, you’ll need to know what they all do. You’ll need to be able to set your TGP (in WHOT mode, naturally) as the SOI so that you can pick out the T-55 that JTAC designated as your target by pointing out its location on your TAD. After setting the T-55 as the SPI using the TGM switch you’ll want to engage CCRP mode on the HUD and select your GBU-12 on the DSMS. Then it’s a simple matter of flying over the target, watching the SC and TTRN crawl down the ASL, and pressing the pickle when it meets the pipper.
Confused yet? So am I. So what the heck am I doing here?
After the jump, a total nugget (that’s the flight-sim geek’s word for “noob”) grapples with the most obsessively detailed sim ever. Continue reading →
Pictured above is the exact wrong way to play Killzone 3. Not because you’ll look silly. Not because it’s got a fairly steep learning curve. Not because it’s $40. But because of Killzone 3.
After the jump, Sony (et al.) solves problems no one is having Continue reading →
I can’t get enough of the warzone mode in Killzone 3, which is spoiling other multiplayer shooters for me. It’s a great way to bring the maps to life without running you through the same wringer over and over and over. I can think of no better way to bring an elaborate playground to life than to constantly change the objectives.
But it’s only fair to give the other two modes a chance. Guerrilla warfare is just team deathmatch and the only nice thing I can say about it is that, uh, it’s the only mode where you can play in Killzone 3’s butt-ugly purple jungle level. If you thought Felucia from the Star Wars prequels was ugly, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Operations, however, is actually a mode I’ll try again. Whereas warzone is epic and wide-open, operations is focused, weirdly intimate, and often over quickly. It’s walks the two teams through the same set of linear objectives, ramming them directly into each other over and over, with one team attacking while the other defends. The moment the attackers fail an objective, the match ends.
Between objectives, you see silly cutscenes starring the players. As the Hellghast tasked with defending a shipping dock, we fail and I’m treated to a little movie in which I’m blown over a rail to my death. In the next round, as the ISA failing to capture a cargo ship, I’m taken prisoner and punched in the gut with a rifle butt by the got who got the most kills on the other team. It’s a ridiculous but cute interlude, better than simply having your name on a score list where no one pays attention to anything other than the top slot and his own slot.
Operations also lets you play your role a bit more directly. Warzone has plenty of yahoos running around doing ancillary stuff (for instance, I spent several matches over the weekend trying to figure out why anyone would bother will this silly jetpack). But in operations, everyone is almost always at everyone else’s throat. If you want xp, this is a great way to make sure you get it.
Up next: Killzone 3 with a fake plastic gun
(Click here for the previous Killzone 3 game diary.)
Warzone, my new favorite way to play a multiplayer shooter until Section 8: Intolerance comes out, cycles the teams through different randomized objectives. For instance, assassination missions. One team is informed that it must kill a particular enemy player whose identity and location will be revealed in thirty seconds. The other team is told immediately whom the objective will be, and they have thirty seconds to form a defense around him.
After the jump, I single-handedly determine the outcome of two assassination missions Continue reading →
You may not have noticed, but we’ve been playing a lot of League of Legends over the past two weeks. So we have assembled here a collection of helpful advice — tips, axioms, hints, adages, what have you — for those of you who want to get as good as we are.
After the jump, get some wisdom from us (not pictured) Continue reading →
Voice chat isn’t as ubiquitous on the Playstation 3 as it is on the Xbox 360. I get through entire matches of Killzone 3 without hearing a word. But between matches, a few of the 20+ players have hooked up Bluetooth headsets and I can hear them chat with each other. Which is how I heard what might be my favorite thing ever overheard in a multiplayer game.
After the jump, online gamers say the darndest things Continue reading →
