![napoleantw1[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPToWFIA8R0zAuJvy5CMoq6l2FddbNVJaIvxK1WaeQJl7pMiV5VeFIfEmsjp3OEI15qqs0qR5C4r3x8oqm6uIwCymbWrdfaSkQnhah_mb2SrkAsnK4uQkWjnIG2nbLksyZcL95yOI61Ok/s1600-h/napoleantw1%5B1%5D%5B3%5D.png "napoleantw1[1]")
There’s a rumour reported by bigdownload.com that a new Total War game will be announced at E3 which starts on June 15th this year. The rumour reportedly says that the new game will apparently go back to basics in terms of its weapons use. It seems to mean that it will be ditching gun powder for sword and shields. No other details are available at the moment and a SEGA rep said ‘he can’t confirm this’. I’m being very careful here to not have any expectation of a new game. Just keep in mind this is not confirmed as is just that, a rumour. Creative Assembly has a new twitter feed that might shed some hints on this.
![hoi3preview[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOWYQLH1Sx52gTPfI1GrVMudfHno60PYpN-drR2Kv64jqk0VEPU7bd_yha8PHgXY9anSVFTAg9sH9Z2TyTvv7kLQGNwDYMt51ZcPhZuv27cmMwhg-dymLwGND4VjSfl6fTmgIWzS7keVs/s1600-h/hoi3preview13.png "hoi3preview[1]")
A pie thief caught in a time vortex certainly qualifies as a misadventure. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom brought to you by The Odd Gentlemen is a puzzle platformer that combines time manipulation mechanic to devise many devious puzzles. All in the name of Pie!
This is one of those little games that has excellent production values and incredible charm. Unique silent film like art style, a memorable music score that’ll get you humming to it in no time, a kooky story that’s not taking itself seriously, and many things that you’ll just smile in glee as you discover them. This is a game that’ll get you hooked as soon as you start it.
P.B. Winterbottom is a pie thief that goes on this wild pie thieving adventure only to somehow be caught in a time vortex while chasing down a mysterious(yet delicious looking) pie. The story’s cute, but it’s more to serve the gameplay than trying to tell a personal or meaningful tale(like Braid).
Gameplay is the strength of this game, as P.B. Winterbottom has somehow got time manipulating powers. The objective of all levels are to collect all the pies in them. You’ll need to create clones of yourself to help yourself get to places and collect pies you can’t reach or by the time limit the pies stay active. You’ll also get to smack Winterbottom on the bottom with his umbrella to get him or his clones to places and higher ground faster.
Much of the levels center around this, and each episode switches things around and has new rules that will restrict or force you to do things differently. For instance one episode requires you to collect pies at a certain order and another episode has pies that only your clone can collect.
Just when you get comfortable with how one episode(episodes are basically a collection of levels in the game) behaves, it flips things around and forces you to rethink how you solve a puzzle. It also has to be said, P.B.Winterbottom requires some platforming skill. Many times, to solve a puzzle, you’ll have to get your timing and position of your clones just right to complete a puzzle.
What I really like about The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is that many of the puzzles have multiple ways of solving them. Unlike Braid which mostly has one perfect way to solve a puzzle, P.B. Winterbottom’s design offers more freedom. This is especially true for the bonus shorts/challenge levels where the objective is to collect all pies in the shortest amount time and using the least number of clones possible.
There are leaderbords for these bonus shorts and you’ll really have to put on your best try if you want to get on the top ten. This mode offers more replayability and length to a short game(the main story is about 3 hours of playtime, roughly 50 story levels, and 30 challenge levels). It’s a shame that there is no practise mode for the bonus shorts to practise a routine before trying it in time trial mode.
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is an excellent puzzle game that offers lots of challenge with a polished and unique presentation. It’s a short and memorable experience that for USD$5, is a steal. Get this game if you like puzzle platformers, you won’t be disappointed.
Pros:
-Unique and cool art style
-Very addictive music
-Smart puzzles
-Lots of different ways to solve puzzle
-It’s good value for only USD$5 on Steam
Cons:
-The game is short. About 2 to 3 hours to complete the main storyline.
- No practise mode for bonus shorts/challenge levels
Verdict: Winterbottom indeed is Dastardly!
There’s been plenty of comparisons made between Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2, either by reviewers or even by DICE(Bad Company 2 developers). I promise I’ll avoid such comparisons and will focus my review squarely on Bad Company 2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the sequel to DICE’s console franchise. But this time, DICE listened to their PC fans and released it for the PC too. Instead of retrofitting it as a PC port, DICE has released a proper PC version(with dedicated servers and all that jazz).
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 differs from most battlefield games in one major way, there is a single player campaign in it. The story follows a group of ragtag soldiers(Bad Company) chasing after a mysterious doomsday device. There’s some pretty neat set pieces in Bad Company 2’s single player campaign like the World War 2 opening mission, a quad bike race, and a humvee sequence.
Most of the missions are scripted and restricted to small areas except for one mission which allows you to travel across the desert to get to your objectives. While it’s cool that this mission demonstrates the scale of a Battlefield game, the mission itself felt too tedious as you get into one corridor gun fight after another at each objective location. It just gets too long and repetitive(this particular mission that is).
Bad Company 2 throws up some witty dialogue between the characters in the story. You’ll learn more about the personality of these four colourful characters(which feel like real characters rather than emotionless drones). Only the character you take control of, Marlow, is a little disappointing and boring.
Despite the comical banter, the story is lame and gets muddled in what I feel are disconnected missions. However, I must applaud DICE for the effort, they’ve certainly upped their game, but here’s to hoping they’ll blow us away with their next single player offering.
Multiplayer’s where Battlefield Bad Company 2 really shines as it’s really on a league of it’s own. This isn’t a corridor shooter multiplayer experience that takes place in a small square, but it takes place in a large environment. I’m talking kilometers in dimension. You’d get to use vehicles to transport yourself and others across the map as well as assault the enemy. Tanks, quad bikes, APC, amphibious boats, attack choppers and the sorts.
This distinction is really what the Battlefield series is known for, large scale warzones with many players. A maximum of 32 players in a single match. A team is further split into squads of four people. This allows you to have a more intimate experience in the bigger warzone. You are encouraged to get into a squad as you are given extra bonus experience points for helping out a squad.
Speaking of experience points, Bad Company 2 has an unlock system that rewards players with new weapons and perks. As you level up by gaining experience points, you get cooler toys to play with. The unlocks are a great motivation for players to play better and fulfill the teams objectives. Certain weapons feel a tad bit imbalanced at the moment(the medics M60 and the engineer’s Carl Gustav being two) but it isn’t absolutely overpowering the rest of the weapons roster.
Bad Company 2 is also a class based multiplayer shooter. You get to pick from four different classes, the medic, assault, engineer, and recon class(sniper). Each of these classes plays a pivotal role on the battlefield and you need to have a good mix to be an effective squad or team. The assault class is the regular grunt that is able to unlock assault rifles and throw down ammo packs.
The medic has the ability to throw down medipacks to heal others and carry a light machinegun. Engineers repair vehicles and recon gets sniper rifles and has motion sensors(helps team detect the enemy). Your experiences points counts to an overall rank and for each of the class. What that means is that, the more you play the assault class the more experience you gain for that class and unlocks. It’s a tad bit irritating that the class specific abilities are not unlocked on the offset but you quickly get them if you stick to your class.
The two main multiplayer modes are conquest and rush(there’s the usual squad death match but I’ll just ignore that). Conquest is the typical battlefield game. You have capture points scattered around the map, and those that control the most before the timer runs out wins the game. The maps are huge and the freedom to move about coordinating attacks is what makes this mode so awesome.
The only downside is, you need to be extremely coordinated to have any fun in this mode. Playing in pub games is an exercise in frustration as your teammates don’t necessarily do things for the good of your team. You run the risk of getting spawn camped if your team doesn’t work together well. Which makes this mode not the best choice for a pub game(great for competitive games no doubt).
The rush mode in my mind, is the best addition in this game. In rush, teams are given an objective to defend or attack the MCOM stations. For the attacking team, the first point will have two MCOM stations and once those are destroyed two new MCOM stations are unlocked and the defending team falls back to them. This repeats until the defenders are left with the final two MCOM station(also there is a time limit in this mode).
This allows for a more focused experience as the objectives are limited by the progress of the attacking team. This mode works much better for pub games as it is more contained and not as demanding(in terms of team coordination) as the conquest mode. In my opinion this should be the default mode that all players should go for in a pub match.
The frostbite engine DICE uses for Bad Company 2 has had an upgrade in it’s tech. DICE touts its destruction 2.0 feature a lot in previews for this game and for good reason. It’s not just about blowing up holes in walls, but now you can bring down entire buildings. This changes the game so much, it’s hard to explain what it does for the game. No hiding spot is safe, hiding in a corner of a room, better watch out they don’t blow the walls off or worse, the whole building collapses on you.
The engine’s also been visually improved. If you’ve got a top of the line PC, you could crank the settings all the way up and be amazed at the visual quality of the game. Even if you don’t, there lots of options to scale the graphics for your machine. Battlefields are now littered with fancy particle effects such as sand storms in the desert and snow in colder climate maps. This makes them feel like a real living battlefield rather than a map with just themed textures. It does make it a bit harder to spot enemies though.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 offers a multiplayer experience that no other game offers, with its huge battlefields and experience point system. It stands on it’s own as a remarkable multiplayer shooter that will have a long lasting community of players. If you like multiplayer shooters, you will find Bad Company 2 an excellent proposition.
Pros:
- Graphics look awesome
- Nice particle effects
- Destruction 2.0 makes no place a safe hiding spot as building collapse. Removal of prone does help to make the game more fluid(snipers can still be a pain but at least they can’t completely disappear by going prone now).
- Unlock and perk system adds a meta game dynamic that gives players lots of options how to kit their class.
- Single players got some neat sequence
- Funny dialogue in single player
- Has dedicated servers
Cons:
-Single player missions feel a bit disconnected
- Storyline is weak.
-Conquest can get frustrating if you play in an uncoordinated team. You can get spawn camped.
- Carl Gustav rocket launchers are not cool.
- Server browser could still use some improvement
Verdict: Bravo Two is go!
The rumours that 2K was working on a new XCOM turns out to be true. Yesterday, 2K announced that 2K Marin(Bioshock 2 studio) will be developing a new XCOM game. Much of the speculation centered around the 2K Boston studio now named Irrational Games as they have not announced what they have been working on for quite sometime now. However, XCOM won’t be a turn based isometric strategy game like the old classic. The press release calls it a ‘reimagining’ with a new first person perspective with a strong emphasis on gripping story.
New York, NY – April 14, 2010 – 2K Games announced today that XCOM®, the re-imagining of one of gaming’s most storied and beloved franchises, is currently in development at 2K Marin, the studio behind the multi-million unit selling BioShock® 2. Currently in development exclusively for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC, XCOM combines the strategic core of the groundbreaking franchise with a suspense-filled narrative and distills it into a tense and unique first-person shooter experience.
“With BioShock 2, the team at 2K Marin proved themselves as masters of first-person, suspenseful storytelling, and with XCOM they will re-imagine and expand the rich lore of this revered franchise,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Players will explore the world of XCOM from an immersive new perspective and experience firsthand the fear and tension of this gripping narrative ride.”
XCOM is the re-imagining of the classic tale of humanity’s struggle against an unknown enemy that puts players directly into the shoes of an FBI agent tasked with identifying and eliminating the growing threat. True to the roots of the franchise, players will be placed in charge of overcoming high-stake odds through risky strategic gambits coupled with heart-stopping combat experiences that pit human ingenuity – and frailty – against a foe beyond comprehension. By setting the game in a first-person perspective, players will be able to feel the tension and fear that comes with combating a faceless enemy that is violently probing and plotting its way into our world.
XCOM is not yet rated by the ESRB. For more information on XCOM please visit www.XCOM.com.
2K Games is a division of 2K, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).
About 2K Marin
With sister studios in Novato, California and Canberra, Australia, 2K Marin is a 2K development studio focused on creating new IP and expanding proven franchises for 2K Games. Having recently completed the award-winning BioShock® 2, 2K Marin is currently developing XCOM®, a suspenseful first-person shooter where players must do battle against an unknown and faceless enemy that is violently probing and plotting its way into our world.
It remains to be seen just how much of the strategic elements remains in this reboot. But it sounds like a first person shooter with some very light research and inventory management. I have a sneaking suspicion that base building is out(also note this will be coming out for the XBOX360). We’ll have to wait for more info on the game for now.
The Total War series has had some rough times recently. Their last game(before Napoleon) was plagued by technical issues and people found it hard to find a game they could fall in love with. Much of the touted revolutionary new features ended up being a thin veneer that falls apart with a longer playthrough as the game has difficulties adapting to the changes introduced. Roughly a year after Empire: Total War, Creative Assembly has now released their new baby, Napoleon Total War.
Napoleon Total War finds itself in an odd position. Not quite a completely new game but not really an expansion. I’d call it a standalone expansion sort of like what Relic does(without the shared multiplayer module). Unlike Relic’s expansions, Napoleon Total War’s multiplayer doesn’t share the same code base as Empire: Total War. That means you won’t be able to play multiplayer against those that only have Empire. For whatever technical reason this is so, I think this is a big loss of opportunity on Creative Assembly’s part.
Napoleon Total War comes with three different single player modes(Story mode, campaign of the coalition, and Napoleon’s historical battles). One is the story mode in which you play through Napoleon’s campaign. The story mode is broken into 3 different campaigns that mirror Napoleons real life campaign, the Italian campaign, the Egyptian campaign, and European campaign in that order.
If you’ve been used to the Total War grand campaign games, you’d find the first two story mode campaigns(the Italian and Egyptian campaign), to be a bit too restrictive and short. The campaigns have clear objectives with parts of the game(like diplomacy in the Egypt campaign or research in the Italian campaign) locked out. I found that that Italian campaign to be extremely boring as there was hardly any challenge(the AI seemed extremely passive on the campaign map).
The AI could be intentionally designed this way in this campaign because you only have 24 turns. If it was anymore challenging, it could be impossible to complete the campaign successfully. The Italian campaign leads to a bad first impression for most Total War vets. I have to add that making a turn to be equivalent to two weeks is a very good thing. All four seasons now come into play and you need to plan your attacks to not coincide with winter.
The Egypt campaign fares a lot better as you are now given an optional objective of taming the Bedouins and dealing with Nelson’s fleet on top of occupying Istanbul and pushing back the Ottomans. Initially the Mameluks were a pain as they constantly raided the few early provinces I held. But their armies were weak and with better maneuvers on the battlefield, any human general can claim victory as you get used to battles with their armies.
The Egypt campaign was also pretty short, spanning 2 years(that's 48 turns). It leaves some room for you to go after the optional objectives but if you take your time, you could find yourself in a rush for a photo finish. Only in the European campaign does the game open up. The European campaign spans some 168 turns which is equivalent to the traditional Total War grand campaign. There are still objectives that follow the historical trends(your first objectives will be to silence the Austrians and Prussians before eventually attempting to take Moscow) which makes it different from previous more ‘open’ Total War grand campaigns.
There is another single player mode called Campaigns of the Coalition which allows you to play as another faction(since the story mode focuses on the French). You can play as Great Britain, Prussia, Russia or Austria. I haven’t played much of this mode so I can’t really comment much about it. Obviously Napoleon is the focus of this game and a lot more personality is put into Napoleon’s campaign.
How's the AI you ask? Well, it’s been improved compared to Empire: Total War, but not quite the sharpest in its class yet. Much of the problems with multiple theatre AI reinforcements (or lack of it) are removed since you only get a single theatre to play with in any one campaign. The campaign AI will never seriously challenge you(if you are a Total War vet) while sending regular forces that raid your territory.
There are definitely certain moments that will challenge you, like rebels appearing in regions with large dissent. At the moment rebels generate a full stack of high quality troops that might catch you off guard. This is a tad bit imbalanced in my humble opinion(and not really realistic).
The battle AI at last, is able to form a line properly. It however has massive issues with placement of artillery units. Sometimes it stupidly places them behind hills(to only have shots ricochet of the ground) or worse behind infantry. For the vets, only in battles in which you are overwhelmingly outnumbered will you ever face a serious challenge and a potential loss to your campaign.
There’s been plenty of small improvements included in this game which makes this better than Empire in everyway. Artillery is more effective now that battles have a real Napoleonic dynamic to them. Lots of battery counter battery moments. Shifting lines to counter enemy movement. Using cavalry for flanking and distracting the enemy. Placement of artillery is key to battles and you need to make sure the land is flat and you have line of sight. Tell tale signs like marks of cannon balls on the ground give away clues of a badly placed artillery unit.
Units are now more responsive and start firing much quicker. They don’t wait around to reform properly first. Creative Assembly dropped rank fire, which while powerful in Empire, caused a lot of problems to managing your line infantry as they reform too slowly. The battles are what it should have been in Empire. I’ve had more fun playing a single battle here than all the battles in Empire put together. I feel they have got the perfect feel of Napoleonic warfare in Napoleon Total War.
Supply and attrition makes a first appearance in Napoleon Total War. This is of course mainly to simulate Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign. Attrition takes place in winter(and in the desert in the Egyptian campaign), and your armies trekking in the snow will experience a small loss of numbers. Attrition alone isn’t going to tear your army apart, but added to the losses in battles, attrition can be a small factor that slowly eat away at your army.
Supply is implemented a little differently from the typical wargame notion of supply. Supply basically automatically replenishes your armies. As you fight battles and take losses, you can’t retrain units now and must depend on supply to replenish your depleted army. Your armies can only replenish in its own territories and you can improve the replenishment rates by building supply centers. It does take a while to replenish your troops this time making your expansion slower.
Napoleon Total War is, in my mind, the best Total War multiplayer experience available. The drop in battles are a brilliant addition. You can invite anyone in your Steam friends lists(or open it to the public) to drop in any battle you play in your campaigns. It’s a neat feature but the interface for it in the multiplayer menu is weak(it just tries to match you to someone automatically) and could do with some improvements(like a browser of available battles to join).
Multiplayer battles are very good as the battles now fits the feel of Napoleonic period better. Which may or may not be your thing as it isn’t the ancient Rome or Medieval type battles where you have two huge armies clashing. It’s about methodical tactical movements on the field. Paced a lot slower than the old Total War games(I’m repeating this point because I really like the battles). You still get the problem of players camping on hills(or in their deployment zones) with artillery but its not something that cannot be overcome. The best multiplayer battles are those that use a good balance of units.
Naval battles are still clunky and using more than 3 ships makes the battles chaotic and difficult to manage. It’s still something that some people will love but most people will stick to land battles. They’ve added the new ability to repair your ships in battles now which can lengthen naval battles a bit but it still doesn’t quite give it the je ne sais qoi that naval battles need.
The campaign multiplayer is the same as in Empire and you are restricted to only a 1v1 campaign. A game the size of Total War games need a bigger player count. At the moment, campaign multiplayer is only a try it and forget feature. Increase the player count CA!
Napoleon Total War is a better effort than Empire Total War and perhaps many would agree, it’s what Empire Total War should have been. Plenty of small new changes that refine the Total War experience for the better. They still need to work on AI a lot more. You can try out the demo here.
Pros:
- Minor improvements and tweaks in UI, unit balance, and unit ability that makes the game play a lot more strategic.
- Graphics have been brushed up making the game a lot better looking than Empire.
-Major performance improvements to the game. Loads faster and the campaign maps are much more smoother.
-Multiplayer is the best in the series.
-Very stable compared to Empire.
-Historical battles are back! If you want to just jump into a battle, this is a great single player mode.
Cons:
-Single player campaign is decent but replayability is lower than previous titles.
-You’d still outwit the AI once you understand how it reacts to your forces.
-Naval battles still a little chaotic and unmanageable.
-Siege battles improved but still not compelling.
Verdict: Multiplayer is the bomb!
![flotillapreview[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oXYk_j6jFCc95Pv2FMYaxOAjhVDL5Kl3MkAo477PxzPPnlbTTn_rs-EG4wUOX0GfEm-MDVQDVt-K4tj66xJIBQlDJX3x0h9sHTgA57z0QJWOJT5fvnGLdJaqcXPd5fFo6BSSSSLi0E0/s1600-h/flotillapreview13.png "flotillapreview[1]")
Blendo Games really impressed me with their short form indie game, Gravity Bone, which I did a write up on sometime last year. When I heard they were doing a new game that involved space warfare with a turn based strategy mechanic, my interest piqued. Flotilla takes some cue from Gravity Bone with its quirky humour and serene music, but gameplay wise it couldn’t be more different.
Flotilla despite its Homeworld like aesthetics, does not play like the classic at all. You control a bunch of ships that you set move and attack instructions for. They then go about doing what they were told to do in a turn, which lasts 30 seconds. It’s called simultaneous turns as in this 30 seconds, enemies move as well.
Much of the games depth comes with the Z axis movement which is vital to winning some of the tougher battles. Ships take more damage from the rear and the bottom. The only disadvantage to this is that a battle is often a z axis race as it’s mostly a who can get below the opponent leading to a ‘how low can you go mentality’.
There are some interesting additional choices in movement type. Flanking increases movement speed but sacrifices fire power. Focus fire sacrifices speed for fire power. Flotilla keeps things simple and doesn’t give you a ton of choice.
As you win battles, you gain new parts or upgrades that improve your ships, adding a nice motivation and progression to the game. What I found interesting was that a second time a played the same level, I was against a much larger opposition. An earlier(on that same level) playthrough only had two enemies. The game’s levels are randomly generated. Enemy numbers and space objects (like debris) change in every playthrough.
I’ve got one problem with this game though. It’s the clunky mouse controls. Flotilla supports a game controller and I suspect plays better with it. However if you play this with a mouse and keyboard combo, you might find it tough to get used to moving your units especially as they get really down on the Z axis.
I’d say, give it a try at least. If you have any interest in indie games and strategy games, you should give this one a try. The demo is a sizable on with many scenarios. It’s only USD$ 10, if you find the controls workable, it’s a fine purchase.
Hallelujah! Civilization 5 was announced and that’s made 2010 a really good year for PC strategy games. While many will no doubt be eagerly awaiting Blizzard’s Starcraft 2, I on the other hand will be looking forward to this more. Civilization IV is still one of the best made and polished strategy game to date.
In the announcement, combat seems to have got a major overhaul with the game sporting a hex based grid now. Units will be full armies now and I suspect there will be directional attack and group bonuses.
The press statement is pretty vague about other things, but it seems like there will be more diplomatic options and more multiplayer online game modes. It also looks very pretty. Release date is said to be fall 2010! Yeah it’s that soon.
Gratuitous Space Battles plays out like an interstellar fireworks display. You see big space ships duking it out with lasers, missiles and all sorts of sci fi instruments of death. You don’t get to control them however, because Gratuitous Space Battles is a strategy game centered around the planning stage of a space battle.
The planning stage is the entire focus of the game. There are mainly three classes of ships, the cruiser, frigate, and fighter. The cruisers are the big bulky heavy ships. Frigates are the lighter ships and fighters are the tiny ships that buzz around bigger ships like flies. Each different class of ships have different type of hull design that has a host of stats related to them.
Cost, weight, hard and soft points are all important considerations to a budding space ship designer. The hard and soft points are the points on the ship you can attach modules to. You need to balance out the need to attach weapons, defences like armour or shields, power generators, crew living quarters for the battles you will face.
Because the battles you will face will be on the difficult side. To make the most of the situation, you’ll need to read the stats at the end of the battle to discover the weaknesses of your fleet. Do you need more armour? More longer range weapons? Are enemy missiles destroying your fleet?
Of course since these hard and soft points are limited on a hull design, you’ll often have to resort to specialised ships to counter the enemy fleets strength in some cases. Design a missile defence ship designed to deal with incoming missiles, or maybe a frigate with an EMP cannon that disables enemy ships?
Apart from fixing modules, you can also give orders to your ship. These orders range from fly in formation, protect, cautious and many more. These orders allow you to tweak the behaviour of various ships in your fleet. You might find your frigates moving too far forward racing to their oblivion or your cruisers wasting their time trying to swat those pesky fighters. You can use orders and targeting instructions to rectify this.
Once you’ve set up your fleet the way you want it, the battle plays out. This part of Gratuitous Space Battles has been described by other sites and reviews as being frustrating simply for the fact that users that are used to RTS games might not like having no control of your units. I beg to differ since Gratuitous Space Battles isn’t an RTS.
Gratuitous Space Battles gives me that feeling I got when I played the earlier Championship Manager games. The thrill of watching your plan working out well or watch helplessly as your plan crumbles. There is a certain satisfaction to working out a perfect plan that wins you the battle. Or that eureka moment you get when you got the perfect combination.
Multiplayer basically revolves around playing other player made battles called challenges. You could view all challenges in a lobby, play it and rate it like you would on any other media. There isn’t any two player death match. Which isn’t too bad really as Gratuitous Space Battles is a great strategy game that you can pick up to play for a short while.
Gratuitous Space Battles is a fun little game that while being short of missions, makes for a fun diversion. There is a a DLC content called the Tribe DLC pack which adds a new alien race with all new hull design, weapons etc and two new missions which add a little more content when you’re done with the base game. Try out the demo, buy it if you like it.
Pros:
Cons:
Verdict: Gratuitously Fun
Rating: 8/10
Price USD $19.99
The names Max and Erich Shaefer may bring nostalgic memories to PC gamers. They of course were co creators to the seminal Diablo and Diablo II from Blizzard(previously Blizzard North) which was a landmark moment in action RPG games(in fact it invented it). Runic Games is the name of the new start up and Torchlight is their first offering. A Diablo clone which gets the formula right.
It’s got the same addictive quality of Diablo which is either a good or bad thing depending on how you see it. Prepare to find time fly by as you rush through a dungeon to get every single gold and loot drop. As it is from the guys that did Diablo, I suppose they know the right formula to mix combat with loot drops. The perfect reward to action ratio which will suck your soul.
What’s there to say about the gameplay that you have probably known by know. It plays like Diablo. You can take control of any three different class type, the Alchemist(Wizard), Destroyer(Warrior) and blabla(the ranger/ranged weapon expert). You then go into Torchlight, a town gripped with a growing evil. You find that the source of this comes from deep within the mines and venture into it to fight whatever monster you face.
Really, the story’s nice, but irrelevant. You’ll be too busy just killing stiff and picking stuff up. What’s brilliant about Torchlight is that its got some truly smart things in it that improves on the Diablo formula. Ever had your inventory full in between a dungeon raid and ever wished you could somehow sell some of the stuff away(instead of just dropping them)? Now you can using your pets to quickly run back to town to sell it for you.
Yes you have a pet, which is very fashionable I suppose(hey WoW has them). It’s really your personal slave to be frank. Go sell this crap boy! You could also equip your dog(or cat) rings and necklace to improve its stats and even teach it to use spells. You have merchants, quest givers, gambling orcs, robot bards and a whole host of characters that sever to give you quests, sell and buy your stuff, and allow you to make more money.
There is even a shared treasure chest that allow you to share items between your different characters or saves. Absolute genius move. It’s the minor improvements like this from the Diablo formula that makes Torchlight a polished, refinement of the classic. While the lack of a multiplayer may turn off some people(purely single player), Torchlight manages to hold on to your attention with its loot collection.
As a roughly 1 year development time from a relatively small and new studio, it’s evident that Runic is a studio that is lead by very experienced and talented people that I have no doubt has a lot more to offer to the games industry and gamers. Torchlight at USD$19.99 is a definitely buy if you’re an action RPG fan.
Pros:
Cons:
Verdict: Loot Fest!
Rating: 8/10
Price: USD$19.99
![napoleontwpreview[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK5rWQURG9YQIQDa8aQYB04PXPK5ocpjSUYLng7ApQ2pZDc-WMUendQeCnoa8PJIUmvU082yOOfugSphuYXHco16PbH_GTn1llzY7_QsDKWwZq6jI0uWayEvbTYEbBo6Bsdu9U_71sEyI/s1600-h/napoleontwpreview13.png "napoleontwpreview[1]")
