The Civilization series is a long standing classic of its genre. It wraps a meticulous strategy & management game in the foil of all human history, from the first agricultural settlements to our present modern age, and the near future. Imagine a toy box filled with all the most interesting elements of history: leaders, empires, battles, technological developments, exploration of new lands. Funny hats. Tip all that into a turn-based strategy game. That's Civilization put as simply as possible. It's the player's task to pick a Civilization and lead it, turn by turn, through the ages to victory or defeat - be that through conquest, diplomacy, cultural achievement or scientific triumph.
Civilization 5 is the fifth entry in the main series, made this time under the creative stewardship of modder-turned-designer Jon Shafer. Following up the highly-acclaimed Civ 4 was always going to be a tough job, but Civ 5 succeeds in making some fun changes to the established formula. There's a lot of cool stuff here – hexes instead of squares, a new tactical combat model, city-states, and a board-game-alike two-dimensional strategic view that can only be described as blatantly sexy. Having said that, there are some problems too.
The most comprehensive and fundamental of the new additions that Civ 5 makes is the combat system. In the pre-release build up Shafer talked openly about his admiration for the early nineties' tactical wargame Panzer General, and his wish to move Civ combat in a similar direction. For anyone familiar with Panzer General or other hex-based tactical wargames, the influence in this version of Civ is plain to see.
In previous Civ games, military units could be stacked on top of one another limitlessly, and thus wars tended to be fought by huge stacks of units piled on top of each other, hounding other such death-stacks or bee-lining for objective cities. Not so in Civ 5, which does away with unit stacking completely, instead allowing only one military unit to occupy a given tile at any time. Because of this, war-zones tend to take on a 'front-line' appearance. Ranged units such as archers or artillery are able shoot at other units two or three tiles away, but are vulnerable to attack and must be shielded by melee units. And of course, they shoot further when positioned on a hill. Very wargamey. It's the first game in the series to present a somewhat deep tactical model for combat.
It works very well in itself, multi-tile traffic jams aside. For the first time in a Civ game, you'll find yourself pondering the positioning of your cannons as you prepare to withstand an attack from that over-compensating cad Napoleon; you'll fight battles of maneuver on open fields, and grinding battles of attrition in narrow passes. You'll execute Hannibal-esque coups of tactical audacity that simply were not possible before.
And you'll pull your hair out when it dawns on you just how dim the computer opponents are. Now, you have to make some allowances in this regard; you can't expect a game AI to posses the acuity, inventiveness and deviousness of a human player when it comes to dealing with these sorts of systems. But boy oh boy: these great historical leaders are dim. Positioning is critical in this new model of combat, and the AI leaders display little understanding of its importance. Ranged units in particular are rarely defended properly. It's a real shame, because the model itself is basically interesting and fun, but the AI opponents have at best a very slippery grasp on how to play it. For a game that focuses quite closely on its combat mechanics, this is a pretty big failing.
It is, however, very nicely presented. The menu screens are pretty and functional, with a pleasing, smooth aesthetic. Setting up a game is a quick and painless process, with all the major options laid out clearly on one main screen. There's sub-screen for more advanced tweaks such as enabled victory conditions, number of rival Civs and the specific characteristics of the world (sea level, climate, etc). Hit the 'start game' button and while the game loads you're treated to a brief spoken overview of your chosen Civ's real-world history, read in a suitably wise and commanding voice. By the time you're checking out your starting location you ought to be in just the right mood for a little empire-building.
The new hex grid gives the geography of the game-map a much more organic look and feel. Coast lines and cultural borders flow and curve majestically, rather than jutting at ninety-degree angles. Just in terms of the look of the game, hexes are a big step up from squares.
Civ has always been a series that places a great emphasis on geography. As such, half the battle in setting up a fun game is creating interesting worlds - Civ 5 does this wonderfully. If you like maps, then you ought to like at least one thing about this game. Mountain ranges stretch over multiple tiles, rivers snake down from hilly inland regions to the ocean, jungles grow just off the equator. The maps have pleasing, non-random appearances and bonus 'natural wonder' tiles that make exploring them something of a pleasure in itself. Of course, there is a strategic element too. Geography is critically influential over one of the most important aspects of the game: city placement. It's hard to grow crops on mountainsides.
Given how nice the maps are it's a slight annoyance that you can't sign-post tiles in this version, as you could in Civ 4. So, you won't be able to declare that mountain tile X is now 'Mount Caesar Sucks'. Maybe in a future patch.
The user interface is also good. Everything is drawn in a thoroughly attractive style, and most buttons or information screens are never more than a click or two away. There are some oversights however; there is a main-screen display for strategic resources but not luxury ones for example. With each new turn, a list of reminders appear along the right hand side of the screen, giving the player prompts for new production orders or research goals. It's very easy to navigate, and should ensure that no decision is left forgotten about.
The post-game screen is a big let-down, though. In earlier Civs, upon victory or defeat you would be treated to a break down of your virtual world's history - complete with score graphs, statistics on how many buildings/units you built, and an animated map charting the expansion or inglorious defeat of your empire. It was a nice way to cap off a game, and is all but absent here. In Civ 5 a splash screen and a few lines of text is your lot; it hardly seems worth the effort of leading a people through the centuries for.
The big new game in Civ 5's diplomatic arena is city states: minor civilizations that occupy only one city, and will not attempt to win the game as a major Civ would. Relations with them can be very important. Get in their good books by completing missions for them, or plying them with gold, and they will provide bonuses to food or culture, provide resources, or gift you military units. It brings a new element of strategy into Civ, and it's a welcome addition to the diplomatic landscape of the game.
The overall happiness of your empire forms a cornerstone of the strategic game. In Civ 5 - unlike older Civs - happiness is implemented as a global modifier. In order to keep your cities growing you need to stay in positive happiness. Dip into negative happiness and you'll get a combat penalty along with slowed growth. It's good to be happy. Happiness comes from luxury resources, or from specific buildings, but is offset by population; this means that happiness functions primarily as a check on unfettered expansion and population growth. And it's a pretty stringent check - to the extent that it's often preferable to raze conquered cities rather than deal with the happiness penalties associated with holding newly captured population centres. Genocidal mania, apparently, is a real crowd pleaser.
Balancing happiness with growth is one of the core tasks you'll be engaged in. Unfortunately at the time of writing it's possible to get ahead by creating scores upon scores of tiny but fractionally productive cities which nonetheless cover their own cost in happiness. It's a highly efficient snowball effect, and doesn't seem much as if it's working as envisioned by the designers. It won't manifest itself as an issue unless the player employs a quite particular strategy of spamming low-population cities, but it's there. Hopefully Firaxis will take a look at this.
The stratification of science, culture and wealth production is another notable change from the older games in the series. Gone are the sliders that have been an ever-present element of Civ since the very first game. The critical consequence of this change is that it's no longer possible for an empire focused on cultural development, for instance, to morph abruptly into an scientific powerhouse via a quick reversal of the culture and science sliders. What's more, there is very little overlap in this game between the bonuses provided by city buildings. Most provide a bonus of only one type - eg +5 science, +25% gold output. It's quite a rigid approach which starkly presents the cost of a given decision not only in terms of resources, but in terms of lost alternatives as well.
Culture in Civ 5 works very much like science, complete with something like a tech tree. Culture output-per-turn goes into a pot that builds up gradually until you have enough to purchase what Civ 5 dubs 'social policies'. Social policies are one-time bonuses that, once activated, give a permanent boost in a particular regard. There is a military-themed tree of bonuses, an economic tree of bonuses, and so on. Deciding which policy branches to pursue is genuinely interesting, as different policies complement different strategies. Do you want to expand early? The liberty tree is for you. An early war? Honour tree! A militaristic Civ will pick up different 'traits' over time than a more commercially or diplomatically focused one would. It gives your Civ a few degrees of character.
It's a shame, then, that there's no way to examine another Civ's social policies. Those Greeks you're engaged in an arms race with - are they a fascist empire? A republic? A theocracy? Which social policies has Alexander the Great over there chosen - is he focusing on military bonuses, or economic ones? Who knows! There isn't a whole lot of info about other Civs to be found. Diplomatic interaction is also characterised by a lack of explicit detail. There is no numerical feedback on relations with AIs - instead, you're left to guess their attitude towards you based off of a few lines of text and pre-rendered animations. It's a pretty easy guessing game though; most of the time relations with the AIs seem to run on a spectrum that begins just short of 'hostile' and ends somewhere around 'burning, irrational hatred'. It's possible to arrange trading deals with the AIs, but long-term peaceful relations are often difficult.
So then, is Civilization 5 a worthy addition to the series? The answer must be yes, it is, with the reservation that it's not yet as complete a game as the twice-expanded Civilization 4. It re-mixes the Civ formula in some fun ways and is nicely presented - but it has problems. Given a few good patches and an expansion pack or two it is possible that Civ 5 could grow to surpass its older, more established sibling, though. And it still hits on the fundamental appeal of Civ; it's still a toy-box mix of strategy and history. Look over a few faults, and you'll still find yourself engrossed, counting the turns until you discover gunpowder and babbling obscenities at a virtual Montezuma.
3/5
PLUS:
-Tactical combat
-Just. One. More. Turn.
MINUS:
-Poor combat AI
-Some balance/design issues
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Plot Holes in Inception
Inception hangs together pretty well, but it's not without problems. Here's a couple sticking points that I can't work out to complete satisfaction:
1- The first-level dream in the rainy city should seemingly last about a week for the dreamers. Yet when the van hits the water at the film's climax, the gang had clearly not been in that dream for anything more than a few hours. What did they do after they escaped the van? Evade Fischer's projections for a full week before waking up on the plane?
2- Did Arthur really manage to corral all of the dreamers in the second-level hotel-dream, move them to the lift, AND set the explosive charges in less than three minutes? Crikey!
1- The first-level dream in the rainy city should seemingly last about a week for the dreamers. Yet when the van hits the water at the film's climax, the gang had clearly not been in that dream for anything more than a few hours. What did they do after they escaped the van? Evade Fischer's projections for a full week before waking up on the plane?
2- Did Arthur really manage to corral all of the dreamers in the second-level hotel-dream, move them to the lift, AND set the explosive charges in less than three minutes? Crikey!
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Thoughts on Inception
Inception is a cool movie - starting with it's most basic idea: that dreams are not just fleeting mental apparitions, but instead are more like places that you can go to. You can build a dream like a building, take a dreamer there and let them populate it, fill out the details with their subconcious mind. Then, if you play a few tricks, you can extract secret information. This, of course, is the prize skill of Inception's main character Dom Cobb; he's a thief that steals from your dreams. How's that for a cool premise? It's perfectly suited for a big-screen adventure complete with beautiful visuals, exciting action, and a delicate plot - all of which Inception delivers.
Now we have the premise, but of course it has to be a little more complex than that. There have to be rules, limitations and dangers even in the dreams, or else what's to stop the characters actively dreaming up a quick solution to every problem they encounter? Well, there is an answer; while you can play with the dream-reality a little, doing so too much will alert the target's subconscious to a foreign presence and the dream-scape will quickly become a hostile environment. This is Inception's best trick. It establishes very clearly exactly what the rules of the dream-worlds are, including their relationships to reality and other dream-worlds, and plays by those rules to produce a stunning and creative heist movie.
And that's what Inception is, it's a heist movie. It's not really any deeper than that at it's core. There are twists, obviously - the heist takes places over multiple levels of dream-reality, and the object is not to steal money or valuables, but to plant an idea in a man's mind. But it's a heist - you have the gang each with their own skill, you have the heavily guarded objectives, and of course you have the plan gone wrong. It's the adventure itself that's the major attraction, rather than the characters or the concepts. The playing board and the rules of the game are laid out at the start, and then the characters are sent wheeling away into one obstacle after another, through fights, chases, moments of emotional realization. It's a lot of fun to follow along with.
It's been touted as a movie that's convoluted or difficult to follow, but it really ought not to be. It's not -that- complicated! Once you've grasped the basic points, it all clicks into place pretty nicely. Apart from the opening, which launches right into a dream-caper in progress, there is no concept which is not explained to the audience ahead of time, and there is no deliberate obscuring of the mechanics of the plot. Inception isn't a movie that wants to confuse. It has a couple of unique ideas, but importantly it's always clear about the way that they affect the action.
The key thing - which Inception does very well - is that the story makes sense according to the rules that it sets for itself. That getting killed in a dream while sedated will send you to limbo, that a falling sensation or impact can wake you up, that dream-time is faster than real-time. That's great, and it's a critical part of some of the movie's best scenes, in particular the fight sequence in the rotating hallway.
The plot advances very quickly, and despite a two-and-a-half hour running length, does not feel long or bloated. There's not much to cut. It's marvelously well constructed, and it has a neat quirk that not a lot of stories have - it didn't have a villain. Think of the candidates - was Fischer the villain? No, if he's anything then he's a victim. What about Mal? She's more deluded than villainous. Saito and Cobb, in fact, are probably the best villain-candidates in the film, and they are both a little too easy to sympathise with to be classified as out-and-out bad-guys. There is no central mustache-twirler in Inception, no sinister master-mind with a plan to rule the world. And yet, the movie is packed with thrilling action sequences - shoot-outs, car-chases, and the fist-fight in the rotating hotel corridor. How many films can you think of that stage a similar level of action without ever setting up a central villain? It's a wonderful thing to pull off, and Inception does it very naturally.
If there is a criticism to be made of Inception, it's that Christopher Nolan could have been more ambitious with the dream-scapes. In fairness, it is explained in the film that the locations the characters visit while dreaming are designed places meant to appear at least superficially real, and are not ad-hoc constructs. There is scope in the movie for some odd occurances, although it may have been difficult to keep the movie tense if the gang were being pursued by angry pink unicorns instead of gun-men. The more restrained approach works very well in any case - and besides that, as a matter of taste I tend to prefer action grounded in reality anyway.
What about the final question: was Cobb dreaming at the end of the movie? My instinct is that he was back in the real world, and that the top was about to stop spinning. Of course, cutting away from the top just before the moment of truth was the only way to end the movie – I wouldn't change it.
Inception a straight adventure with a neat idea at it's core. It's not played for pretense. It's a thrill ride through a reality where dreams are places, and enterprising individuals can make a profit by going into them. It's presented with style and intelligence; it's well acted, and it features a couple killer one-liners. It even has a fantastic score. Isn't that cool? I liked it a lot. I feel like I could write more about what I thought of it, but there's a thousand words here and that will do for now.
Now we have the premise, but of course it has to be a little more complex than that. There have to be rules, limitations and dangers even in the dreams, or else what's to stop the characters actively dreaming up a quick solution to every problem they encounter? Well, there is an answer; while you can play with the dream-reality a little, doing so too much will alert the target's subconscious to a foreign presence and the dream-scape will quickly become a hostile environment. This is Inception's best trick. It establishes very clearly exactly what the rules of the dream-worlds are, including their relationships to reality and other dream-worlds, and plays by those rules to produce a stunning and creative heist movie.
And that's what Inception is, it's a heist movie. It's not really any deeper than that at it's core. There are twists, obviously - the heist takes places over multiple levels of dream-reality, and the object is not to steal money or valuables, but to plant an idea in a man's mind. But it's a heist - you have the gang each with their own skill, you have the heavily guarded objectives, and of course you have the plan gone wrong. It's the adventure itself that's the major attraction, rather than the characters or the concepts. The playing board and the rules of the game are laid out at the start, and then the characters are sent wheeling away into one obstacle after another, through fights, chases, moments of emotional realization. It's a lot of fun to follow along with.
It's been touted as a movie that's convoluted or difficult to follow, but it really ought not to be. It's not -that- complicated! Once you've grasped the basic points, it all clicks into place pretty nicely. Apart from the opening, which launches right into a dream-caper in progress, there is no concept which is not explained to the audience ahead of time, and there is no deliberate obscuring of the mechanics of the plot. Inception isn't a movie that wants to confuse. It has a couple of unique ideas, but importantly it's always clear about the way that they affect the action.
The key thing - which Inception does very well - is that the story makes sense according to the rules that it sets for itself. That getting killed in a dream while sedated will send you to limbo, that a falling sensation or impact can wake you up, that dream-time is faster than real-time. That's great, and it's a critical part of some of the movie's best scenes, in particular the fight sequence in the rotating hallway.
The plot advances very quickly, and despite a two-and-a-half hour running length, does not feel long or bloated. There's not much to cut. It's marvelously well constructed, and it has a neat quirk that not a lot of stories have - it didn't have a villain. Think of the candidates - was Fischer the villain? No, if he's anything then he's a victim. What about Mal? She's more deluded than villainous. Saito and Cobb, in fact, are probably the best villain-candidates in the film, and they are both a little too easy to sympathise with to be classified as out-and-out bad-guys. There is no central mustache-twirler in Inception, no sinister master-mind with a plan to rule the world. And yet, the movie is packed with thrilling action sequences - shoot-outs, car-chases, and the fist-fight in the rotating hotel corridor. How many films can you think of that stage a similar level of action without ever setting up a central villain? It's a wonderful thing to pull off, and Inception does it very naturally.
If there is a criticism to be made of Inception, it's that Christopher Nolan could have been more ambitious with the dream-scapes. In fairness, it is explained in the film that the locations the characters visit while dreaming are designed places meant to appear at least superficially real, and are not ad-hoc constructs. There is scope in the movie for some odd occurances, although it may have been difficult to keep the movie tense if the gang were being pursued by angry pink unicorns instead of gun-men. The more restrained approach works very well in any case - and besides that, as a matter of taste I tend to prefer action grounded in reality anyway.
What about the final question: was Cobb dreaming at the end of the movie? My instinct is that he was back in the real world, and that the top was about to stop spinning. Of course, cutting away from the top just before the moment of truth was the only way to end the movie – I wouldn't change it.
Inception a straight adventure with a neat idea at it's core. It's not played for pretense. It's a thrill ride through a reality where dreams are places, and enterprising individuals can make a profit by going into them. It's presented with style and intelligence; it's well acted, and it features a couple killer one-liners. It even has a fantastic score. Isn't that cool? I liked it a lot. I feel like I could write more about what I thought of it, but there's a thousand words here and that will do for now.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Gratuitious Space Battles Review
Gratuitious Space Battles is - wait for it - about gratuitious battles, in space. Dreampt up and coded by Cliff Harris of one-man games-outfit Positech Games, GSB is a neat product with an amusing, irreverant tone and a surprising amount of depth.
The showpiece feature of the game is, of course, the gratuitous space battles. In the finest tradition of the all best space operas, everything plays out like a second world war naval engagement in the stars. Great hulking cruisers lumber around the battle-space blasting chunks out of each other with brightly coloured beams and space-torpedoes, while one-man (or alien) fighters zip past missiles and peck away at larger craft, or engage in twisting dogfights.
The first thing to say regarding these battles, which are drawn in two-dimensions, is that they are positively gorgeous to look at: set against backdrops of planets or nebulae, they are full of bright colours, unique ship designs and lots of neat details. Small drones will launch from the innards of damaged cruisers and begin to repair damage to the hull, for instance. Stricken craft on the edge of 'complete structural failure' will spit out escape pods just before the fireworks go off, and the remains of exploded ships will sink slowly away into the depths of space as the battle rages on without them. A lot of space battlin' can fit on the screen at any one time, and it can be genuinely interesting to just sit and watch the action unfold, even with a fast forward tool sitting in the bottom left of the screen waiting to be clicked.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. The meat of the gameplay is to be found not in the battles themselves, over which the player has no direct control, but rather in the game's ship design and battle planning segments. The first task for the budding space admiral is to design the ships that he/she/it will order into battle. There are three classes of ship to play with: massive cruisers, medium-sized frigates, and tiny fighters. Each has its own role in the space-armada, though frigates do sometimes feel a little too vulnerable.
Ships are designed by first selecting a hull, each of which has different properties, and then appending to it an array of modules: weaponry, engines, shields, crew quarters and a variety of other components. There is a huge list of modules to choose from for each class of ship, and the total possible combinations must be a very big number indeed. The process of designing ships can be surprisingly involving: skimp on the engines to save power? Stack up the shield units, or stick on two more massive death lasers? Do those fighters *really* need shields, especially when they go quicker without them? These are the sorts of questions you'll ask yourself when putting together your space fleet. Although the sheer number of different modules may make ship design something of a grope in the dark to start with, it didn't take me long before I was piecing together purpose-specific ships - anti-fighter frigates, torpedo-fighters, ultro-cheap cruisers and so on. If you've ever enjoyed messing around with a big box of lego blocks, the appeal of the ship design in GSB ought to be quickly apparent.
After the ship design comes the set-up for the gratuitous battle itself - prior to each engagement the player must position their space fleet and issue orders to each of the craft at their disposal. There is no shortage of different orders to give, ranging from commands to keep moving, to co-operate with other vessels, to orders to mantain a certain distance from opposing vessels - useful for making sure that all of a ships weapons are in range. Positioning is also very important - concentrate your forces, or spread them out? Keep the fighters with the big ships, or order them off to make a nuisance of themselves amongst the alien fleet? There are plenty such things to consider here for the aspiring space-fleet commander.
Post-battle there is a useful stats screen, offering information about the battle and the glorious victory or 'strategic sacrifice' of your death-fleet. It provides detailed information about which weapons and ships caused the most damage, what percentage of shots fired by each weapon hit their target, which were nullified by shields; casting light on the question of which craft contributed to the cause and which were merely there to enjoy the bright lights. Depending on your performance in the battle, and which difficulty level you played on, you will also be awarded points which can be spent to unlock new ship modules and hulls.
There are only about twenty official battle scenarios that come packed with the game - including all the scenarios that come with the race-DLC expansions. This is not a major problem however, as GSB includes an in-game browser for downloading and playing challenges put together by other players. These vary in difficulty, and there are all kinds of different fleets out there waiting to be annihilated, though the process of figuring out how to defeat each one becomes a little too formulaic after a time. The base game comes with four different races, with differently styled ships, and there are three more available via DLC - and for those who feel that Gratuitious Space Battles is just *too* gratuitious, there is a simple campaign expansion on the cards as well.
Gratuitious Space Battles is a very creative product, full of charming little touches that come from a willingness by the developer to keep improving the game with periodic patches. It also has a depth that springs naturally from a very simple core concept: that it's fun to watch flying platforms of giga-death blast laser beams at each other in space. Everything in the game operates in support of this idea, and it works tremendously well.
4/5
PLUS
-Gorgeous 2D graphics
-Sense of humour
-Interesting gameplay
-Excellent developer support
MINUS
-Small number of official scenarios
-Repetitive
The showpiece feature of the game is, of course, the gratuitous space battles. In the finest tradition of the all best space operas, everything plays out like a second world war naval engagement in the stars. Great hulking cruisers lumber around the battle-space blasting chunks out of each other with brightly coloured beams and space-torpedoes, while one-man (or alien) fighters zip past missiles and peck away at larger craft, or engage in twisting dogfights.
The first thing to say regarding these battles, which are drawn in two-dimensions, is that they are positively gorgeous to look at: set against backdrops of planets or nebulae, they are full of bright colours, unique ship designs and lots of neat details. Small drones will launch from the innards of damaged cruisers and begin to repair damage to the hull, for instance. Stricken craft on the edge of 'complete structural failure' will spit out escape pods just before the fireworks go off, and the remains of exploded ships will sink slowly away into the depths of space as the battle rages on without them. A lot of space battlin' can fit on the screen at any one time, and it can be genuinely interesting to just sit and watch the action unfold, even with a fast forward tool sitting in the bottom left of the screen waiting to be clicked.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. The meat of the gameplay is to be found not in the battles themselves, over which the player has no direct control, but rather in the game's ship design and battle planning segments. The first task for the budding space admiral is to design the ships that he/she/it will order into battle. There are three classes of ship to play with: massive cruisers, medium-sized frigates, and tiny fighters. Each has its own role in the space-armada, though frigates do sometimes feel a little too vulnerable.
Ships are designed by first selecting a hull, each of which has different properties, and then appending to it an array of modules: weaponry, engines, shields, crew quarters and a variety of other components. There is a huge list of modules to choose from for each class of ship, and the total possible combinations must be a very big number indeed. The process of designing ships can be surprisingly involving: skimp on the engines to save power? Stack up the shield units, or stick on two more massive death lasers? Do those fighters *really* need shields, especially when they go quicker without them? These are the sorts of questions you'll ask yourself when putting together your space fleet. Although the sheer number of different modules may make ship design something of a grope in the dark to start with, it didn't take me long before I was piecing together purpose-specific ships - anti-fighter frigates, torpedo-fighters, ultro-cheap cruisers and so on. If you've ever enjoyed messing around with a big box of lego blocks, the appeal of the ship design in GSB ought to be quickly apparent.
After the ship design comes the set-up for the gratuitous battle itself - prior to each engagement the player must position their space fleet and issue orders to each of the craft at their disposal. There is no shortage of different orders to give, ranging from commands to keep moving, to co-operate with other vessels, to orders to mantain a certain distance from opposing vessels - useful for making sure that all of a ships weapons are in range. Positioning is also very important - concentrate your forces, or spread them out? Keep the fighters with the big ships, or order them off to make a nuisance of themselves amongst the alien fleet? There are plenty such things to consider here for the aspiring space-fleet commander.
Post-battle there is a useful stats screen, offering information about the battle and the glorious victory or 'strategic sacrifice' of your death-fleet. It provides detailed information about which weapons and ships caused the most damage, what percentage of shots fired by each weapon hit their target, which were nullified by shields; casting light on the question of which craft contributed to the cause and which were merely there to enjoy the bright lights. Depending on your performance in the battle, and which difficulty level you played on, you will also be awarded points which can be spent to unlock new ship modules and hulls.
There are only about twenty official battle scenarios that come packed with the game - including all the scenarios that come with the race-DLC expansions. This is not a major problem however, as GSB includes an in-game browser for downloading and playing challenges put together by other players. These vary in difficulty, and there are all kinds of different fleets out there waiting to be annihilated, though the process of figuring out how to defeat each one becomes a little too formulaic after a time. The base game comes with four different races, with differently styled ships, and there are three more available via DLC - and for those who feel that Gratuitious Space Battles is just *too* gratuitious, there is a simple campaign expansion on the cards as well.
Gratuitious Space Battles is a very creative product, full of charming little touches that come from a willingness by the developer to keep improving the game with periodic patches. It also has a depth that springs naturally from a very simple core concept: that it's fun to watch flying platforms of giga-death blast laser beams at each other in space. Everything in the game operates in support of this idea, and it works tremendously well.
4/5
PLUS
-Gorgeous 2D graphics
-Sense of humour
-Interesting gameplay
-Excellent developer support
MINUS
-Small number of official scenarios
-Repetitive
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Rubens Barrichello - 300 Grands Prix
When I first began to follow Formula One, it was the mid-nineties, the high days of the Schumacher - Hill battles. Of course, as a young Englishman, Damon Hill was my driver, piloting the blue, white and gold Rothman's Williams cars against the villainous Schumacher. I was delighted when Hill finally clinched the crown in 1996, albiet in a year when Schumacher was out of contention in an uncompetitive Ferrari. In the years since, the names that I followed on the television screens changed as drivers retired and left the sport: Hill retired in 1999, Johnny Herbert in 2000, Jean Alesi and Mika Hakkinen in 2001. Of the generation of drivers that raced in F1 in nineties, a scant few now remain - of those that do, only Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello raced before 1995; and Schumacher took a three-year break.
That just leaves Rubens Barrichello, the likeable Brazilian who, having proved himself faster than the Stig on Top Gear a few weeks ago, will compete in a record 300th Grand Prix next weekend at Spa in Belgium. It's a remarkable total for a driver who, when Honda pulled out of the sport a season and a half ago, looked as if he may have driven his last race. Of course, the Brawn team then rose from the ashes of the Honda outfit, and Barrichello went on to win two races in the Brawn car, helping the team to win the constructor's trophy. Rubens has certainly still got the skills to compete in F1, and, it has to be said, is having a better time of it this season than his old Ferrari team mate and fellow veteran Michael Schumacher.
Barrichello has seen a lot of change in his F1 career, most notably the switch to narrower cars and grooved tyres in 1998, and the change to the aerodynamically stripped-down cars raced in F1 this past season and a half. He has shown great pace throughout his career, and has always been popular due to his likeable persona. His maiden victory at the old Hockenheim in 2000 must rate as one of the most popular victories in recent times, and one of the most memorable. I'm sure quite a few fans will fondly recall Barrichello's tears of happiness on the podium following the race; it was a joyous scene. Like many drivers of his generation, Rubens spent the peak years of his career in the shadow of the great Michael Schumacher. He, along with fellow racers David Coulthard and Juan Montoya, may well wonder what might have been if Schumacher's domination had not been so complete. Nonetheless, Rubens' career is well sprinkled with victories, notably a battling win at Silverstone in 2003.
At the end of this season Barrichello will have notched up 306 races, and seems likely to continue racing with Williams next season, so a total in the low 320s is within reach. Will Rubens continue beyond that? It depends, but as long as he continues to show the same enthusiasm and pace, the possibilty will remain on the table. From my own perspective, it will quite a sad little moment when the last of the nineties' drivers leaves the sport, so I'm glad to see Rubens still dicing it on the race track. Wouldn't it be great if he got that Williams onto the podium this weekend?
That just leaves Rubens Barrichello, the likeable Brazilian who, having proved himself faster than the Stig on Top Gear a few weeks ago, will compete in a record 300th Grand Prix next weekend at Spa in Belgium. It's a remarkable total for a driver who, when Honda pulled out of the sport a season and a half ago, looked as if he may have driven his last race. Of course, the Brawn team then rose from the ashes of the Honda outfit, and Barrichello went on to win two races in the Brawn car, helping the team to win the constructor's trophy. Rubens has certainly still got the skills to compete in F1, and, it has to be said, is having a better time of it this season than his old Ferrari team mate and fellow veteran Michael Schumacher.
Barrichello has seen a lot of change in his F1 career, most notably the switch to narrower cars and grooved tyres in 1998, and the change to the aerodynamically stripped-down cars raced in F1 this past season and a half. He has shown great pace throughout his career, and has always been popular due to his likeable persona. His maiden victory at the old Hockenheim in 2000 must rate as one of the most popular victories in recent times, and one of the most memorable. I'm sure quite a few fans will fondly recall Barrichello's tears of happiness on the podium following the race; it was a joyous scene. Like many drivers of his generation, Rubens spent the peak years of his career in the shadow of the great Michael Schumacher. He, along with fellow racers David Coulthard and Juan Montoya, may well wonder what might have been if Schumacher's domination had not been so complete. Nonetheless, Rubens' career is well sprinkled with victories, notably a battling win at Silverstone in 2003.
At the end of this season Barrichello will have notched up 306 races, and seems likely to continue racing with Williams next season, so a total in the low 320s is within reach. Will Rubens continue beyond that? It depends, but as long as he continues to show the same enthusiasm and pace, the possibilty will remain on the table. From my own perspective, it will quite a sad little moment when the last of the nineties' drivers leaves the sport, so I'm glad to see Rubens still dicing it on the race track. Wouldn't it be great if he got that Williams onto the podium this weekend?
Friday, 6 August 2010
Alien Swarm Review
What if Aliens was a top down shooter? It would look and play a hell of a lot like Valve's free co-op shooter Alien Swarm. The basic concept is very simple: a team of four space marines must battle their way through hordes of aliens using an array of different weapons, including flame throwers, automated sentry guns and auto-targeting machine guns. The various alien foes come thick & fast, and clever team work is a must if the marines are to survive.
Alien Swarm began life as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, and it was on the basis of the mod that the team behind it were hired by Valve a few years ago. Now, it has been recreated on the Source engine, and released for free download via Steam. Even without making any allowances for the blank price tag, the graphics, sound and production values are all of an excellent standard.
Just like Valve's other co-op game Left 4 Dead, Alien Swarm is multiplayer-focused. There are four classes of marine to pick from, each with their own unique abilities: the Officer, the Weapons Specialist, the Technician, and the Medic. The Officer grants a passive bonus to nearby teamates, the Weapons Specialist uses high-yield weapons to mow down aliens, the Tech hacks computer systems to open doorways, and the Medic heals fellow marines. The most effective teams are the ones that bring a balanced group, and solid team work is of critical importance at higher difficulty levels – players who run off to play Rambo will rarely last very long.
There is a wide range of weapons and gadgets to be unlocked by levelling up; the starting equipment is however perfectly respectable, lacking only in variety. One of the most important phases of a round of Alien Swarm is the pre-game loadout screen, where the team must decide on what pieces of equipment they will bring with them on the mission. Each player has three inventory slots, two for weapons and one for special items such as armour, health packs, damage amplifiers, welding tools or night-vision goggles. Quite apart from picking a balanced group of classes, it is also important to bring a balanced selection of equipment – you don't want to get two-thirds of the way through another bug-hunt only to run out of ammunition because everybody in the group wanted a backup shotgun instead of a spare ammo pack.
There is only one campaign, which features seven fairly short levels - it is very well put together but ultimately will become repetitive. Valve have released an SDK for the game though, so the stage is set for an influx of fan-made maps and mods, which could extend Alien Swarm's lifespan significantly.
Valve could quite justifiably have charged money for Alien Swarm, such is its quality. The appeal of it is simple: it's you and three other marines, covering each other's backs and blasting apart vicious space bugs. It works very well, and bar the lack of campaigns, has no real shortcomings.
3.5/5
PLUS
-It's free
-Simple, fun design
-Good production values
MINUS
-Only one campaign
Alien Swarm began life as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, and it was on the basis of the mod that the team behind it were hired by Valve a few years ago. Now, it has been recreated on the Source engine, and released for free download via Steam. Even without making any allowances for the blank price tag, the graphics, sound and production values are all of an excellent standard.
Just like Valve's other co-op game Left 4 Dead, Alien Swarm is multiplayer-focused. There are four classes of marine to pick from, each with their own unique abilities: the Officer, the Weapons Specialist, the Technician, and the Medic. The Officer grants a passive bonus to nearby teamates, the Weapons Specialist uses high-yield weapons to mow down aliens, the Tech hacks computer systems to open doorways, and the Medic heals fellow marines. The most effective teams are the ones that bring a balanced group, and solid team work is of critical importance at higher difficulty levels – players who run off to play Rambo will rarely last very long.
There is a wide range of weapons and gadgets to be unlocked by levelling up; the starting equipment is however perfectly respectable, lacking only in variety. One of the most important phases of a round of Alien Swarm is the pre-game loadout screen, where the team must decide on what pieces of equipment they will bring with them on the mission. Each player has three inventory slots, two for weapons and one for special items such as armour, health packs, damage amplifiers, welding tools or night-vision goggles. Quite apart from picking a balanced group of classes, it is also important to bring a balanced selection of equipment – you don't want to get two-thirds of the way through another bug-hunt only to run out of ammunition because everybody in the group wanted a backup shotgun instead of a spare ammo pack.
There is only one campaign, which features seven fairly short levels - it is very well put together but ultimately will become repetitive. Valve have released an SDK for the game though, so the stage is set for an influx of fan-made maps and mods, which could extend Alien Swarm's lifespan significantly.
Valve could quite justifiably have charged money for Alien Swarm, such is its quality. The appeal of it is simple: it's you and three other marines, covering each other's backs and blasting apart vicious space bugs. It works very well, and bar the lack of campaigns, has no real shortcomings.
3.5/5
PLUS
-It's free
-Simple, fun design
-Good production values
MINUS
-Only one campaign
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Top Gear Senna Tribute
This Sunday the BBC's Top Gear ran a fifteen-minute tribute to the great Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna. The piece was fronted by Jeremy Clarkson, who showed that despite all his buffoonery he is quite capable of displaying a sombre edge. A major focus of the film was the awe with which Senna frequently viewed by his contemporaries and fellow racing drivers.
As Clarkson mentions in his presentation, the record books will show that Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver in the history of F1, but that tells only part of the story. As the film showed a clip of Schumacher tipping Senna as F1's number one driver, it brought to mind the moment in the press conference following the 2000 Italian Grand Prix, when the victorious Schumacher was overcome with emotion after being told he had equalled Senna's tally of 41 wins.
That outburst says a lot about the respect which many drivers hold for Ayrton, especially drivers of Schumacher's generation. Formula One is a competitive business, and is, much of the time, dominated by drivers who must have tremendous confidence in their own abilities. For one driver to be as celebrated by his peers as Senna, it takes something a little out of the ordinary. In the history of the sport, it's really only the names of Fangio and Clark that are uttered with quite the same reverence by those who raced with them. Senna's legend is of course aided by the recency of his death, and by the circumstances of it, but behind the hype there is a genuinely fascinating story, and a tremendous talent.
It was a very well done piece, and as any discussion of Senna ought to, it did not gloss over his ruthless approach to competition. In particular, it recalled his most famous on-track misendeavor, his purposeful collision with championship rival Alain Prost in 1990. Equally, the film highlighted Senna's charitable work for children in Brazil, and his concern for driver safety; as Martin Brundle says in the film, Senna was in many respects something of a paradox.
The clear highlight of the film was watching Lewis Hamilton drive the dominant McLaren MP 4/4 which Senna piloted to his first World Championship in 1988. As a fan as well as a driver, it was obviously dream come true for Lewis. It was great to see, and Hamilton's star power will certainly have helped give the piece a little perspective for those who may not have heard of Senna before.
Top Gear is today a general entertainment program, with a motoring theme. Of all the great drivers in the history of Formula One, Senna is surely the best suited for a celebration on a mass-audience show – first and foremost because he is remembered as much for his passion for racing and his unique character as for his spectacular driving. Could you make a similar piece about Alain Prost, for instance? It would be a more difficult task. I would like to see the Top Gear team give the British double-champion Jim Clark a similar treatment, however.
As Clarkson mentions in his presentation, the record books will show that Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver in the history of F1, but that tells only part of the story. As the film showed a clip of Schumacher tipping Senna as F1's number one driver, it brought to mind the moment in the press conference following the 2000 Italian Grand Prix, when the victorious Schumacher was overcome with emotion after being told he had equalled Senna's tally of 41 wins.
That outburst says a lot about the respect which many drivers hold for Ayrton, especially drivers of Schumacher's generation. Formula One is a competitive business, and is, much of the time, dominated by drivers who must have tremendous confidence in their own abilities. For one driver to be as celebrated by his peers as Senna, it takes something a little out of the ordinary. In the history of the sport, it's really only the names of Fangio and Clark that are uttered with quite the same reverence by those who raced with them. Senna's legend is of course aided by the recency of his death, and by the circumstances of it, but behind the hype there is a genuinely fascinating story, and a tremendous talent.
It was a very well done piece, and as any discussion of Senna ought to, it did not gloss over his ruthless approach to competition. In particular, it recalled his most famous on-track misendeavor, his purposeful collision with championship rival Alain Prost in 1990. Equally, the film highlighted Senna's charitable work for children in Brazil, and his concern for driver safety; as Martin Brundle says in the film, Senna was in many respects something of a paradox.
The clear highlight of the film was watching Lewis Hamilton drive the dominant McLaren MP 4/4 which Senna piloted to his first World Championship in 1988. As a fan as well as a driver, it was obviously dream come true for Lewis. It was great to see, and Hamilton's star power will certainly have helped give the piece a little perspective for those who may not have heard of Senna before.
Top Gear is today a general entertainment program, with a motoring theme. Of all the great drivers in the history of Formula One, Senna is surely the best suited for a celebration on a mass-audience show – first and foremost because he is remembered as much for his passion for racing and his unique character as for his spectacular driving. Could you make a similar piece about Alain Prost, for instance? It would be a more difficult task. I would like to see the Top Gear team give the British double-champion Jim Clark a similar treatment, however.
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