I’ve started this article three or four times before, and failed to follow through, Mount and Blade is one of the hardest games I’ve ever tried to explain the appeal of, it’s graphics are five years behind the times, it’s quests are repetitive, it’s dialogue unimaginative, it’s world derivative, but god help me, I love it. Why? The short answer is ‘the combat’ but the truth is far more complicated than that.
Journey beneath the cut to see me fail to explain why.
Warning, beneath lie spoilers, I can’t even tell you what games I spoil, because that itself would be a spoiler. Read on at your own peril.
I don’t know how many of you have played Ubisoft’s loquaciously named Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Offical Game of the Movie (yes that really is it’s full title). It’s a clever little game by Michel (Rayman, Beyond Good and Evil) Ancel, it has a minimal HUD, a clever ‘ecology’ system where creatures eat one another, and an ammo light philosophy which often sees you improvising with thrown spears.
And you die at the end.
In telling the iconic King Kong story, Ubisoft were forced to tackle something few developers had before, a sad ending. Nowadays more and more developers are choosing to take on the challenge of ending a game in defeat, putting their story above standard gameplay win conditions. Who are they? How successful were they? The mother of all spoiler collections lurks beneath the cut.
Not long ago Ludo played the demo of Telltale’s return to Lucas Arts’ most beloved adventure franchise. And after debating over the pricing options (or lack thereof) I eventually gave in and decided to see how it measured up.
Conclusions within.
There ain’t much we love more in gaming than lining up together against an AI in a strategy game. With Empire:Total War we have the opportunity to wage some of the largest simulated battles ever seen, fielding armies of over a thousand soldiers each.
We decided to employ a tactic that we used constantly in Dawn of War 2, in which one of us would commandeer the hard hitting fast attack melee units, and the other would take ranged choices as backup. We wondered, out of morbid curiosity, whether or not the same strategy was feasible with two thousand men instead of twelve. There was only one way to find out. Our victims? The French.
Time to crush.
Epic
There’s a reason I prefer western RPGs to JRPGs… well, actually there are several, but only one I’m going to talk about here. I like the ability to craft a hero of my own design, something far more often seen in western games. I like to make choices in the my appearance and dialogue, to have a vast field of options open to me. I like to have the choice to play as a malevolently evil sorcerer, complete with Ming the Merciless beard, a burly and stalwart Warrior, protecting his friends with his might, or a lithe and slippery thief, whose allegiances are never fully known.
Yet it never turns out that way. Given the option to customise my character in actions or appearance I nearly always end with the same template.
He is a good man in a tough world. He takes the path of good, but he is no Lawful Stupid Paladin. He does not smite evil indiscriminately, but he is no pacifistic hippie. He values the lives of others, and will risk everything to save them, but he is capable of making sacrifices if necessary. He respects the law, but will go outside it if he sees it as unjust. He will make morally dubious choices in pursuit of his goal, but nevertheless has a line he will not cross. He’s usually an older man, a grizzled veteran, often bald, almost certainly with some sort of facial hair.
He’s also black.
This is my attempt to explain why.
Continue reading ‘Racebending, Heroes, and what your Avatar says about you.’
Picture courtesy of Rock Paper Shotgun
We at MVH like thinking, it’s mostly productive, sometimes dangerous. This week Dante has been thinking a little too much, to the extent that his thoughts have started actually leaking out of him. So we present to you, dear reader, the first of several pieces dealing with life the universe and everything, but first, something smaller. Read below for Dante’s definition of casual games’
For quite some time now I’ve been thinking about the growing use of the term ‘casual game’ and it’s supposed counterpart, the ‘hardcore game’. There’s been a lot of articles written about this, in fact I’m rather late to the party regarding the debate, but when I saw that famous loudmouth Cliffy B was talking about Gears of War 2 having ‘casual appeal‘ I decided it was time to chip in my two cents.
You see, I think Gears of War already is a casual game, very casual, confused? Read on.
“Texas is lost, move our forces to Florida, we must defend it at all costs”
No, I’m not playing Defcon, or World in Conflict, but an entirely different kind of strategy game, if it can even be classified as such, this is the Political Machine 2008 and I’m taking Barack Obama to the White House.
GalCiv creators Stardock first released The Political Machine in 2004, to coincide with that year’s election, so it’s to the surprise of roughly no-one that they’ve re-released it, with snazzy new features and cute as hell bobblehead graphics, for this year’s epic match up.
I’ve been shot, I’m slowly bleeding to death, I manage to esape around the corner from the hail of gunfire, but I’m not getting better, in fact I may well be getting worse.
“Press H” our host whispers in my ear.
I do so, and my hands reach down, jab a knife into my own knee and lever out a bullet. I recoil in shock.
Digging bullets out of your limbs is the first thing anyone hears about Far Cry 2, but dispite knowing about it already I still flinched to see it in action. There are actually a whole variety of first aid animations, from a simple bandage or self administered injection to minor surgery with pliers, or the classic gunpowder self cauterisation.
Hail reader! We have returned from the PC Gamer showdown, and after two nights of sleeping (or failing to sleep) rough, we are now washed and rested and ready to blog.
Friday night was a quiet time for the event, few people had arrived and hardly any of the demos were running, one that was was the enigmatic Mirror’s Edge (360 version) and it seemed to be largely ignored. I snuck in early to answer the many questions I had about this intriguing game.
Yes, we’re here, and it turns out we have internet access.
We got in Friday night, when turnout was still relatively low and none of the demos were up and running, so we eschewed games in general for the day and instead spent the evening chatting and drinking with the PC Gamer staff and Ash from Introversion. The rest of the participants seemed too nervous to approach, so we ended up hanging around for most of the evening, talking about our favourite games and getting a little insight into gaming journalism proper.
We did get to see Muliwinia in action, which seems like frantic fun. We’ll be getting hands on with that today, so we’ll give you guys the full scoop.
Finally. Camping sucks.
Dante out.
Ludo here, bringing you updates between gaming sessions.
UPDATE: We’ve played Mirror’s Edge, Far Cry 2, Dead Space and Left 4 Dead. We’ll give detailed impressions when we get back from the Showdown, but I’ll just say now that Left 4 Dead really is as good as you’ve been hearing. Still to get a proper go on Mutliwinia but from what we’ve seen of it so far it should be some good fun. Some attendees have been gathering the foam Darwinians given out free to all on entrance, and are forming a growing army near the front door.
Ominous.
UPDATE: Tim Edwards just gave me a satsuma.
UPDATE: Kieron Gillen is wearing a trenchcoat and a tie and playing Trackmania.
UPDATE: The PC Gamer Panel Show just finished, I managed to grab a quick word with Paul Barnett before he shot off with the writers to have a meal somewhere. He has decreed, with inimitable Paul Barnett enthusiasm, that I should play Greenskins. Because, and I quote, “they are awesome”. Also Ross does a great Heavy impression.
UPDATE: We can independantly confirm that John Walker is indeed lovely.
UPDATE: Tim Edwards gave us some apples – then we played Company of Heroes, 3 on 3 vs the computer. Whatever you do, people, don’t fight the Panzer Elite on hard. I’m already getting the shakes for Left 4 Dead. We’re going to have another crack at Far Cry 2 in a bit as all I did when I played it was crash a car, fall off a bridge and get shot.
UPDATE: Played Far Cry 2 again. Shit went down. It involved a flamethrower and a lumberyard, not many survived.
UPDATE: The COD4 finals happened, they were nuts and we didn’t know what was going on. The TF2 finals happened and we are realised that we are so, so bad at TF2.
It’s all over, now all we have to to is write it all up. The event was brilliant and we had loads of fun, many thanks to all the folks who set it up, hardworking Multiplay peeps, the gam devs who travelled hundreds of miles to show their games, and of course the PCG crew, who are a great bunch of folk. From what we’ve seen and heard, it’s going to be a great Christmas for PC Gaming. We’ll have previews and writeups on the site over the next few days. See you then.
