Colin Mochrie (on Whose Line is it Anyway)
theMosse.net/blog
United we Command
I consider myself an avid wargamer, I have a handful (provided you have gigantic hands) of wargames underneath the staircase collecting dust and eagerly waiting to be opened and lovingly played. I've collected them to represent a mix of different eras and mechanisms so that I would always be able to find a suitable game for any occasion. Well, those occasions are far in between, so I've started looking into wargames on the PC. No, not wargames like Battlefield 2 or Call of Duty, but as much like a traditional hex-and-counter game as possible, with all the added benefits of having the computer do all the complicated calculations and book-keeping.
I started looking a long time ago at Matrix Games, and bought The Operational Art of War III, but think I bit more than I could chew with that monster of a game. I tried John Tiller's Campaign Series and jumped at the chance when GOG.com published Panzer General II, but never got really comfortable with any of these. Neither did I manage to get a grip of STORM: Frontline Nation... But then I listened to episode #148 of the Three Moves Ahead podcast and heard of a new game called Unity of Command from the Zagreb-based developer team 2x2 Games.
UoC is a division/corps-level strategic wargame with a very boardgame-feel and, at first glance cartoony graphics set which is scaring a lot of traditionalists off, who either don't like the style straight up, or are deceived to think this is too simple a game for their seasoned tastes. The joke would indeed be on them, though, because the game is no simpleton.
The difference between playing a wargame on a PC as opposed to playing it on a tabletop is that you (generally) read the rulebook once or twice beforehand when playing on cardboard. You don't when going digital, which means the game must properly guide you into it, something that a lot of videogames forget. They might sport introductory scenarios, but that's it. UoC has both a tutorial and an introductory scenario before throwing you into the full meat of the game.
Having played through both of the aformentioned I jumped into the campaign - which is basically a handful of linked scenarios, where successes and indeed failures will influence the tools with which to tackle the next scenario in line - thinking I knew what I was getting in to, only to have my proverbial behind handed to me in a wicker basket. It seems there was more to the game than just attacking where the odds are in your favor, hoping for "a good roll".
The graphics choices are not the only aspects of the game that cradle you into a false sense of security and self-confidence, the user interface is desceptively logical. Click a unit to activate it, click on a hex to move your unit there or on an enemy unit to attack it. Want to use air power to bombard your foes? Just click on the air-power button and then on the enemy unit you want to blow back to Siberia... One could easily be fooled into thinking they were playing something simpler than what UoC really is.
You suddenly find your units who have advanced successfully out of supply and therefore handicapped when the enemy make their counter-attack. Supply is also deceptively easily done, but that doesn't make it easy. You have some supply source hexes, which then exert a supply line a limited number of hexes. Units out of that reach at the beginning of each turn are Out of Supply and screwed. The reach of the supply line can be extended either with scenario-specific assets or by controlling railways. This, of course means that if you then let the enemy past your lines and let him grab a railway hex half of your army will probably find themselves out of supply...
On each scenario you have an attacker (you) who needs to capture some objective hexes within a turn limit and a defender who wants to prevent it. Each scenario can be played either against the computer or a friend, and there is one explicitly multiplayer scenario. When playing a friend you either play hot-seat (on the same computer, just taking turns at the keyboard...) or online. The online game is done in the very best way possible - not live nor Play by E-mail, but rather Play by server. When you start a multiplayer internet game you get a unique code which you then send to your opponent, and you can then log in whenever to do your turns.
There are some (slight) negatives as well... There aren't that many scenarios as we speak. Here I'm talking about the scenarios not part of the campaign, there are 18 plus the tutorial. This may sound like a lot (and honestly it's enough) but bear in mind that the scenarios in this game are relatively short... This is most evident with the multiplayer scenarios, as there is just one as we speak. Naturally the single player scenarios can be played as multiplayer, but these are not balanced in any way. This shouldn't be any problem for veteran wargamers and, if this is a problem the designers advice you play the scenario twice switching roles and comparing scores.
The designers of the game seem very active on the games' forums, and there are talks of making more scenarios, either as free updates or DLC for the future. This is a good plan, and providing the price is right, I'll gladly cough up some money for more scenarios to support these guys. There are also mentions of a scenario editor, but not in the immediate future. Once such a thing comes out there won't be any shortage of scenarios.
There is another missing feature that is both positive and negative. There is no undo-function. This is (naturally) intentional, but rarely is it needed as badly as it is here. Because of the simple and intuitive user interface the following dilemma has occurred several times; you click a friendly unit to activate it, you see how far it is able to move in the turn only to notice it isn't far enough, so you click elsewhere to deactivate it. To your horror you accidentally click within it's movement radius so that unit spends it's turn to move somewhere you absolutely didn't want it to move. After a lot of user asked for this feature, the designers have promised to add it to their to-do list at high priority. It will hopefully/probably be deactivated in multiplayer matches, though...
If you're like me and have been looking for a simple but not simplistic wargame to play on your computer, check out Unity of Command for sure - it's not (yet) available on Steam, although the designers have approached them, but it is available on Desura and from unityofcommand.net. I bought it straight from the developers even though it was on sale on Desura, to get the Mac-version as well. Yes - it is available for Windows and Mac - and listen, if the silly graphics (they really aren't silly) disturb your aesthetic eye, there is a mod for NATO-symbols on counters.
There really isn't a good reason not to buy this game. Unless you're not a wargamer, of course, but then you probably didn't read this far anyway...
It is filed in the category Videogames with the tag(s) unity of command, wargame, indie
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Mount & Multiplayer: Awesomesauce
A while ago a YouTuber I was following for his Minecraft-videos started pumping out Let's Play:s of another game by the name of Mount & Blade by Taleworlds
- an RPG game with first- or third-person action battles. The battles in particular looked very interesting indeed, as melee-centric FPS:s are hard to come by - I can think of Zeno Clash but hardly any other. I bought the sequel named Mount & Blade: Warband, which seemed to be more of the same but finely tuned. Having played the single-player campaign for a while I stopped playing.
This would be a very boring blog-entry if it wasn't for the fact that recently I was browsing the indie site Desura and noticed there was a plethora of mods for the game, especially its' multiplayer component... Multiplayer, you say?
I'm usually not much for online multiplayer games, mostly as I tend to get shot and die within 1.25 seconds of spawning to some twelve-year-old l33t-gamer who lives online and eats n00bs like me for breakfast. I wanted to give it a go, though, and re-installed the game. Lo and behold as I clicked on "multiplayer" and there are hundreds of people playing the game!
I found myself on the battlefield, in the middle of a siege of the castle Helms Deep (of LOTR-fame), storming up the walls with my sixty-or-so bretherin, arrows and spears flying over and beside my helmet! As I got over the crest of the siege-ladders I stood face to face with a dozen or so men armed with crossbows all pointed at my ugly mug... I died. A little later, I came upon a hidden side-door into the keep, and with a handful of other infantrymen and sneaked in, like a ninja! The fallen enemies were quickly avenged as we found ourselves in a conundrum soldiers operating behind enemy lines often do - surrounded and outnumbered... I died. A little later I was riding as a Man at Arms around the castle hunting enemies who had slipped out into our lines assassinating our archers who were trying to pick off foes on the castle walls. I was enthralled! (...and yes, I died...)
I decided to try out some mods... I have very limited experience with mods, only a few Half-Life 2-mods like Insergency and Smashball. I opted for the Mount & Musket: Battalion mod, which places the players in Napoleonic times. Sure, there are firearms in the third installment of the M&M-series, Mount & Blade: With Fire Sword, but it has received poor reviews. The mod, though, is fantastic with huge battles taking place online.
One thing I, as an unexperienced mod-player, appreciate is the ease of access with these mods... When you start up the game, it actually asks you if you want to play the native game or a specific mod out of the mods you have installed. When you go to the multiplayer-menu you get a listing of all on-going games across all mods, and if you pick a server of another mod the game quickly switches to that mod and joins the server automagically. So far I have had zero problems, not technical nor social. I'm not very good at the game - I do survive longer than 1.25 seconds, but my kills-to-deaths ratio is nothing to write home about - yet I have not been kicked or flamed.
It is filed in the category Videogames with the tag(s) mount & blade, warband, mod, mount & musket, indie
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0 comments Banana Boom Gang
I really wish Steam would allow tagging games in your library with more than one category. Then my "indie"-category wouldn't be so crowded. Is it just me, or are - not only indie games, but brilliant indie games - being released all the time now? It appears to be the time for indies. Minecraft and Frozen Synapse are two of my new(ish) favorites, and recently I've been playing a lot of Pineapple Smash Crew.
Pineapple Smash Crew is a top-view arcade shooter where you lead a team of four super-space-marines through different space-ships with different objectives. I say different objectives, but they are practically all the same; clear the rooms. On every mission you have a number of rooms, out of which some (usually one to five) rooms are objective rooms and one is a terminal room. All rooms are filled with crates, aliens and other destructables. The aliens come in different sizes and armaments. Some spew fire, some bullets while others just charge at you at speed. All need to die.
You control your squad with the standard WASD-setup, switching the pointman either with the mouse scroll wheel or Q/E. The others simply follow the pointman and fire where he fires. There is a very important point in choosing which marine to put on point, other than maybe not using somebody who has one foot in the proverbial grave, and that is the meat of game, and what has given the name to the game; namely grenades!
Grenades are picked up during the missions and each marine can carry one at a time. These come in very different flavors, and your success in the game depends on which combination you decide to carry (if you're lucky enough to find the ones you crave...).
There are normal grenades - point in the right direction, right-click to throw and right-click again to detonate. These are extremely useful against hordes of advancing foes.
There are missiles - right-click to throw after which you can point them in another direction, right-click again to launch them after which they explode on impact. These are very useful for getting at monsters around corners etc. but a bit more difficult to aim properly.
There are shields, which work similarly as grenades, but on impact deploy an impenetrable bubble. Impenetrable to everything except your marines, their bullets and grenades that is.
There are mines, which once deployed explode when bad guys move in the vicinity.
There are machine-gun turrets which once deployed keep firing in a specific angle for a short period of time.
...and there are lots more...
Destroyed crates leave blue stuff which unlocks new types of grenades and killed aliens leave credits used to get new marines when yours die, which they will. You complete the missions if you go to the objective rooms and clear them, but it might be worth your while to clear other rooms as well in order to collect credits and unlocks. You also need to go to the terminal rooms to get "coordinates to the mothership". Once you have gathered 100% of the coordinates the mothership, ie. the final mission, is unlocked.
Surviving marines level up in between missions, with higher levels providing better armor, so you're better off trying to keep your marines alive and level them up to maximum for the mothership mission, which is huge and difficult.
The game is not very long, I completed it in about five hours of casual gameplay, but that is not a problem at all - triple-A titles six times the price aren't always longer than five hours anyway - and at least I did enjoy the basic gameplay so immensely that I immediately started playing the game again. There's just something so, satisfying with the different grenades.
Go get it!
It is filed in the category Videogames with the tag(s) pineapple smash crew, let's play, indie, youtube
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0 comments Kick that Pig!
American Football has fascinated me for a long time, but I never really investigated on the fascination. Until recently. I've been a huge fan of the GFL-series (Galactic Football League) by Scott Sigler for a long time (wrote a blog entry about it a few years back...), and so has my friend Shinan, who a while ago wrote that he had started watching the real deal - inspired by Siglers' books. He had picked a team at random and started following their progress. I decided to follow suit.
Only I didn't choose a team at random, I just opted to follow the same team as he, and became a Minnesota Vikings fan. Having now seen a handful of matches I can come to a few conclusions...
I really enjoy watching the games. I've seen a few matches before, but it has mostly been the finnish "maple-league", and although they probably mean well, the class of play in the NFL is totally different.
The flow of play feels quite "boardgamey", and that is both good and bad. It's amazing to see how each player - or "pawn" - is a cog in a machinery which, when it works, is beautiful to watch. At first glance one might make the mistake of thinking it's all about the quarterback, and although all offensive plays originate from him ("her" if you're watching the Lingerie Football League) his efforts go to waste without the support of his team. It's tremendous to see how the entire wall of men push open an avenue for a runner to hopefully pass through, with movement synchronized to the second. The seemingly controlled chaos turns out to be meticulously rehearsed and executed.
On the other hand - when it goes wrong, even if only for one of the participating "cogs" the entire play falls apart and ends up in disaster. What the QB:s perform continue to amaze me; How they are able to, whilst running away from charging defenders, throw the ball twenty to thirty yards placing it firmly in the lap of a receiver running at full steam...
The sport also appears to the rules-lawyer in me. Back when I was studying for my security guard-license I took the legal bit a tad too seriously and ended up reading more criminal law than was required. I simply love the way laws and rules are written - the method of getting them so that they cover every angle and possibility so that there is as little room for interpretation as possible. It feels like american football has more rules than "regular" football (soccer), icehockey and basketball put together, and the referees and commentators all sound like lawyers on Law & Order when they explain the situations and penalties to come. Much like in TV:s courtrooms, factors like "intent" have to be taken into consideration when judging situations and what results from them.
Rules this rigorous has a dark side, though... It's easier to "play" the rules. Although I understand why it happens, I always feel a bit disgusted when the leading team plays out the last minute or so of the game by immediately kneeling after a snap. It feels very unsportsmanlike to me, but as a boardgamer I understand it. You play the game as the rules are written...
I remember seeing a satirical YouTube-video about how to get americans to enjoy soccer, where they showed a soccer match and consequently filled it with product placement-type advertising and statistical overdrive. As most successful satire, there was some (quite a lot, actually) truth behind the fiction.
The product placement is a very american way, I guess, but feels very foreign to me. The "VISA™ half-time report" and the "Snickers™ replay" come hand-in-hand with the "count-down-clock is brought to you by Miller Light™, it's Mmmm-good!" These all come so natural to the commentators that they probably feel as natural to american viewers. I bet most people don't even notice them anymore...
The statistical part, on the other hand, fascinates me. I'd like to see the stats-sheet that each and every match produces. No matter what situation arises, they seem to pull out the appropriate stats to boot. How that interception was the 14th of the season for that player, in the third quarter, while leading against a team from a city with the letter "A" in it... (okay, so I'm exaggerating a little bit...) Not only do they know exactly how many yards every player has ran in every season, they also know where he ranks within the team, within the franchise, within all teams as well as in NFL history. All this appeals to the Excel and MySQL-nerd in me, and it would be interesting to view their databases.
Of course I can't say I understand the game having now followed "my" team for five weeks - I have a basic understanding of it but there's still some jargon I need to learn and some reasoning to fully appreciate it. I fall off the wagon when the commentators start talking about "clinching the first-round bye" and so on. I need to find a good book, a "American Football for Dummies"-kind of book. I'd also like to learn all the positions of the players; what it actually means to be a "tight end", "safety" and "wide receiver".
In hindsight, I'm glad I dipped my toes into football, it's been quite an interesting experiment, and I've become quite a fan. I expect to continue to follow the Vikings next season. I could have picked a better team - things haven't been going so well for "my" Vikings, but on the other hand I might not have been so interested if I had just watched some team steamroll their opponents. The Vikings might have lost almost all matches I've watched, but they fought well and most fights were tight to the very end, and the one victory I witnessed tasted sweet!
Oh, yeah - Go Vikings!
And no, I still don't understand why it's called "football"..!
It is filed in the category Personal with the tag(s) nfl, minnesota vikings, american football, scott sigler, gfl
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2 comments Got to get them all!
Many have told tales of being caught in the money-pit that is Magic: the Gathering or indeed any other CCG (Collectible Card Game), TCG (Trading Card Game), CMG (Collectible Miniatures Game) etc. Marriages have been ended, careers lost and credit trustability questioned because of excessive spending on these. I'm the other way around. For years I tried to get in to collecting in a game.
At first it was a way to stack orders. Back when I was actively purchasing new boardgames I always looked for smaller games to add to orders to get free shipping. I ended up with massive amounts of small in-between games or fillers that were all basically the same. If there was only a game system which I could just add to instead of buying new games instead... Together with my kid brother Jens we tried to find such a game system.
Bring on the Cardboard!
We tried the Axis & Allies Miniatures-system but didn't like it, mostly or at least partly because it would have required a tremendous investment to get armies of a sufficient size to get an enjoyable experience. We also dipped into some games using the Clix-system, which didn't really ring any bells despite of fantastic miniatures. I also bought a few packs of Star Wars: Pocketmodel TCG, but when putting together the models is more fun than actually playing the game, I am going to have some issues with it.
Finally we found what we had been looking for in Dreamblade! It packed all the punches; really, really nice miniatures together with a proper actual game that was as interesting to play as it was to collect. It tickled all the right nerd-nerves, Jens and I bought several boxes of miniatures, made Excel-sheets of which ones we had, which ones we wanted, traded figurines we had too many of, and yes - even played the game when we had the chance. Then the inevitable happened. Wizards of the Coast cancelled it and no more pieces were produced or sold... Sure, we still had a great game in Dreamblade, and had gathered a nice army for ourselves, but as the game was no longer available, the collectible aspect was gone, and so was our ability to lure new players into the game.
Fast forward a few years, and I moved away so I no longer live near my brother or other old boardgaming friends. Although I've made a few subtle attempts to create new gamers among the locals here (doesn't that make me sound like a friggin' missionary?) I've moved over my attempts at finding a nice collectible game to the computer world.
Digital Bits
I decided to start with the king of them all, and bought Magic: the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers... As I played through the tutorial I was happy to see that it's not a complicated game, and all my years of playing board- and cardgames (specifically learning new games at a great pace) meant I quickly got in to it. It quickly showed its' ugly face though and I lost interest, as I wrote in an earlier post.
To quickly recap my thoughts about M:tG, and specifically the computer game, is that almost the entire game of it seems to center around the deck-building leaving the actual gameplay to be automatic. The designers of the computer game either missed this (highly unlikely) or they decided to leave the deck-building aspect out, wanting to have the computer game just act as a lure to get new players into buying the actual cards. There is some - customization - of the deck available, but just in leaving newly unlocked cards out of the deck or not.
I had better luck with the next game, but on the other hand I feel ashamed and almost dirty for saying I like it... But I do, I like a lot better than M:tG at least - Pokémon TCG. It plays in a browser (although I'd actually prefer a stand-alone application - can I have that, please?), is free to play and I actually feel like I'm playing a game rather than just hope for the best as it feels like I'm doing in Magic...
I know I'm not the only adult who likes to play this game, as Eric Summerer listed it as his number one when Dice Tower in episode #228 made their Top 10 Collectible Games (to Tom Vasels continuing taunts), but come on - it's still Pokémon!
Well, I'm trying to get past the theme, and when I do, when I'm alone in the house, I close the blinds, put on dark shades and play. The collectible aspect is a bit missing here (in the computer game), as you get a basic deck for free, and unlock single cards by beating the A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) opponent, but in order to get "packs" of new cards (as I've understood it) you need to buy the real cards and enter some code from the packs to unlock them in the game. It's a "clever" (from their point of view) way of getting people to buy Pokémon-cards, but I just want them in the computer game. It will be years before my kids learn (a) to read and (b) english well enough to play the real game...
Still occasionally playing Pokémon TCG I looked onwards, as Jens then pointed me to Spectromancer. It's not really collectible (at all, actually) although the game could easily have been turned into one - h*ck Richard Garfield (the guy behind Magic: the Gathering) co-designed it! You can actually build your "deck" but that customized deck can only be used against the A.I. in the single player campaign. As my brother said, it feels more like a game in the Kosmos Spiele für zwei-line.
Found and Acquired?
Then I saw a video by internet gaming guru TotalBiscuit (the same guy whose videos introduced me to Pokémon, by te way...), WTFree is Shadow Era. Although the video doesn't actually teach the game, the fact that it was free meant I downloaded it. It took maybe another week before I installed it and registered, but when I did, I just might have found what I've been looking for.
So the game is Shadow Era by Wulven Game Studios, and it's an online-only CCG. No real cards to buy, no TV-series or toys to sell. It also fixes some game-mechanism problems I've had (personal issues) with both Magic: the Gathering and Pokémon. It's so good TotalBiscuit placed it at number #9 on his Top 10 Games of 2011, and that guy plays a lot of games.
Let's start by looking at the collectible aspect. It's basically a freebie, or "freemium" as they call it, meaning it's free to play but you get a premium experience by paying. Registering is free, and you get a starter deck when you do. That deck is good and will suffice against early A.I. opponents and other players who also only have their starter decks. You can then purchase new starter decks (25 random cards) or booster packs (15 random cards including rares) for 100 Shadow Crystals each. Just looked the site, and that would be between 11 and 64 cents (per deck) depending on how many Crystals you buy at once. In my opinion, that's a fair price, concidering I just saw a booster pack of 10 Pokémon cards in the kiosk for four euros. You can then build your active deck as you see fit from your entire collection of cards and play this deck against the A.I. or other players online.
The actual gameplay is also great. The problem I've had with Magic and Pokémon is their use of Mana-cards and Power-cards respectively. As in, if you don't draw them, you can't do anything. Sure, the more you put in your deck the better your chance of drawing them, but sometimes you just don't and instead sit there taking punishment unable to respond. Shadow Era (and probably other CCG:s as well) solve this by letting you sacrifice any one card at the beginning of your turn to get a "resource". This way you'll always be able to get that resource even if the choice of which card to sacrifice can be a difficult one. These resources can then be "tapped" every turn to summon allies or cast spells with which to attack your opponent, either directly or the allies he has summoned.
I've only played about a dozen matches in Shadow Era so far and all of them against the A.I., so I'm in no way an expert (yet!) but I feel I enjoyed the game enough to purchase some Shadow Crystals and have bought a handful of booster packs. The problem, of course, with a digital-only CCG is that when (not if) the game is no longer profitable it will disappear and so will all of your purchased cards. The game is online-only as your collection is stored on the Wulven server, and can not be played offline. I can still play Dreamblade if I find an opponent but if Shadow Era is discontinued I won't be able to play... Well, so far I've put about four euros in the game, so I'm not afraid yet.
The best thing (well, no, but a properly good thing) about Shadow Era is that it's available on a wide variety of platforms. Not only is it a downloadable application, you can play it in-browser (provided you install a plug-in) and it's also available for Android and iOS. I have it installed on my HTC Desire, and it's perfectly playable, although probably a lot better on a tablet than a phone - merely on account of screen real-estate.
Finally there's some Magic, but it's not in the Gathering!
It is filed in the category Boardgames with the tag(s) dreamblade, magic the gathering, mtg, spectromancer, shadow era, pokemon, cmg, tcg, collectible, dice tower
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