The Origin of Forgiveness... A Humble Tale.

What would it take to get me to forgive? In much more serious circumstances than video games, I've asked myself that question hundreds of times. There are plenty of virtues I don't pretend to be particularly good at, but anyone who knows me well knows that I've got forgiveness on lock. I just can't maintain even the most justified of grudges for more than a year or two, and eventually I come back to that key question. What, if anything, would be enough to say "Okay, one more chance" to a person or organization? This isn't going to get any more serious from here on out, but I firmly believe in giving credit where it is due, as well as criticism where it is deserved. One company that I've had my share of bad things to say about online (like most gamers) is the real focus of this post. Electronic Arts, I think it is finally time to bury the hatchet.

I haven't knowingly paid for an EA game since Dragon Age 2.

It doesn't take a whole lot of detective work to find criticism of EA online. Virtually every practice that gamers hate about the video game industry has been practiced, if not pioneered by EA. Intrusive DRM, microtransactions, Day One DLC, Always-on Internet requirements (with failing validation servers,) incompetent customer service, churned out sequels to good games... the list of sins goes on and on. EA also has the particular quirk of acquiring much-loved studios and running their core franchises into the ground with terrible installment after botched sequel after failed launch. PopCap, Bioware, Westwood, Pandemic, Maxis and Bullfrog have all been butchered by bad decisions and worse press releases in response to criticism. You have to be pretty bad at this sort of thing to beat out Bank of America, TicketMaster and Comcast for Worst Company in America... twice.

What could possibly make up for all those years of missteps and unabashed greed? Offering refunds on games purchased on Origin sounds pretty good, right? It is a start, and something that Steam doesn't do, but I'm not on board yet, there's still a lot of wrong to make right. How about participating in a Humble Bundle, and having most of the games in that bundle redeem on Steam? Nope, not good enough. Even with "pay what you want," the best of the bundle still uses Origin, and many people, myself included, don't want that on our systems, period. Even reasonable pricing and Steam redemption feels more like a P.R. stunt than a gesture of goodwill, and after all, they are still making a ton of money on the Humble Bundle, right? Well, actually... no. I left out a key detail. 100% of EA's cut of the bundle is going to charity. That... that just might do it. It might still be a stunt, but it is a damn good one.

When I first saw this, I wasn't sure whether it made EA better, or the Humble Project worse.

Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Burnout: Paradise, Crysis 2 and Medal of Honor are all Steam redeemable and available for as little as $1.00. Dead Space 3 only redeems on Origin, but is also in the bundle before looking at bonus games. The "beat the average" games are Battlefield 3, Sims 3, Populous and C&C: Red Alert 3 – Uprising, though only the last of that batch can be redeemed on Steam. These are some of the highest-profile titles to ever grace a bundle, games that still have some profitability in them at prices much higher than a dollar (except maybe Medal of Honor.) Ten games, six charities. That covers a lot of recent disasters.

I'll even overlook the (recent) steaming pile that is Plants vs. Zombies 2, riddled with way, way too many in-app purchases. I'll forget about the debacle that was the SimCity Reboot. I'll even give the Madden Franchise a pass, despite the fact that it releases every year as a new game for what should, in any sane world, be a free or cheap annual update (an easy one, as I play very few sports games anyway.) I thought the whole Mass Effect 3 thing was overblown anyway, so let's throw that in there, done, gone, forgotten. This Humble Bundle stunt buys you one last shot to get back into my good graces... Dragon Age 3. That's the next game that I'll knowingly pay good money into EA's coffers to solidify redemption. Learn from the past, don't repeat the mistakes of Dragon Age 2... One. Last. Chance. Don't screw it up.

The Humble Origin Bundle ends on Wednesday, August 28^th.

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Blog Gadgets

E3 and the Next Generation of Consoles – My Thoughts

Another year, another E3, only this one is a biggun. Sony and Microsoft are about to release their Next-gen console platforms, and Nintendo's Wii U is already out, so the war is on. Only, I'm not sure I care. Don't get me wrong, like every other gamer out there, I read the briefs and watched the highlights of the press conferences. But I think back to the past twelve months, and I can't remember the last time I used my Xbox 360 as anything other than a DVD player or my Wii for anything but Netflix and the scale that comes with the Wii Fit channel.  My Wii bricked itself almost two months ago, and my feelings about that can be best summed up as "mild distress," and even that faded after a few moments.  I'm not gaming less, quite the contrary. It is just that the games I want to play are all on my PC, and they look better than the console version.

All credit to Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation for this... makes me laugh.

That doesn't mean that E3 won't affect me, or the countless others who have shifted to PC as their main (or even only) gaming platform. Many titles have a multi-platform release, and their development cycles take console hardware limitations into account. This means that after a new generation of consoles is launched, PC games get better looking too as the rising tide lifts all boats... and it means that my 4 year old Media Center PC probably won't cut it for the most technically demanding releases within a few years.  And despite all my posturing, it is likely that at some point I may break down and get one of the new consoles, if only to play that platform's exclusives. So, I'll run my thoughts down on them for you.

Nintendo - 

Ok, this company is officially with EA on my list of organizations I won't support with my money until I see some serious changes.  Why, you might ask? Well, if you've been reading here recently, or following me on Facebook, Twitch or YouTube (you are a class act, and probably very successful with the opposite sex, so I totally suggest you go do that,) you know that I've started streaming my gaming daily, joining the ranks of YouTube partners and wanna be Twitch.tv partners. If I had in my list of games that I stream, any Mario, Zelda or other Nintendo properties, you might think the Big N would love a fan showing his support and wouldn't begrudge me the few dollars my ads might bring in.  You'd be wrong. Nintendo recently filed a content claim to seize the tiny trickles of revenue "Let's Play" content creators make with their games.  Anger your most fervent fan base, generate bad press and discourage free marketing... all for amounts of money that are insignificant to a multinational corporation. Good job.

YouTubers are promoting our products and earning literally
 HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of dollars for doing so? As a multibillion dollar company, we've gotta stop that.

It is fortunate, then, that I have no interest in the Wii U as a platform. The console with controllers that act as (and frequently are used as) advanced handhelds feels gimmicky now. Most of the people who use them seem to be using them to cut the TV out of the equation entirely, whick makes the Wii U feel like a very, very expensive Game Boy/DS that has a "Base Station" you can't go too far from. Also, where are the games? Like the last few console launches, the lineup has been tepid at launch, and new titles are trickling out at a painfully slow rate. Nintendo has proven itself to be a company with its head stuck firmly in the past, making the same mistakes over and over again. As someone who was a Nintendo Fanboy and Nintendo Power subscriber from the very beginning, it hurts me to say that I'm done with them.

Microsoft - 

The other console I owned this generation was my Xbox 360. I suppose I've been a Microsoft console fan from the beginning as well, as I had the original Xbox as well. The internet is on fire at the moment with hate for the Xbox One, and I'm right there with them. Running down the reasons why is a pretty easy task, and most of it has to do with the console's hardware DRM. Locking down the Xbox One as a closed platform means you can't rent games or buy used without paying a special fee. Considering that rentals and used games comprised 100% of my 360 play in the last three years, already I'm out. Also, you can't turn the Kinect off, even when you aren't using the console, and the console needs to "phone home" using the internet once every 24 hours or you can't even play your single-player games. Internet based DRM, huh... how'd that work out for SimCity and Diablo 3? Traditionally, those schemes anger customers because the authentication servers go down and prevent legitimate paying customers from playing.

I don't think this one needs a caption.

Wait wait wait. I know, if you've been reading, you know how much I love Steam. Steam needs to connect to the internet, and I can't buy used or rent my games from there either. In fact, Steam itself is a form of DRM. Does that make my argument completely invalid? Nope. I've already committed to a platform that has many of the downsides of the Xbox One. Why do I need another one? I'm looking at the titles coming out, and I ask the question: "What can I do with the Xbox One that I can't do with my PC?" The only answer I'm coming up with is "Play Halo." Well, I don't care about Halo, so... that's that, then.

Sony -

So, traditionally, I've skipped Sony's consoles. I had a PSOne, and played on family and friends' PS2s, and even bought a game or two for them despite not having a PS2 of my own. I never even seriously considered getting a PS3. It was too expensive at the time, and I had my 360, PC and Wii already.  However, if I was getting a console in the next generation at all... it'd be a PS4. I'm not thrilled about PSN Plus adding a fee to play online, but they started the program of giving you free games with that fee (which Xbox Live is now copying.) No hardware DRM restricting used games, rentals, loaned out games, etc. No Kinect spying on you.  Actually decent looking exclusives announced at launch. And then there's the kicker: $100 cheaper than the Xbox One. I always try to get the most value out of my gaming dollar, and next generation, that dollar either stays with upgrading my PC, or goes to Sony.

Watching Videos of this and the Uncharted games makes me wish I'd just bought the damn PS3

It feels like this generation's console wars are over already, and the winner hasn't even released their product.

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Blog Gadgets

XCOM: ...and Now. (2012 Firaxis.)

I meant for this follow-up article to follow within a few days of my profile on the 1994 original. However, when I got the new XCOM on launch, I realized something. There would be dozens of articles within days of launch written by foks who had put a handful of hours into the game and written to hit a deadline. I knew after a few minutes playing that I was going to be into XCOM for some time to come, and the best way to talk about it would be from someone who had sunk enough hours into the game to consider themselves a veteran. In the last two weeks, I've sunk nearly 85 hours into this game, making it the second-longest played game on my Steam account, beating out Borderlands which I played weekly with friends for months, sometimes staying up all night. Early this morning, I finished the game in the manner it is intended to be played: Classic Difficulty, Ironman mode. I now feel qualified to talk about it.

XCOM has the guts to do something new.
 Instead of eventually beating the game being a matter of persistence, you can sink dozens
 of hours into a game of XCOM, and lose. Planet is taken by the aliens, Game Over.

So many of the reviews I read and listened to did the same thing. Spent a few sentences talking about what a good game XCOM is, and then the rest of the review talking about flaws, many of which were just design decisions they didn't personally understand. Make no mistake, there are a few bugs here, and they frustrate, especially in a game with permadeath and a mode which does not allow you to reload saves when something unfortunate happens. However, even in its current state, XCOM is a triumph. Turn-based strategy is a genre that is mostly found in niche titles or older games, with the notable exception of the Civilization series. XCOM has the potential to change all that, with a big-budget, slickly produced title that modernizes the gameplay and provides modern polish.

The game is, like the original title, about running a global organization to combat an alien invasion against a foe that outnumbers, outguns, and strikes without warning anywhere in the world. They start with weaponry that can kill a human or destroy a building, while the best soldiers in the world with our finest technology can only kill one of their weakest number with concentrated fire, assuming they don't panic before doing so. What provides hope is the strategic and tactical command of the leader of XCOM (you) and the researchers and engineers who take bits of alien technology and study and replicate it in order to develop new weapons, armor, ships and techniques for turning a bunch of scared rookies into a force capable of striking fear into alien hearts. Turn by bloody turn, difficult choices are made, and the tide slowly turns from barely surviving to kicking the aliens the hell off our planet.

You can customize everything about a soldier except their assigned class, Country of Origin, and gender. I named this squad after characters played by myself, my wife and friends in tabletop RPGs over the years.

In the strategic layer, you need to manage limited resources to build up the base, get satellites covering most of the globe, research and develop the tech for the soldiers on the ground, build and arm craft to shoot down UFOs and manage global panic to keep your funding in place. The game is played through the tactical missions, but won or lost based on the strategic layer. The missions are usually "find and kill all the aliens," but sometimes there will be a VIP to escort or locate and protect, bombs to defuse or civilians to protect. The pace of the game is careful and deliberate, with risky play resulting in failed missions, wasted resources and dead soldiers who need to be replaced with raw recruits. The best and worst turns of the game are when you make a minor mistake, exposing a new group of aliens to your squad's position, and your soldiers are at risk, even if they have advanced equipment and abilities.

Every soldier is assigned a class on promotion from being raw recruits, and as they participate in missions and kill aliens, they level up, gaining more powerul abilities. You can customize the soldiers, they gain nicknames automatically, and it hurts to lose a leveled-up soldier knowing it was your fault. That's going to happen. I lost surprisingly few soldiers in my successful Classic Ironman game, but two of them were Colonels (the highest rank) with dozens of kills each, and they died in the same mission on two subsequent turns. Each soldier can move twice, move and fire, or just fire their weapon without moving. Certain special class abilities or weapons require you to stay still, and others end your turn as though you had fired a weapon. You make hard choices. Save India, Canada, or Russia? Reload now, not knowing if you should instead get that soldier ready to fire on an alien you can't see? Try to outflank the enemy and risk alerting more to your position, or take a risky 35% shot and feel maybe like you wasted a precious action?

The result of poor planning, squad panic, rushing forward too quickly, or just plain bad luck.

Having played a bit with the multiplayer (point-based, competitive mixed squads of humans and aliens on static maps) and beaten the game on Normal and Classic Ironman, albeit with two wins out of thirty games attempted, I don't think XCOM is quite done with me yet. I might not take on Impossible difficulty with any degree of seriousness, but Firaxis is committed to long-term support, especially with a game that has done so well. Reviews have been nearly universally rave, and DLC is planned, with the first post-release content announced yesterday. A subplot focusing on China with custom maps and new missions will be the focus of "Slingshot," with a Chinese gangster available as a hero character, and the possibility of early access to a powerful endgame weapon as the reward. With more DLC planned, and the inevitable expansions and sequels, I feel bad. So much death is coming. Aliens, poor squaddies, and a whole lot more of my free time.

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Blog Gadgets

Surviving the Steam Summer Sale

Way back when I started this blog, one of my first articles with any significant content was talking about how great Steam is for unemployed gamers. You don't have much money, but man, have you got some free time. Even looking for a job as hard as you can, there's still more time for gaming than the average working person has, and sales, especially of the deep price cut variety, can help with the "not a whole lot of disposable income" end of the equation. As a veteran now of Steam Sales, I can share my learned strategies and talk a little about my purchases this sale week, and how they revisit both the Piracy and the DRM issues.

I've never been so excited about online shopping before. Twice a year, this is actually a legit event.
 I sometimes spend more time shopping for games during this than I do playing them.

Steam Sale Strategy Guide:.


1. Be patient.  Whatever the game you want is, it is probably on sale starting the first day of the sale. However, that first-day price might not be the lowest it'll go for the duration of the sale. In general, until the sale is over, you should wait until whatever you want is a featured item, whether that means the Daily Deal or, this Summer, the Flash Deal.  The Daily/Flash deal price is the lowest it'll go during the sale, and if it is never a featured item, you can still buy it at the normal sale price on the last day of the sale. Patience is rewarded.

2. Participate in the activities when you can. Whether you are completing achievements for tickets or presents, working on a Badge, or voting on the next Community Choice Sale, in general, there is some level of reward for the customer in being a part of the event. It is a simple deal, Valve wants you to be tempted as often as possible by looking at the store, so you are rewarded for doing so. Effective on all counts.

3. Watch for DRM, and decide if the deal is worth the hassle. Even though Steam itself is effectively an anti-piracy scheme, some publishers just won't let their own measures go.  SecuROM, Games for Windows Live, both... personally, if the game is good enough and the price is low enough, I'll deal with it, but be aware before you buy.

4. Check Package Deals and Individual Game Prices. Always. Sometimes, even when a game is on Daily Deal, buying it as part of a package saves money, or for a small amount more gets more games or DLC (Downloadable Content) by the publisher. Conversely, sometimes the package is featured, and you only want one item from it, but while the package is on special, each item within it is also cheaper.

My haul from this year was pretty good. I bought a lot in the first few days, as almost everything I really wanted on Steam was a featured item very early in the sale. I bought the Arkham City complete pack (Arkham Asylum GOTY, Arkham City + all DLC and Gotham City Impostors,) The digital deluxe editions of both the Witcher 1 and 2, Back to the Future by Telltale Games, and Crusader Kings 2. With this, I got  a little bit of everything I enjoy in terms of genre, and picked up games I'd rented or even pirated in the past with additional content.  Not only did Steam get me to virtually stop pirating games, but even the little piracy I've done in the last few years, I've evened the accounts at least in my own conscience by purchasing the titles in question.

I started playing this when I got it, and 10 hours vanished. Politics, assassinations,
birth and death and succession and war... and there is a Game of Thrones total conversion mod.

What is interesting to me is that all the intrusive DRM didn't stop me from getting a pirated copy of a game within a few days of launch.  A reasonably priced service from a company I like quite a bit got me to eventually buy those same titles, and endure the copy-protection hassles as a legit customer. That seems backwards. It tells me something that developers should take to heart, though.  Price motivates ethical behavior in a way that even the world's best DRM cannot, and treating your customers well means that the loyalty you've built up in that relationship will even make some of the most shameless pirates into good customers.  Don't punish the honest with expensive and ineffective means to fight piracy, translate the lack of licensing fees for that garbage into a lower price-point and build a rapport with your customer, and they'll stop pirating on their own.

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Blog Gadgets

Yet Another Humble Bundle – Voxatron, Blocks That Matter and The Binding of Isaac

I've written before about the Humble Indie Bundles and their many advantages, pay whatever you want, support charity, DRM-free Indie games that deserve our support, and these are all still true. I've purchased every one of the bundles I've encountered since I became aware of them, and have been extremely happy with my decision. Though "bundles" that are initially released as just one game, but frequently get more content added gradually are happening more regularly, they've consistently been a great value and the Voxatron Debut bundle is no exception. In this case, unlike the Frozen Synapse Bundle, the "main" game is the weakest of the titles (for now) included, so paying more than the average to get the bonus games is a must.

Let's start with that main event, available for any price, as low as $0.01, the Alpha release build of the Robotron-inspired voxel-based shooter Voxatron. The 3D graphics combines with an old-school aesthetic not unlike Minecraft in a shooting game that is unlike most of what I've played on the market. You play a character with a basic gun, the ability to move in all directions and jump, and when you shoot, it locks your direction of aim and movement together into a strafe based on where you are pointing. It feels like the arcade classic it takes its name from with the way movement and shooting interact, but the controls end up feeling extremely clunky, and that takes a lot away form the game. I've also suffered a few crash bugs and framerate slowdowns, but I expect these will be corrected in future patches. The one thing that saves this game from mediocrity is the fact that players can use an editing program with building blocks to build and add their own content and custom levels, and turning a community's creativity loose on your project is a sure way to ensure a lot of content (quality, and otherwise.)

The Binding of Isaac is a twisted little game that combines features of shooters, the original Legend of Zelda dungeons, and roguelike RPGs. The story is that of a child whose mother hears God's voice telling her to murder her son to prove her faith, and the weeping, naked boy escapes into his basement, which is filled with awful things. There are disgusting and hellish elements from bosses based on blobs of flesh with cleft palates, enemies weeping blood or vomiting flies, and upgrades related to the occult and implied child abuse. The arenas are randomly generated every time the game starts, power-ups and bosses are different with each playthrough and there are tons of unlockables and achivements to earn. The game is tinged with a disgusting dark sense of humor but it is never funny, images which could (and perhaps should) be shocking are rendered with a cartoon style that robs them of their power and just makes them part of the game world. If the concept of playing as an abused child using his tears as a weapon against demonic creatures and confronting his own fears and personal demons doesn't offend, you may find that the overall solid game design makes this one a lot of fun to play.

My personal favorite game in the series is the platform/puzzler Blocks That Matter. The game combines elements of Tetris and Minecraft to form a unique experience that directly pays homage to its inspirations. Indie Developers Alexey and Markus have been kidnapped, and their secret project, the Tetrobot is the only way they can free themselves. The robot can destroy and collect many blocks such as sand, wood and dirt, and is able to replace them elsewhere in the level, but only in shapes of four consecutive blocks, like tetris pieces. Parts of the four block designs may again be destroyed and collected, leaving bits to stand and jump on to reach other parts of the level. As levels progress, there may be massive spots where there are blocks that cannot be drilled through, but, like Tetris, any line of eight (or more) blocks can be made to vanish. Figuring out how to make the various types of blocks interact and being efficient with them allows for progress through the games many stages.

This bundle will be available until Monday, November 14^th, 2011 and the bonus games both have Steam and Desura activation codes. Like other bundles, bonus titles are available if the price chosen for the bundle is higher than the average for all bundles purchased thus far, so about $5.50USD (as of the moment) gets you all three titles, and any of these games is worth at least twice that.

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Blog Gadgets

Frozen Synapse: Violent Cyber-Chess With Perfect Tactical Simulation.

I've got more than a few video games awaiting my attention at the moment, so noticing that there was yet another Humble Bundle being offered was not great, in terms of timing. A further glance revealed that the bundle consisted of just one game (though several days later a second game was added, and paying more than the average of about USD$4.75 also gets the Frozenbyte Bundle.) When I noticed what the single game was, however, I snapped it up immediately. The game in question is Frozen Synapse, indie developer Mode 7's simultaneous turn-based strategy game. I loved X-Com, it's spiritual descendent Laser Squad Nemesis and Jagged Alliance is still one of my favorite games of all time, setting a tactical plan and then letting the violent results play out is really a thrill, especially when your plans work as you think they will. In my experience, that is rarely, so I find myself saving a whole lot in this sort of game and grinding through the more difficult levels. Frozen Synapse solves the issues with these sorts of games that made me do that, and made that cheesy "strategy" impossible at the same time.

Happy, sunshiny, soul-crushing Dystopia. But the internet is not only high-speed,
it is literally everywhere.

Frozen Synapse is set in a complicated and somewhat confusing cyberpunk dystopia, the City of Markov Geist. In this city, a complicated network called the shape that has features of both augmented reality and virtual reality overlays the real, physical architecture of the buildings and streets. The city is ruled by the megacorporation Enyo: Nomad who own everything in both the real and the shape, including armies of "vatforms," cloned humans capable of noting more complicated than moving about and firing a weapon. The player is called only "Tactics," as giving orders through the shape is his specialty. Tactics has been hired by the splinter resistance movement Petrov's Shard, a group funded with technology and funds stolen from Enyo: Nomad when its founder left the conglomerate. The goal is to liberate the city, with the help of a rogue "shapeform" (A.I.,) several double agents and members of the unwashed fringes of humanity, as well as an army of your own vatform soldiers.

The game is played through a tactical display connected to the shape, giving buildings, units and cover a stylized "Matrix meets blueprints" look. Tactics is only called in at difficult "chokepoints" in various sections of the shape where things get rough. These chokepoints are procedurally generated, so the terrain and tactical possibilities are different with every time a mission is played or retried. Orders given to the vatforms can be micromanaged to an insane degree, and freely tweaked until the final order is committed. There is no "I go, then you go" as all orders execute simultaneously. The play feels like the tactical display and command found in the Rainbow Six games, but with one huge difference. Nothing is random. Depending on cover, aim, range of weapon and movement, a unit that has the advantage gets a kill. There are short range shotgunners, medium range riflemen, long range snipers and the terrain-destroying rocket launcher troops.

The interface shows everything you need to know to plan your next move.

Every move, shot, choice of aiming or hiding can be simulated before making orders final, and if you can guess where your opponent will move to counter you, you can give that order and see what happens if you are right. Simulate several possibilities and see which plan gives the maximum advantage, commit the order and see if you were right. The single player campaign offers escort missions, traditional "kill all the guys" scenarios, objective defense and many other scenarios. However, the true replay value in this game is the multiplayer. All the same tools and possibilities used against the AI can be used against a human opponent in a tense game that resembles a version of chess where pieces are heavily armed psychopaths that all move at the same time. Multiplayer games play like an online version of a "Play by e-mail" as you submit your next moves whenever you are ready, even if your opponent is not, and get a notification when the system is ready to display results of the last turn and accept new orders.

The developers set up an excellent lobby/matchmaking system with advanced tracking of statistics and the ability to watch games in progress or archived replays of past games. Particularly good matches are easy to export to YouTube with a click of a button and though the graphics are stylized with blue walls, red opponents and green friendlies (with yellow NPC allies in single-player missions,) the violence of headshots or rocket launcher explosions is almost more graphic in how it has been abstracted. There is a wide variety of multiplayer scenarios, each with "light" and "dark" variations depending on whether both sides can see all units at all times, or if an opponent is only on your screen if one of your units has line of sight. I particularly like the scenario where players "bid" on how much terrain they can keep their opponent out of based on the random tactical situation presented by the procedurally-generated map.

A strategic view of the fight for Markov Geist.

This game is well worth the normal price of USD$25, but through October 12, 2011 the game can be downloaded for whatever price you choose at the Humble Bundle Site. Like other bundles, you choose what to pay and how much goes to the developers, the guys running the hosting site and to charity. You also get the soundtrack to the game (the music is quite good) and a Flash adventure game about a woman recovering in a hospital named Trauma. Both games work on PC, Mac and UNIX, and can be redeemed with Steam or Desura if you like, all DRM-Free. If you want to try before deciding what the game is worth, it is easy to pay a price low as $0.01 and then go back later and increase your donation to whatever you feel is appropriate.

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Blog Gadgets

Free To Play Again: A Look at Rusty Hearts and Puzzle Pirates.

Now and again, I check out the world of Free to Play MMORPGs. In years past, I'd have to rely on directories dedicated to the topic and download from a link to the individual game's website. Now, there is a growing Free to Play category on Steam, and I periodically check out the offerings there. What I look for in a game like this is, naturally, the same gameplay that I would like from a commercial/retail priced game. Of course, I expect that there will be both an in-game currency of some sort and a premium currency that can be purchased with real-world dollars, as these games are financed by the players who decide to buy something. I evaluate a F2P game on whether the options purchasable only with premium currency are neat options, or whether they are essential parts of the game. Games that provide too many in-game benefits for premium gear are "pay to win," and with too much content sealed off behind a paywall, the game isn't so much "free" as it is a glorified demo, shareware in disguise. With these criteria in mind, I've spent some time with two more games now available on Steam, Puzzle Pirates and Rusty Hearts.

Puzzle Pirates:

Towns, islands and decks of ships may get crowded, but you can pretty much teleport
 somewhere else if you aren't having fun.

This isn't my first time playing Puzzle Pirates, as the game has been around since 2003 and shortly after release I gave it a try. Three Rings Design has continued to add new puzzles and gameplay refinements over the years, and Steam support got me back in to see what had changed. Your character is a scurvy dog who looks like he/she escaped from a Playmobil collection and you are dropped into a world where virtually every task that can be performed is done so with a puzzle game. Players can work on or even own ships, become merchants, and attack other vessels or search for buried treasure. Back on islands, shops, inns and homes are owned and operated by players and working or playing in one of the many different buildings opens up new puzzles. Getting into swordfights, fisticuffs or drinking contests with other players have puzzle games all their own, and gambling on more traditional games like poker, spades or hearts can make or break a bucaneer's fortunes.

There's a lot of free content, with the basic puzzles to operate a ship available for free, including sailing, rigging, cannon operation, carpentry and bilge pumping. In-game currency is measured in pieces of eight, frequently abbreviated as "poe" and this money can be earned working ships for the NPC Navy or jobbing as temporary crew on a player-owned ship. Owning a ship, working a shop, or playing most parlor games are among the many activities that require a special badge purchasable with doubloons, the premium currency. Some of the locked away content is available to freeplayers daily, and many, many hours of entertainment can be had without spending a dime. Puzzle Pirates also gets major points from me on making premium currency purchasable with in-game money at a player-driven market exchange. Players can also join crews that may operate one or more vessels to launch their own expeditions, and buy custom furniture for player housing.

One of the many challenging cooperative or competitive puzzles representing labor in Puzzle Pirates.

As a character plays more of the puzzles well, skill levels in each of the games is tracked on a permanent profile. Characters can be visually customized with clothing and weapons that can be earned in-game or purchased with either poe or doubloons. Weapons can be used to make custom strikes in the swordfighting competitive puzzle, which is reminiscent of tetris, and is the last part of boarding actions taken when ships get into naval battles. Fist fighting is handled in a minigame that plays a lot like Bust-a-Move, with colored bubbles filling up the top of the screen that need to be "popped" by bubbles of the same color fired by a cannon from the bottom. Many of the puzzles are variants on popular puzzle games like Bejeweled, Dr. Mario, and Rocket Mania, with a piratey theme. I've won enough to buy a ship playing poker in a seedy tavern, brewed beer and clashed swords after a voyage spent cleaning and loading cannons or pumping seawater from the hold.

Rusty Hearts:

For now, you'd better like these three if you want to play Rusty Hearts, because even with customization, this is pretty much it... sometimes these guys will be wearing an afro or sunglasses, but little else changes.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is the beat-em-up Anime MMORPG Rusty Hearts. Currently in beta from Perfect World Entertainment, Rusty Hearts is set in a moody gothic gaslamp horror anime where mercenaries fight vampires and demons in the service to a psuedo-military organization. The cutscenes providing the backdrop for the world, as well as the environments themselves are very pretty. The story and dialogue options are appropriately hokey and translated about as well as any standard anime series or video game. As of this article, you select as your base one of three characters, so in public areas in low-level zones, everyone looks pretty much the same. The dour swordsman Frantz, the foul-mouthed witches' apprentice Angela and the wanderer-turned brawler Tude are the three currently playable characters, but there is a fourth in the works.

The gameplay is fairly smooth, with various special attacks unlocked and trained as characters level up, and basic attacking, grab/counter, block and combo maneuvers make gamplay feel more like an arcade fighter like Double Dragon or Golden Axe than a typical RPG. Monsters drop equipment and potions as well as cards which randomly are hidden in a grid of rewards the player can blindly choose from when a dungeon is cleared. Players are ranked at the end of a level based on combo length and special move use (style) compared to how many hits they take, to get a letter grade that affects rewards at the end of a stage. Gamepad support is present, and recommended to save wear on the keyboard, but customizing keybinds for gamepad leaves something to be desired. Unlocking harder difficulties opens up cooperative adventures suitable for a party, with rewards matching the extra challenge.

Boss fights feature tougher opponents and more complex strategies than the standard
chaining of special abilities and occasionally blocking.

If you can deal with every player being copies of the same three people all over the place, in addition to new skills and better equipment, eventually costume pieces can be unlocked to give individual characters a custom look. The fast route to these cosmetic modifications is premium currency purchased through the cash shop, but some costume pieces can be earned by questing or bought with in-game money. Players who don't care about the appearance of their personal characters will find that most of the game is free, cash shop items having very little impact on game power. There is also a PVP arena, a guild system and customizable personal quarters, plus a game bank and player auction house. The difficulty scales very well with how much time a player wishes to put in, so a solo/casual player has a good experience as well as the more involved players interested in partying up and tackling tougher adventures.

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Bastion – Indie Action RPG that is not to be missed.

I'd heard an awful lot about Bastion, and had a hard time understanding what all the fuss was about. This past weekend, I finally finished the title, and I get it. Bastion was first released a downloadable game, the sort of indie title you see all over Xbox Live Arcade, and it got rave reviews, and eventually made its way to PC via Steam, where it was a featured release. Some of the initial gimmicks are apparent from the demo, but Bastion is a game that continues giving based on what you put in, and most of the best of the game is left for the end. This bucks a trend I've commented on at length, where so many games focus on a strong opening and great buildup, and then cannot pay off the narrative, so they kind of "phone in" the ending. In Bastion, a gamer with a short attention span will miss out on something that I can call beautiful without fear of hyperbole.

Don't mind the anime-look or cartoon styling. There is nothing about
this game that I'd associate with any flavor of animation beyond visual design.

At the beginning of Bastion, your character wakes up from a post on a wall somewhere to find the world destroyed around him. We know this because as the world and controls are introduced, a narrator's voice tells us what is going on, describing the hero's actions (calling him only "the kid") as they happen. The narration changes based on actions performed, and the exceptional quality of the voice acting delivering the over 3,000 recorded lines gives a lot of the emotional weight to what might otherwise be a decent, but unspectacular, action-RPG hybrid. As the kid walks through the ruins of his shattered world, bits of the ground form up under his feet where he's about to walk. A few basic weapons are found, and we start to get into the heart of the gameplay.

PC controls are pretty simple, left-click for melee attacks, right click for ranged, tap the space bar to roll out of the way of danger, and hold shift to block with a shield or lock on to a target. WASD moves you around, the mouse controls targetting and the E key is typically used to pick up items or interact with the environment. The kid carries around blue tonics to restore health, activated with F, and black tonics to power his special skills, activated with Q. There are a lot of different melee weapons, ranged weapons and special skills to find and unlock throughout the game, and different combinations may make certain sections of the game easier. In addition to finding weapons and abilities, each weapon can be upgraded with items found throughout gameplay and "shards" of the shattered world. Passive bonuses such as extra damage, more tonics or higher movement speed while blocking are chosen for slots that open up as the kid gains levels.

Static screenshots really don't do this world justice, it must be seen in motion.

All of these upgrades are processed through buildings which can be constructed, and yes, upgraded at the Bastion, a floating home base/sanctuary that was to be used in case of disaster. Each structure can be built upon completion of a level, and the player chooses which order to build many of them in. Combat and exploration is fast-paced and fun, and character advancement and customization integrates well with the theme of rebuilding a world piece by piece. If this was all Bastion had to offer, it'd still be a pretty good game for the $15USD price tag. These elements are probably the least of the reasons I like this game. Gameplay is great, but what gets me is a good story, well told, and though it takes a bit to get rolling, this game has that.

The story is revealed bit by bit in the narration, details left out in earlier scenes explained a bit at a time at a perfect pace to match the tone of the game. The combination of the art design of the levels, the tone of the script and history of the world that was Caelondia before The Calamity, and what it has become creates a unique and internally consistent setting. Bits of character development for the principal characters are earned, line by line in dreamlike sequences where the kid fights wave after wave of creatures, each wave rewarded with another part of the story for the character we're learning about. The music, in particular the pieces with vocals, add to the atmosphere, and the soundtrack is amazing on its own merits. Some of the best scenes in the entire game owe their impact in large part to the music playing in the background.

Once the reasons behind everything that has happened, from The Calamity to events that unfold as the game progresses (which I won't spoil here) are revealed, the game pulls off a really neat trick. Games love presenting players with choices, especially difficult ones. The problem is, it is not easy to write a set of meaningful decisions without either one choice being obviously better in some way, or making the decision difficult by virtue of all presented options being things you'd rather not do. I hate it when games do this. It is poor writing to make a choice only meaningful because I need to choose between two things that are approximately equally unpleasant. Bastion has one of the most thought-provoking and difficult "Would you rather?" choices I've ever encountered to make at the very end, and another choice where you have to decide between someone getting perhaps what they deserve, and doing what is noble at great potential cost to yourself. Both of these situations are brilliantly crafted, and the payoff for making either choice made for an ending that had me smiling throughout the credits.

This is not a particularly expensive game, nor is it a 40-hour epic, but there is a decent amount of replay value, for at least one more go-round, and there are plenty of Steam achievements and ways to customize the difficulty (for greater reward) in-game. Collecting, achieving and unlocking everything possible will make this a hefty amount of content for a game that is a quarter of the price of a typical new release. Solid action, incredible story, and a game that manages to be beautiful and at some points kind of sad, while making the player think about the questions posed by the story... This one is a winner.

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The Humble Indie Bundle: Support Charity and Indie Devs, Fight DRM, and Pay What You Want.

 I know I just talked about video games yesterday, and I make it a point to keep my content varied so people can come back at the end of a week and see if what I had to say on one or more days lines up with what they personally find interesting or not. I'll break the rule I established for myself on this occasion because this is important. If you are into the indie game scene or follow the news on certain social media sites, you may have already heard of the Humble Indie Bundle. This project is as close to a “win for everyone” as anything I've ever heard of in computer gaming. Things the average gamer claims to like: good games by smaller studios, fair pricing, companies that support good causes, and no DRM. The bundle has all these things.

It isn't just about the games, this is important to a lot of us.

The spirit of the Humble Indie Bundle is one of positivity and trust that if given the opportunity to do the right thing, most people, gamers in particular, will expend great effort to see that whoever provides that opportunity is rewarded. Games in past bundles have included such popular titles as World of Goo and Braid, which both enjoyed moderate success as downloadable titles from console services like Xbox Live Arcade and Nintendo's WiiWare Store. The pricing of these games? Whatever you want. Any amount from a single penny to thousands of dollars in US currency is a valid an accepted amount for purchase. The average chosen amount for the current bundle as of the publication of this article is $4.78, and the largest amount paid (by Notch, the creator of Minecraft) is $4048.

The current bundle, which was released July 26^th and will be available until August 9^th, contains the games: Crayon Physics Deluxe, And Yet It Moves, Hammerfight, VVVVVV, and Cogs. These titles are a blend of puzzle, platformer and physics-based action games. I'd previously played demos for more than one of these and I am very happy with my personal purchase of this bundle, contributing to the cause. More than half a million dollars in sales has been generated in the first day that this bundle was made available to the public, and it is set to break record sales from previous bundles (highest ever was $1.8 Million USD for Humble Indie Bundle 2.) Funds from this game (the portion allocated to developers, more on that in a bit) go directly to game developers, bypassing any middlemen.

This and Crayon Physics Deluxe are in the early running for my favorite of this Bundle.

The contribution of gamers to the success of such a bold experiment is great for the industry, and proves in some small way that the prevailing “wisdom” of the big studios that a game can't be a success without restrictive anti-piracy DRM and a $50-$60 price tag... Well, it is just plain not true. Not only can gamers set their own price, but they can decide how the money they spend is used. Through simple sliders, every gamer can choose what percentage of their personal purchase goes to the game developers, the company that hosts and pays the bandwidth bill for the bundle, and two charities. It doesn't hurt that the charities are personal favorites of mine, either.

Donations to either of these charities can be turned down or off if you don't agree with what they stand for, but that wasn't a problem for me. Child's Play, founded by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade is a charity by gamers to provide games and toys to children in hospitals, dealing with illnesses, conditions or injuries and the fear and pain that comes with them. The charity was founded in response to the public disputes between crackpot anti-game crusader Jack Thompson and Penny Arcade, as well as the entire gaming community. The other charity for the Bundle is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting rights, especially those of free speech and privacy issues online. I've given to both of these organizations before, and will happily do so again in the future.

It is tough, considering our politically polarized society, to assign "Good" or "Evil" labels
to non-profit organizations, but I'll go ahead and say it. These are the Good Guys.

Despite the ability to “name your price” and the good causes associated with the project, there has been quite a bit of piracy associated with the bundles in years past. I've struggled with the ethical questions concerning piracy for years, and despite my views moving toward the center on this issue, the average person would still probably say that my perspective comes down on the side of the pirates. That said, I have nothing at all reasonable or nice to say about the poor excuses for human beings for whom a single penny is too much to pay in support of something like this. Titles in previous bundles suffered from piracy rates in excess of 25%, people not only taking free copies of the game, but using up all that bandwidth to transfer the files. I excuse anyone who made a large donation in anticipation of downloading multiple copies for friends unable for one or another reason to pay themselves from my opinion on this subject. I understand that the rest may never feel bad about their actions in this, but if there was ever a line to draw with what should or should not be pirated, this is it.

For people interested, the games are available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, and come with product keys to redeem the games using either Steam or Desura, whichever you prefer. I hope that in my own small way, I can provide a little more exposure to something that is such a Good Thing.  I am contemplating running a contest of some sort in the next few days, with one or more bundles as a prize for the winner. The value and the causes are both so good that despite my being out of work for going on six months now, I'd buy a few more copies.  I'll think on that soon, but in the meantime, I have 5 new games to play.

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Champions Online: Free For All – Review

I'm a fan of a lot of things that are associated with Champions Online, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by Atari. It is a superhero MMORPG, it is on Steam with a TON of achievements, it is based on a tabletop roleplaying system, and it uses the Free-to-play model. This isn't my first superhero MMO, as I played City of Villains when it launched as a companion game to City of Heroes. There are a lot of places an MMO, particularly a Free-to-play one, can stumble and falter, ruining the experience. Any MMO can suffer from tepid character creation options, unsatisfying or sparse content, server/lag issues, overly harsh penalties for death and/or forced interaction with a community that may consist mainly of unpleasant people. “Free” MMOs have additional potential pitfalls. Every Free-to-Play game has content available for purchase with real money, that's the business model. Entice, and have players willingly pay through microtransactions for additional content. Having too many features locked away behind a “paywall” can easily create a situation where a player feels like they were promised a game and given a demo. So, how does Champions Online Hold up under these critera?

Can Champions succeed where City of Heroes (arguably) failed?

Character creation in Champions is, in a word, amazing. Free, or Silver members start by choosing one of several “Archetypes,” which behave like character classes. Additional Archetypes are available for a small fee, and Gold Members (the monthly subscription option) can create a completely custom hero archetype. The sheer amount of cosmetic options for character customization at creation is mind-boggling, even without purchasing additional costume pieces with Atari Tokens. Head/face and body can be tweaked with custom sliders for control over precisely how the person in the costume looks, and when creating a character's costume, I've never seen another MMORPG with as many different custom bits. Tights, capes, insignias, horns and helmets, weapons and accessories, jetpacks and mystical artifacts can be added, re-colored and moved around. Some costume parts are unlockable through gameplay, others are free for Gold members or a small fee for Silver.

The content available in the game has the advantage of almost three years of updates and refinement based on subscriber feedback. Normal missions are fun, usually tied to a larger plot involving supervillains who will be encountered at the end of a quest chain, and suitable for either solo or group play. Combat is dynamic and representative of the genre after one or two powers past the starting basics are earned, with a single hero taking on groups of minions with a whole lot of flash. With only a few levels under your utility belt, the combat makes you feel like a hero. In addition to basic missions, there are daily instanced missions, public missions tied to specific areas of the world (like a prison breakout that needs to be stopped) and PvP Arenas in the “Hero Games.” Of particular note is the “Zombie Apocalypse” PvP match where heroes fight waves of zombies until killed, and then return as zombie versions of themselves and join the other side, gaining points on each side for survival time and kills. Some of those matches are as good or better than any PvP experience I've had in an MMO.

Android, Samurai, Wizard, Beast, Soldier... If you can imagine it, you can probably make it.

The usual MMORPG features of Auction House, Bank and Crafting Systems are present, with the ability to store, sell or disassemble the different power enhancement objects dropped by villains based on need. Power sets are tied to origin, chosen at the beginning of the game based on your preference for Mystical (gods/spirits, spells and magic items,) Science (cybernetics, altered/mutated DNA and radiation or chemicals,) or Arms (Training, weapons and gadgets.) None of these features is particularly revolutionary, and some of them seem included just to sastify the expectations of the genre, but they perform their role adequately. Guilds are present as well, predictably as Superhero Groups/Teams.

On the technical/mechanical side, characters are randomly assigned to an instanced version of the city, mission location or zone each time they change from area to area. This controls lag and server load without the need for multiple servers, and you can always tell which instance you are in if you need to meet up with friends to form a group. Game mechanics allow for increasing or decreasing combat difficulty and the corresponding rewards from defeated foes. This difficulty adjustment can be important, as there is a penalty for being defeated in combat, though it is not overly harsh. A hero respawns without need to run back to a corpse, but as a penalty, a “hero point” is lost, which reduces damage and healing done for each of the 5 points, represented by stars that can be lost though “death.” Hero points are regained by completing missions, defeating foes, or donating resources (currency) to charity.

My hero, The Arcane Eye, bringing his Sorcerous might to the Gangs of WestSide.

In terms of how much “game” there is for someone who chooses to spend nothing at all to play, it is a LOT. Aside from three purchasable adventure packs, all of the content is playable by free players, and the level cap can be reached without paying a dime. Most of the features that can optionally be purchased with Atari credits (bought with real money) are things like additional character slots (you get two free,) more inventory space, costume change slots and specific costume pieces. The features that are locked away to free players are tempting, but there is a full game there without any of them. I really prefer and respect the riskier choice to provide most of the game for free, and hope that the players like it enough to support the company with a few piecemeal features here and there.

The world of Champions has a nicely diverse cast of foes from gang members and thugs to supervillains, many NPCs and missions paying respect to pop culture references. I've encountered missions paying homage to A Clockwork Orange, Big Trouble in Little China and even Anchorman. The NPC cast of other heroes as allies to your character is handled in such a way that even though they are famous and powerful, your character isn't overshadowed, as you hear citizens talking about you and your exploits. The single greatest feature in making you feel like your character's personal story is part of the world is the Nemesis system. At level 25, you can create your character's own personal Arch-enemy. You design your villain's look, theme and even the appearance of their henchmen, and start getting missions to oppose your own archenemy. In true comic-book style, your personal foe may take advantage of moments of weakness, sending agents to attack while you are busy fighting other villains on a mission. I've never seen anything quite like this, and am looking forward to fighting an archenemy of my own design, the Joker to my Batman.

The villain creation system is unique, and more in-depth than the character creation system in any other MMO.

By nearly every test I can come up with for “Is this good?” Champions Online passes with flying colors (no pun intended.) If I was forced to find a complaint, despite the PvP options presented being good, there aren't many of them, the community in general, as it is with many free games is often hostile and juvenile, but there is no forced interaction with them if you don't want to wade through the trolls, scammers and elitists to find other decent strangers to game with. I also haven't tried grouping much yet, but have heard that traditional tank/heal/dps strategy works, but not as well as say, in WoW. With the exception of single-target boss encounters, tank type characters can't expect to hold aggro on everything the way you can in fantasy MMOs and most of the best healing powers are only available at higher levels except to the dedicated support archetypes. Overall, these complaints are exceedingly minor as compared to all the good things found in this game. Definitely worth your time if you like superheroes or MMORPGs, and you can't beat the price.  

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Civilization: I don't quit playing, I go into remission.

This week in PC gaming, two things happened in two days for me. As a result of the Steam Summer Sale and the generosity of a good friend, I received a copy of Civilization V on Tuesday. Yesterday, Sid Meier's CivWorld for Facebook went into Open Beta. Playing so much Civ in two different forms in the last few days got me to thinking about my history with the franchise. I've now played every PC civilization title in the “main series” (excluding Call to power or any ports of console/moblie versions) and have played several board games based on the concept. They are always intensely addictive, and I never really stop playing a title entirely until the sequel comes out.

The pharaoh pictured is actually buried beneath all the work that piled
up for him while he was playing Civ. 

The original Sid Meier's Civilization was published by Microprose in 1991to immediate critical and commercial success. Starting as a group of nomads with the bare minimum to found a small stone age settlement and protect it, the turn based strategy game challenges the player to “build an empire that will stand the test of time.” Cities are founded, buildings within them created and the population is managed as military units explore and possibly go to war with other fledgling empires. Scientists labor at technological advances from basics like pottery and the wheel, through ages of time to building electronics, tanks and even nuclear weapons. Special bonuses are given for the civilization to first create “Wonders of the World,” projects of great cultural and historical significance such as the Great Wall and the Pyramids. Victory can be achieved through military conquest or technological supremacy by sending a successful colony ship into space.

As sequels to the game were released over the years, refinements and additions to gameplay and graphics improved things in many ways. “Great people,” individuals born with the ability to impact history in some way were added. The concept of culture as a tangible and trackable statistic used for slightly different things in different incarnations of the game was incorporated. New victory conditions, special powers for each of the cultures you may select at the beginning of the game and changes concerning politics, diplomacy and trade developed from sequel to sequel.

If your neighbors bug you, blow them up.

Civilization V made some significant changes in the gameplay of the series with a cleaner interface, a move from square tiles to hexagons, and a different approach to combat and diplomacy. For the military-minded civilization player, the largest change is the elimination of the “stack o' doom” where piles of units could be stacked up in the same location. Deployment is more strategic and combat more dynamic with a limit of one unit per hex and ranged units able to fire over close combat units in support. On the diplomacy side, city-states have been added, single city nations who are not working towards a victory condition and with whom trade, war and negotiation is possible. Each opponent is working toward their own victory condition, and if you are ahead, it may be difficult to convince one of the other great empires to work with you. They don't want to lose any more than you do.

It is also worth mentioning that multiplayer support is better than ever, with the addition of single-computer hotseat play to internet and LAN gaming options. Community mod support is in the main game's interface, making it easier than ever to explore and use content created by fans of the game and pick and choose what you want to add to your experience. Downloadable content options include official “Cradle of Civilization” map packs and civilization expansions, adding more options to the already fairly robust set of features in the base game. Overall, between the gameplay changes, graphical updates and features both new and refined from previous games impressed me a lot, and I'm sure I'll disappear into this one for some time to come.

On to CivWorld on Facebook, a social game that made a whole lot of promises, and I believe that it delivered on quite a few of them, but it is not without its flaws... and one of them may be the game's Achilles' Heel. A lot of gamers have strong feelings about social media casual games. I neither love nor hate them as much as a lot of folks who have written about them, I can take or leave them, and see potential in the genre. Most social games are individual affairs with limited cooperation or competition with friends on the social network, and no real overarching goal aside from “get farther/do more.” That's not inherently bad, as the same can be said about a lot of other gaming, including many rpgs. CivWorld is collaborative and competitive with each player running a city, joining a civilization and contributing to their nations success or failure against other civilizations made of other players.

The elements of building up cities, collecting resources and armies and reasearching new technologies are all present. Culture, great people and wonders of the world are rolled up together in a single system where culture contributes to the birth of great people and great people collaborate on Wonders for their civilization. Cooperating with many other players to win “era goals” as time goes on is legitimately fun. Minigames exist to get a little extra science, culture or gold, and gold coins can be used to purchase extra production, food to increase population and military units, among other things. There's a good balance between “sit and play all the time” and “log in now and then for a few minutes: in terms of contributions.

The dangers of not investing in a military are disastrous one-sided conflicts.

There are a few downsides to launching this sort of game on this sort of platform. Though there are multiple paths to round victories, civilizations with large numbers of players find achieving many of those goals easier. The network stress of so many people playing also sometimes makes unusual and frustrating glitches happen, especially with joining or leaving a civilization. The thing that I like least is the method that in-game currency purchased with real money can be used. Though there is a limit on how much can be spent daily, “CivBucks” can be directly spent to get more resources usable toward victory. A Civ with multiple people willing to do this is at a competitive advantage, and you are also individually ranked in the game, something that CivBucks can affect directly. This leaves kind of a bad taste in my mouth, but I'll continue to play for free for as long as it is fun. At least they didn't commit the Cardinal Sin, in my mind, of requiring a player to spam or recruit friends in order to progress.

Overall, the play with history and strategic empire-building in a turn based environment is something both of the games I started playing this week do fairly well, and I'll stick with both of them for the time being. I remember waiting for Civ IV on launch day, the tragedy of accidentally breaking my play disc for Civ III, and how many times I lost all track of what time it was telling myself “Just a few more turns.” For now, I'm off to look in on my Greek Empire. We just discovered machine guns and the nearby Romans are rattling their sabers... which is appropriate, because that's about all they've discovered in the way of military technology.

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