I thought we should end this year on a positive note, so I'd like to talk for a small bit about one of my favorite game series; the Anno-series. It consists of a number of games with the name "Anno" followed by a year whose numbers add up to 9. That is, Anno 1701, Anno 1404, and so forth.
The games in the series are as follows in order of release:
Anno 1602
Anno 1503
Anno 1701
Anno 1404
Anno 2070
Anno 2205
Anno 1800
I'd say start no earlier than 1701, because the two older games are starting to look their age.
The latest game in the series is Anno 1800, and I haven't played that yet. Looking forward to that in the new year!
All of the games are in the style of real time strategy mixed with a large portion of city-building. You build and manage your settlements on different islands, while also conducting trade, diplomacy, and war with other factions. A lot of the concept is based on the fact that a single island can't possibly produce all the wares needed to feed, clothe, and satisfy the whims of, the population. Thusly, you have to branch out from your starting island and establish trade routes between them.
If I were to describe the feel of the games in general it would be...serene and stressful. Yeah, that's contradictory enough! Thing is, the music, the ambient sounds, the look of the waves, it's all just so soothing. It makes it the kind of games you can just sit and chill with for ages, picking away at the various things necessary to build your own little nation.
But it's also stressful, because you'll have about nine thousand different things to keep track of at any one time, and a whole lot can do straight to shit if you neglect even one of them. Additionally, it's not the kind of games where you can just take things as they come, you better think ahead. If an enemy manages to land an army on your island, you've actually got a big problem, as they can cock up a whole lot of things for you. If it gets that far, you've failed, because you should have stopped that from ever happening. When you start delivering luxury goods to your populace, you've better be damn sure that supply line is solid and has enough supply of that goods right from the start, or your economy can be fucked.
Anno 1404 is so far my absolute favourite. 2070 is more modern, but some of the changes have made it less interesting. 2205 is the most futuristic one, but that has crammed so many mechanics into it that the whole idea of spreading out over islands and trading is gone in favour of having isolated regions where you simply build one settlement each. The whole aesthetic of 1404 is wonderful, from the way the towns look to the sound design, to the interface.
I do wholeheartedly recommend anyone to try out this series, 1404 in particular. It's intellectually challenging, but fair, and thinking things through in advance allows you to avoid a whole lot of pitfalls.
To sum up; buy Anno 1404, and have a happy new year!
tisdag 31 december 2019
fredag 13 december 2019
This is not a Fable!
To entertain myself, I have now been playing the remastered edition of Fable. Yes, that Fable; the one from 2004.
For those not in the know about these things, the game was perhaps most famous for the job Peter Molyneux, the head of Lionhead Studios, did in hyping it to the stars. He claimed that it would be the most beautiful, revolutionary, immersive gaming experience ever. A game that would allow you to experience a living world where you are free to interact with other characters however you want.
The game that was actually released was…not a good game. In fact, it was shit.
Now, I don’t think it would be fair to judge the game by the lunacy of Mr. Molyneux, and so I prefer to judge it on its own merits. That said, it was a curiously unfortunate thing for Molyneux to focus on hyping up the immersion factor in particular. See, there is none.
What do you think about when I say the word “immersion” in a gaming context? A living world with different people going about their lives? Being able to interact and converse with NPCs? Good voice acting?
The developers of Fable clearly put a lot of work and effort into making sure the game has absolutely none of those.
The NPCs are all the same, and every single one speaks in ridiculous phony british accents. They can have different facial hair, or a different hat, but they don’t have personalities to begin with, let alone different ones. The extent of your interactions with them is using stupid emotes, like flexing, laughing, or belching. You can’t talk to them, you can’t hold conversations with them. You don’t even have a voice. And I’m not talking in the way most player characters in RPGs don’t speak but you still choose lines of dialogue. You simply just stand there gormlessly. You can marry them, but why the hell would you ever want to?!
I suppose we have to get to the combat, but I don’t want to. It is atrocious.
It’s a pretty standard affair; you lock onto enemies one by one, and you attack. If you want to experience the joy of “Whack, whack, whack, bigger whack”, you can use melee. If you want to shoot slowly from afar, you can use a bow. If you want to die, you can use magic. Seriously, magic sucks in this game! It does less damage than whanking things with a sword, but you have a limited mana pool.
The targeting mechanic is a topic all of its own. It’s not good. Not good at all. It’s absolutely terrible. It’s a pretty standard affair; you pull the left trigger to lock onto an enemy, and you proceed to turn him into mulch. Putting a spanner in the works of this is the fact that whether or not you hit your enemy is not so much dependent on your relative position and direction to your target, than whether or not you prayed to the correct gods this morning. When the time has come and your enemy lies dead, if you don’t release the trigger you will automatically target the next being in the vicinity, without any regard whatsoever for their attitude to you. Yes, I’ve killed quite a few peasants in my day because the targeting system decided that they were the greatest threat and not the huge demonic beast slightly behind them.
I suppose that should be enough. It should, but it isn’t.
When you knock down an enemy with a strong blow, you just have to wait for them to slowly stand up again before you’ve even able to damage them.
On top of it all, your melee attacks have a wind-up time; it takes a moment to swing your sword before it connects. Naturally the enemies have no such limitation; they can attack instantly with no delay. Because if there is one thing that aids your immersion more than anything it is the feeling that the enemies play by different rules than you do.
The story is barely worth talking about, because it’s so bog standard. Your village is burned down when you’re a child, and you grow up to be a great hero who defeats the great evil and saves the day. During this journey you find that your mother and sister actually survived. I’m not leaving things out for comic effect, that is actually all that the story is about.
And the game world? There’s even less to say about it; tiny little areas that you can “roam” around for 2 minutes. It’s linear. The line goes back and forth, but there is no open world to explore.
I purchased this game not that long ago, and this is my very first playthrough. Have no doubt; there won’t be another. I actually had fairly high expectations. The game had gotten rather good reviews from all the review sites I frequent, and I was perfectly aware that the hype over it was nonsensical. Add to that the fact that Fable 2 was an excellent game, and it was all around a dour experience.
I’ll be back with a review of Fable 2 once I’m done with that. Maybe it’ll turn out to be shit too.
Toodles.
For those not in the know about these things, the game was perhaps most famous for the job Peter Molyneux, the head of Lionhead Studios, did in hyping it to the stars. He claimed that it would be the most beautiful, revolutionary, immersive gaming experience ever. A game that would allow you to experience a living world where you are free to interact with other characters however you want.
The game that was actually released was…not a good game. In fact, it was shit.
Now, I don’t think it would be fair to judge the game by the lunacy of Mr. Molyneux, and so I prefer to judge it on its own merits. That said, it was a curiously unfortunate thing for Molyneux to focus on hyping up the immersion factor in particular. See, there is none.
What do you think about when I say the word “immersion” in a gaming context? A living world with different people going about their lives? Being able to interact and converse with NPCs? Good voice acting?
The developers of Fable clearly put a lot of work and effort into making sure the game has absolutely none of those.
The NPCs are all the same, and every single one speaks in ridiculous phony british accents. They can have different facial hair, or a different hat, but they don’t have personalities to begin with, let alone different ones. The extent of your interactions with them is using stupid emotes, like flexing, laughing, or belching. You can’t talk to them, you can’t hold conversations with them. You don’t even have a voice. And I’m not talking in the way most player characters in RPGs don’t speak but you still choose lines of dialogue. You simply just stand there gormlessly. You can marry them, but why the hell would you ever want to?!
I suppose we have to get to the combat, but I don’t want to. It is atrocious.
It’s a pretty standard affair; you lock onto enemies one by one, and you attack. If you want to experience the joy of “Whack, whack, whack, bigger whack”, you can use melee. If you want to shoot slowly from afar, you can use a bow. If you want to die, you can use magic. Seriously, magic sucks in this game! It does less damage than whanking things with a sword, but you have a limited mana pool.
The targeting mechanic is a topic all of its own. It’s not good. Not good at all. It’s absolutely terrible. It’s a pretty standard affair; you pull the left trigger to lock onto an enemy, and you proceed to turn him into mulch. Putting a spanner in the works of this is the fact that whether or not you hit your enemy is not so much dependent on your relative position and direction to your target, than whether or not you prayed to the correct gods this morning. When the time has come and your enemy lies dead, if you don’t release the trigger you will automatically target the next being in the vicinity, without any regard whatsoever for their attitude to you. Yes, I’ve killed quite a few peasants in my day because the targeting system decided that they were the greatest threat and not the huge demonic beast slightly behind them.
I suppose that should be enough. It should, but it isn’t.
When you knock down an enemy with a strong blow, you just have to wait for them to slowly stand up again before you’ve even able to damage them.
On top of it all, your melee attacks have a wind-up time; it takes a moment to swing your sword before it connects. Naturally the enemies have no such limitation; they can attack instantly with no delay. Because if there is one thing that aids your immersion more than anything it is the feeling that the enemies play by different rules than you do.
The story is barely worth talking about, because it’s so bog standard. Your village is burned down when you’re a child, and you grow up to be a great hero who defeats the great evil and saves the day. During this journey you find that your mother and sister actually survived. I’m not leaving things out for comic effect, that is actually all that the story is about.
And the game world? There’s even less to say about it; tiny little areas that you can “roam” around for 2 minutes. It’s linear. The line goes back and forth, but there is no open world to explore.
I purchased this game not that long ago, and this is my very first playthrough. Have no doubt; there won’t be another. I actually had fairly high expectations. The game had gotten rather good reviews from all the review sites I frequent, and I was perfectly aware that the hype over it was nonsensical. Add to that the fact that Fable 2 was an excellent game, and it was all around a dour experience.
I’ll be back with a review of Fable 2 once I’m done with that. Maybe it’ll turn out to be shit too.
Toodles.
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