I’ve spent the last week trying to take photos of the moon. It’s still not close to what I see through the telescope, but it’s getting better.

As I look at the stars from our deck tonight (seen above) I am once again incredibly disappointed in humanity. As a child I was promised space travel. It was an empty promise of course, and as an adult I should maybe have put those hopes aside. Alas, I can not.

Yes, we have the International Space Station, but it is a pitiful thing when compared to the space stations of my dreams. The epic structures of which I read, that I see in movies and which I walk through (and often blow up) in video games would only use the ISS as an antenna…. for the servants courters.

I honestly find it hard to believe that no one has been back to the moon. I mean really! What has happened to the sense of adventure and exploration? While I was initially shocked that NASA was for all intents and purposes giving up, perhaps the US are right to hand it over to private industry. They have really done fairly little over the decades since the moon landing. It’s embarrassing.

I really love what Virgin Galactic are doing, and I hope it all works out for them. It certainly looks to be, but time will tell. I want it to go well enough for them to fast track orbital tourism, and ultimately… build a damn moon base. Then we can go find those sneaky mars aliens.

In my last post I said I nearly finished a short story. Well, that was only half true. I did finish it shortly after that. But then rewrote half of it.

Its been submitted now. I made the mistake of reading it again after i did.  There was so much wanted to change again. If I didn’t just submit it, I could probably endlessly edit it.  Fun times. Writing a novel must be hell for perfectionists.

Writing again has been a lot of fun.

Shall I do more? Perhaps.

It has been months since I have updated this damn site. I kind of forgot about it’s existance.

So to update I have been playing games and reading. Pretty much the same ol same ol.

I have been writing again lately. Instead of writing a chapter of a novel and then stopping as is the norm for me, I have been writing a short story. The manuscript is pretty much finished. A few more tweaks then I’ll submit it. That’ll be new too… Guess well see if others can recognize greatness

Mostly I have just been enjoying writing again. Sometimes you don’t realize you miss something. Honestly it would surprise me if someone is willing to pay me for my writing. And what if they do that more that once? Shit, if would become like, a job. Eek. That would be bad.

Also… I hate Courrier (the font).

As written for ButtonMasher

Enslaved: Odyssey To The West is a third person action/adventure title set on post apocalyptic earth. While post apocalyptic settings have become all the rage (what pun?), the world Enslaved presents is pretty much the antithesis of what we’ve come to expect. This is no brown and grey wasteland, but rather a world so bright and green that you may be led to believe someone has messed with your saturation settings.

Enslaved was developed by Ninja Theory, who you might remember from such games as Heavenly Sword. Personally I quite liked Heavenly Sword, though I gather it was a fairly divisive game. All the same it is clear that they learned a few lessons from their previous outing. In particular the pacing is much better in Enslaved than it was in Heavenly Sword. Heavenly Sword’s greatest strength was its fantastic characterisation. It had great facial animation, good writing and fantastic voice work (in my opinion of course). It seems to me that Enslaved only builds on this. Andy Serkis is back to help them out (by directing) and did motion capture as well as voice work for the main character. He did a pretty good job.

The story of Enslaved is loosely based on the well known Chinese novel “Journey to the West”. However, this adaptation of the story is set 150 years in the future, where a global war has all but wiped out human kind. Alas, there are still plenty of angry mechs in good working order. The game starts off with a bang (damn these puns). The protagonist, Monkey, is on a slave airship. This is where he meets a fleeing chick that doesn’t look to have much interest in helping him out. Unfortunately for him, the airship is in the process of crashing. Climbing around on the outside of the ship looking for an escape pod while zooming over New York is pretty darn cool.

After some stuff happens and one crashed airship later (I wont spoil it for you) Monkey wakes up to find himself wearing a pretty headband. Unfortunately for him it is of the slaver variety. The aforementioned chick, Trip, “gave” it to him. Basically it lets her command him (you). It means you cant get too far away from her without certain repercussions. It also means that if she dies, you die. However, as far as gameplay is concerned it mostly offers benefits. It means that you can always hear her speak, it lets her show you things in your HUD, and it gives you some other ways to interact with her. So it is that the duo set off on a journey to find her home.

The game follows the now common action/adventure game format of platforming sections broken up by combat arenas. Platforming is not exceptionally difficult. There might be a little too much hand holding for most people’s tastes. You cant jump unless there is something to jump to. You can only jump to other holds or platforms, usually of the shiny/flashy/obvious variety, and it doesn’t allow you to jump to your death. While the platforming is not exactly challenging for the most part (it does get trickier towards the end), the environment you platform through are very interesting and visually appealing.

The combat sections are standard fare for the most part. You have some basic heavy/light attack combos, you have shield for blocking and a not so great evade. Most of your fighting is hand-to-hand with the use of a futuristic bo staff. During a few sections and boss fights you also get to use a “cloud” (think hover board). I wish you got to use that more as it is really kinda underused. Your staff also has the ability to shoot plasma. You can pick up two kinds of ammo along the way, either standard or stun. For me the combat straddled the line between awesome and tedious. That might sound odd, but I think when playing it most would agree. Most arenas give you some strategic options and when everything goes to plan you feel like a badass. Unfortunately too many of the battles bog down and go on for a bit too long. There are a decent amount of different mechs that have different attacks and a variety of strengths and weaknesses. I think that most of them just require a few too many smacks to the head before they go down, so you tend to have a small army of robots around you by the time one gets destroyed.

Trip, your AI co-op partner is pretty cool for the most part. It could easily have been a ten hour escort mission, but she tends to stay out of trouble and helps out a fair bit. You can ask her to deploy a holographic decoy that gives you a few moments to run to the next cover spot. She also gives you access to the upgrade menu (most of the time) and can heal you. While you don’t strictly need her to be in the game for gameplay reasons, her addition is mostly for narrative purposes. The interaction between her and Monkey is really what keeps the game moving along and their evolving relationship is a big part of the game’s appeal.

This review is getting a bit lengthy so I’ll try and wrap things up. The writing and voice acting in Enslaved is really good. While some of the battles bog down as mentioned before, overall the constantly evolving environments and narrative keep things moving along and provides some variety even when the gameplay is a bit rinse and repeat. Graphically, its not exactly a stunner but it looks pretty decent for the most part. There are a couple of spots where the game struggled a bit with noticeable drops in frame rate. This didn’t last long and were outside of combat so its not exactly a game breaker. I should mention that I had a couple of issues with one particular type of mini-boss, that if charging at me and hits a corner gets stuck in an animation loop (and hitting him doesn’t do much at all).

Overall, I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by Enslaved. Going into it I wasn’t really expecting it to be much fun. While I enjoyed Heavenly Sword, nothing I saw on it had me overly excited. As it stands, I have absolutely no problem recommending it. I had a really good time with it. The story was pretty interesting, the environments refreshingly unique and it has a pretty cool ending. Play it.

As posted on ButtonMasher

While digital games, aka video games are pretty awesome, there are some truly awesome gaming experiences to be had while removed from one’s television. I am talking about games you play on a table.  Crazy I know, but hear me out. The social interaction of these more traditional games is something that video games still don’t come close to (in my humble opinion of course). Over the next while I will be bringing some of the better examples to your attention. I know quite a few of the Mashers quite enjoy them already, but I get the impression most of you folks tend to stick to digital ones. I will discuss some of the better board games, card games and tabletop miniature games in the hope that by some slim chance you may be persuaded to give them a try. You might find you like them quite a bit.

In Part 1 I will talk about two of the most well known “Euro Games”. Euro Games (or German Style Games) are a category of board games that (according to the all knowing Wikipedia) “generally have simple rules, short to medium playing times, indirect player interaction, and physical components, which are frequently wooden player tokens or markers. The games emphasize strategy, downplay luck and conflict, lean towards economic rather than military themes, and usually keep all the players in the game until it ends. German-style games are sometimes contrasted with American-style games, which generally involve more luck, conflict, and drama.” The two games I chose to startthings off with are The Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne. I chose these two as these is at least a good chance you have heard about them if not played them. After all they can be found on your consoles, iPhones, iPads, PC”s, etc.

The Settlers of Catan can be said to have paved the way for these Euro Games in the US and other places not found in Europe. It came out in the mid 90′s and has sold extremely well (in excess of 15 million copies). I haven’t come across many people that don’t like it. It manages to have that magic formula, which is to say its mechanics are relatively simple, while its dynamics are quite complex. Also, as mentioned before, no one get knocked out of the game. This makes it a great  family game.

Players represent settlers to the island of Catan where you build settlements, cities and roads. The board is represented by hexes placed in a circle that represents the island. The hexes are placed randomly at the start of the game and have different images on them representing different resources.

In order to build on the island, players need to spend resources (brick, lumber, wool, grain, and ore) represented on cards. On your turn you roll two D6′s. The total number of the dice roll indicates which of the hexes will be productive during that turn (the hexes are numbered). Anyone with settlements or cities adjacent to these hexes get that resource. To spice things up a bit, a roll of 7 (the most likely number to be rolled) brings a robber onto the board. They can place the robber on any hex which makes that hex unproductive until he gets moved again.

Players are allowed to trade resources amongst each other at a rate agreed upon by the two players, or alternatively you may trade with the “bank” at a rate of 4:1. The goal of the game is to get ten victory points. you get points for settlements and cities as well as other achievements such as having the longest road or largest army. Armies don’t really serve much of a purpose in the core game. Resources can be spent to buy a development card. Three types of development cards include cards worth one victory point; knight cards (or soldier cards), which allow the player to move the robber as if they had rolled a 7; and a third set of cards which allow the player one of three abilities when played.

Most people will have a pretty good understanding  after the first game. However, there is a some strategy there that might take a bit longer to get to grips with.  It is really a very elegant game that everyone should try at least once. You can learn how to play it HERE.

Carcassonne is another popular and well known Euro Game. It was one of the first board games to introduce the idea of players building the game board as the game progresses. The game starts with only one predetermined tile. The other 71 tiles are shuffled face down. On your turn to pick a face down tile, and place it adjacent to any already played. The tile must be placed in a way that extends the features it touches. that is to say cities connect to cities,roads to roads, etc.

Once the tile is placed you may opt to place one of your meeple (miniature people) on that tile. It may only be placed on the tile you just put down and must be placed on a specific feature.  For example if you place it on a city portion, you then own that city.  You may not place it in a cit that directly connects to an unfinished city (or road or field) that already has another payer’s follower in another connected tile. However you can be sneaky and place it in a way that doesn’t connect, but can be connected in a future turn. If you succeed then you share the points from that feature. If you can get more followers in that feature than your opponent you get all the points.

That is the game in short. It really becomes a game of jostling for terrain, making it difficult for opponent to complete features, or attempting to annex theirs. It is a very simple game, but there is plenty of strategy in there. There are also about a dozen expansions that can really mix things up.

Thats it for now. These two games are awesome and I have spent a scary number of hours on them. I will be bringing plenty more interesting games to your attention in the near future.

Last week I had my first Flames of War games.  While it is still early days as far as rule comprehension goes, I was honestly surprised by the level of awesomeness in this game. As mentioned in a previous post, I used to play 40k, Warhammer Fantasy, Necromunda etc etc, so tabletop gaming isn’t new to me. Even with this history, Flames of War still surprised me. We played through the Open Fire learning games, and finished the night with a small game of Free for All.

AAR

Both sides had small armies.  Small as in scale, and small as in very few units. One platoon infantry and one platoon tanks.  Being the Germans, I was outnumbered, He had three more teams in his platoon and an extra tank. Sadly for him it did not help him.

He deployed his units concentrated  around the centre of the table edge close to the objectives. In response I spread out.  I was planning on marching my people across the table as quickly as possible and hoping for the best.  He has first move and moved (at the double) right towards me. I decided that seeing as he was coming right at me I’d hit the dirt and take defensive positions. My infantry was out of range so did nothing and went to ground. My StuG’s opened up and killed one tank and bailed another. There were some rules missed here regarding shooting at units moving at the double… oh well. This went on for a wee while but basically after two or three turns his tanks were smoking and a number of infantry gone. At this point my command tank left the other behind and shot along the left flank towards the objective. Alas because he took heavy casualties he had to take a platoon morale test which he failed ending the game.

Because no objectives were taken it was technically a draw.  But as he pointed out it was more like the “draw” depicted in Monty Python’s “The holy Grail”, as he had lost all his units, and I had lost…nothing.

Honestly it was loads of fun.  Battlefront supplied a copy of Open Fire! the FoW starter set for some stuff I am writing for ButtonMasher.  Those guys are awesome, and the Open Fire! set is really helpful. They currently busy updating it and I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

We have another game lined up for Friday which I am looking forward to a great deal.  I now have something more resembling a proper army. I need to finish the painting but otherwise its looking alright.  Should be fun.

Over the last couple of weeks I found myself thinking back the games I used to play as a “young adult” (read grumpy teenager). Mostly those of the tabletop variety, ie Warhammer 40k, Warhammer fantasy, Necromunda, etc. The more I thought about it, the more I started missing those times.  In particular the copious amounts of hours spent painting the little bastards. So, in the past weekend I walked into a shop and bought some things to paint, and some stuff to paint with. I spent the vast majority of Sunday painting and had an absolute blast.  It was a very relaxing experience, much more so than I remember. In saying that I used to listen to the gentle sounds of Pantera, Sepultura and the like while doing so.  I will be revisiting their soothing musical numbers next time…some things don’t change.

In retrospect though, it may have been a silly idea. The things I’ve been painting come from a WWII based tabletop game called “Flames of War”. I have found that there is much, much more in their catalogues I wish to have a go at.  And not just to paint…oh no, I now want to actually play the game as well. My  poor wife will not be happy.

All the same, I am pretty pleased with how the first lot have turned out.

Board games are  awesome. They have been around for quite some time, but have really come into their own over the last decade.  It seems that ever since Monopoly was invented, people  have deemed it unnecessary to innovate.

Well, that might be somewhat of an exaggeration, but really there weren’t too many new board games coming out that brought new ideas to the table (deliberate pun). There were a few really awesome ones before, but Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne really put board gaming as a hobby back into motion.

Life has been pretty busy over the last few months, which has meant precious little time for my usual activities (video games, reading up on crazy stuff on the net, updating this blog), but I have made some time for board games and I am stoked I that have. I am not exactly new to board games, but I have definitely had more of an interest in them over the last couple of months, and have acquired quite a number in that time. I will list a few of the top picks on the shelf with a brief explanation, though i will no doubt be looking at them a bit more closely over the next wee while as well as some of the other awesome games.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is definitely one of my favorites. It is a game all about strategy and tactics, with almost no luck involved. That is a huge bonus to me as I have terrible luck. It last just over an hour, but it has plenty of scheming and plotting.  Its not the easiest game to learn, but that is largely due to its “different” turn structure. There are a few games with similar mechanics, but if you are relatively new to board games it’ll take you while to get your head around it.

“The players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico in the days when ships had sails. Growing up to five different kind of crops: Corn, Indigo, Coffee, Sugar and Tobacco, they must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors; growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing San Juan with useful buildings, deploying their colonists to best effect, selling crops at the right time, and most importantly, shipping their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit.

The game system lets players choose the order of the phases in each turn by allowing each player to choose a role from those remaining when it is their turn. No role can be selected twice in the same round. The player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win.”

Agricola

Another favourite of mine is Agricola. Like Puerto Rico it is also a “worker placement” game.  However it does not share its simultaneous turn structure. That is to say during your turn you place one of your workers on an action, which means only you get to take that action for that round. The goal of the game is to build up your farm over 14 rounds. You only have so much time to build your farm and also feed your family, so things can get tough.  I haven’t played it a great deal as of yet, but I love it.

“In Agricola, you’re a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you’ll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?

The game supports many levels of complexity, mainly through the use (or non-use) of two of its main types of cards, Minor Improvements and Occupations. In the beginner’s version (called the Family Variant in the U.S. release), these cards are not used at all. For advanced play, the U.S. release includes three levels of both types of cards; Basic (E-deck), Interactive (I-deck), and Complex (K-deck), and the rulebook encourages players to experiment with the various decks and mixtures thereof. Aftermarket decks such as the Z-Deck and the L-Deck also exist.

Agricola is a turn-based game. There are 14 game turns plus 6 harvest phases (after turn 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14). Each player starts with two playing tokens (farmer and wife) and thus can take two actions per turn. There are multiple options, and while the game progresses, you’ll have more and more: first thing in a turn, a new action card is flipped over. Problem: Each action can be taken just once per turn, so it’s important to do some things with high preference. Each player also starts with a hand of 7  job cards (of more than 160 total) and 7 item cards (of more than 140 total) that he/she may use during the game if they fit in his/her strategy. Speaking of which, there are countless strategies, some depending on your card hand. Sometimes it’s a good choice to stay on course, and sometimes it is better to react to your opponents’ actions”

Race for the Galaxy

Race for the galaxy is one the latest  additions to by collection and is already rising to the top. It is tied in an odd way to Puerto Rico, in that it was initially intended to be a card based version of Puerto Rico. However the guy who designed Puerto Rico ended up making the official card game (San Juan) which meant Race for the Galaxy became it own thing.  It still shares a lot of the mechanics, and is in my mind a much better game than San Juan is. Because there is very little setup time and most actions are taken simultaneously, it is a pretty quick game.  However it is still a pretty deep game.  It has a nice combination of luck (random card draws) and strategy.  Also space is awesome.

“In Race for the Galaxy, players build galactic civilizations by game cards that represent worlds or technical and social developments.

Each turn each player chooses one action, but the others will share in the actions chosen, each player secretly and simultaneously chooses one of seven different action cards and then reveals it. Only the selected phases occur. For these phases, every player performs the phase’s action, while the selecting player(s) also get a bonus for that phase.”

I have also come across an awesome PC version that lets you play against some really tough AI players.  Very cool, and very free implementation. You can find it HERE.

Thurn and Taxis

In Thurn and Taxis you build postal routes through olden time Europe. It sounds boring I know, but its a really fungame. Its much simpler than any of the ones mentioned before, which means its one my wife will actually play with me. Shes not dumb, not by a long way, but in general I have found the females of this world tend to prefer games that are easier to get into straight away.  Guys tend to have more of a liking for more complex deeper gameplay that requires a bunch of thinking. Its a really fun game though and I like it quite a bit. It is also a really nice looking game which is a big plus ion my books.

“In Thurn & Taxis, players build post office routes across Bavaria and the regions around, collecting bonus points in various ways. The board shows a map of all the towns, with roads leading from each one to some of its neighbors. There are various colored regions around the board, most with one or two towns, and a large region with all the Bavarian towns in the center.

From a display of six city cards (or the top of the deck), you draw one or two cards each turn, add one or two to your route, and score for it if you’re ready to score. The fact that you must add at least one city to your route each turn or lose the whole route gives the game an enjoyable planning element.”

Star Wars is awesome because it has cool space stuff. The original trilogy may very have the look that it does thanks to the concept art created by a man named Ralph McQuarrie.  As you scroll through them you will notice that they look an awful lot like the movies.  Or rather, the movies look an awful lot like his concept art. I hear he is somewhat of an inspiration to many of the great concept artists out there, and looking at these it’s not hard to see why.

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Originally from io9, where you can find more