Mankind is in danger once again (nothing new there), but this time, it’s not because an evil supervillain woke up on the wrong side of the bed and decided to blow up the San Andreas Fault for some quick cash. No, the aliens aren’t invading either…Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman saw to that. This time, the enemy is much, much smaller and only Nano Probes can save the day.
Video Games
All posts tagged Video Games
Space…somehow I always end up back there, but I’m not complaining. My regular readers should know by now that I’m an avid Star Trek / Star Wars / Stargate / etc. fan and love strategy games that throw me from space battle to space battle. Endless Space, FTL, Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations…needless say, I was thrilled to give Planets Under Attack a whirl. Before we dive in, I’d like to thank Bernd Wolffgramm from TopWare Interactive for sending me a free review copy.
Ah, dragons. It’s hard to say no to a game that allows you to be in control of these majestic beasts…perhaps it has something to do with having the ability to breathe fire?
I’ve been playing FTL for roughly a week now and I can’t tell you how many times I had progressed all the way to the final boss only to have that mothership blow me to pieces. Perhaps you might be in a similar situation? Well, after defeating the enemy boss twice two different ways, I wanted to put together a little something for you new players out there who may not have grasped all of the game’s mechanics yet. Below are some general tips and strategies that might serve you well in your future FTL games.
“Scotty, I need more power to the shields!” If you’ve ever yearned for a good reason to scream this phrase at your computer monitor, then you’re in luck. FTL (Faster Than Light) is a “Spaceship Simulation Roguelike-like” created by Subset Games that tasks players with guiding a ship and its crew across the vast reaches of space. Along the way, they’ll encounter hazards that will test even the best of ship captains. With the right amount of skill and a little bit of luck, they will be able to make the journey successfully. Before we begin with the review, I’d like to thank Justin Ma, the artist and designer for FTL, for sending me a free review copy.
I’m going to take you back in time for a minute, back to 2003. A game released that featured a single player campaign throughout the vast reaches of space, though multi-player was available if one knew how to create a server. It was mainly a space combat simulator, though players could shy away from combat and just ferry goods in between stations and earn credits by buying low and selling high. You could purchase new ships, weaponry, defenses…the works. I still come back to it every now and again; because the game was fantastic…even the soundtrack was top-notch. That game was Freelancer.
I’ve never agreed with the title of this show, mainly because I consider a lot of the questions that are asked to be insignificant in relation to what the average person needs to know on a daily basis. What is the French word for above? I don’t know, but I’m fairly certain that knowing how to write a check and balance a bank account ledger makes me smarter than a 5th grader any day of the week. Anyway, I digress…let’s take a brief look at how the Wii version (the game I own) measures up in the grand scheme of things.
The original Orcs Must Die! game turned out to be a lot of fun. The action never dulled, the music was beyond epic proportions, and the headshots were oh so satisfying. It was a no-brainer when I saw Orcs Must Die! 2…I just had to see what else could possibly make the original game that much more appealing to play.
I’ve played many tower defense games, but I was unprepared for how both simple and complex this game turned out to be. You’re only tasked with managing five rows, but the sheer amount of different zombies that the game throws at you can be overwhelming if you aren’t familiar with your towers…erm…plants. This game turned out to be extremely popular…popular enough that Blizzard featured it in World of Warcraft as a mini-game. You’ve got plants and you’ve got zombies…what makes this game so special?
I played Virtual Villagers a while back, deemed it “OK”, and moved on. When I saw this game advertised on Big Fish Games, I figured it was more of the same until I got a closer look at it. Virtual Villagers, for those of you who have never played it, tasks players with managing a tribe that must complete all of the goals to win the game. Some of these goals are hidden and a lot of the gameplay involves the player figuring out what the next goal actually is through trial and error. Virtual Villagers runs even when the game is closed…which can be detrimental if you leave the game sit on its own for a while as your tribesmen/women can die off.
Life Quest was a recent purchase from Big Fish Games during their $2.99 blowout special. This is a single player game that places the user in the role of a teenager about to graduate high school. You’ll be competing against other classmates to finish certain goals before they do.
Virtual City shares a lot of commonalities with the Build-a-lot series, but manages to set itself apart through some pretty unique play mechanics. It still regards itself as a time management game and rightly so, as you’ll be struggling to find the best way to complete each mission’s set of goals before the time expires.
Airline Tycoon 2 had the Kalypso tag on it…and being a huge, huge fan of Tropico 3 and 4, it didn’t take much convincing for me to pick this up during Steam’s summer sale. The trailer promised customization of planes and routes…which appealed to me the most as I really enjoy finding the most efficient way of doing something. Did it live up to my expectations?
DOTA in space…at least, that is the first impression that I received when I fired up a practice game. DOTA, or Defense of the Ancients, is a mod for Warcraft III that took the game to a whole new level. To sum up DOTA, two sides have a base and towers in between. NPC armies spawn at the same time on both sides and automatically head toward the other base and attack anything in their path. The players themselves pick a hero and have free rein to attack the enemy NPCs and towers so that they can level up, earn money, and eventually make themselves strong enough to press through enemy lines.
A capture the flag real-time strategy game? Interesting. Under two bucks during Steam’s summer sale? Okay, I’ll bite…I can take the plunge for two dollars. I know how to live dangerously every now and again.
Welcome back to the second review of the series. As I explained in the review of episode one, all future reviews (including this one) will be a plot summary with my thoughts added in as I go. There will be spoilers, so do not read any further if you want to experience this episode for yourself.