XCom: Game of the Year

Whats that you say? XCom: Enemy Unknown may just be more addictive than alcohol, smoking and crack combined times infinity? I can attest to that. When you thought you couldn't possibly say "ok, just one more turn" and its 5am... for the second night in a row.. it isn't Civ 5.. it isn't Heroes of Might and Magic. Its XCom.

I had serious doubts that the newest iteration of XCom was gonna be horrible; that 2KGames was going to bomb one of my most cherished pc games of all time. A game that I didn't fully understand how to play.. and a game that can be terribly hard if you don't have a solid strategy. A game that will whoop your butt and not give you any consolation prize.. nope.. the earth has been invaded by aliens all thanks to your incompetence. Goodbye!

If you played and liked the original XCom series: Buy it.

If you like turn-based strategy games: Buy it.

If you like Aliens vs Humans games: Buy it.

If you like squad based combat: Buy it.

If you like units that you can fully customize and upgrade: Buy it.

If you like a pure challenge, even on the easiest difficulty: Buy it.

If you want an insane challenge that'll bring you to the point of tears: Buy it.

I honestly can't say enough good things about the game and how happy I am to have picked it up; it makes me wish that I bought it on release day resulting in VERY tired mornings at work.. and probably resulting in 'sick' days. Its basically the XCom for this generation, like how The Dark Knight Rises is the Batman for ours. Its not 'good' is 'OMFG SICK.'

 Lets get straight to the bad; there are only two things that I can see that is bad about the game. Maybe three. One: when in a map with multiple levels (1st floor, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and more), the camera doesn't work well. You'll be wanting to move your units, but the camera will show you the level above, causing massive tactical errors. In areas such as these, mistakes such as this results in dead veterans; Ginger and Juan are now on the memorial having sacrificed themselves for the greater good. I really hope they fix this issue with a patch; it nearly makes the game unplayable. Two: the game seems short. In my first playthough, I went right ahead and started doing the priority quests, thinking that they expired.. (they don't seem to) it seemed like the game was progressing very fast story-wise. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised later, but it feels very fast-paced, when I want a little less urgency and a little more skirmishes with aliens. Three: Its so incredibly addictive. Those stories above about the 5am game sessions are true. I forced myself to sleep, knowing full well the past 3 hours I kept saying to myself: "ok, after this one scan, i'll log off." And something interesting always happened and the cycle happened again and again.

Phew. With that out of the way, we can talk about the great stuff. First: Graphics. Huge overhaul to the original and thank goodness for that. Knock on wood, no graphical glitches other than the wonky camera only in multi-level maps. And only one crash. Second: Customization. Just like the original games, you can customize your soldiers, use your name, your friends names, whatever. Make them look as much or as little in resemblance to you. When they level up, you get a simplified (more so than even Mass Effect 3 if you can believe that) ability tree; but the small choices make a big impact in the game for you. Third: Pick up and go. Well besides the 5am part, whenever you fight aliens, the map is a perfect size (atleast in the early goings) that you can normally complete one in under 10 minutes if you're efficient. It makes you feel like you're accomplishing alot and builds morale and a feeling that you're unstoppable (until your whole squad dies).

I could keep going on and on and on about how great XCom is, but I don't want to raise your expectations. Its a serious buy and totally worth the money imho. I thought this year many great games came out: Diablo 3, Skyrim, Borderlands 3, Mass Effect 3 etc etc. For the longest time going, I still thought, overall, Skyrim was the Game of the Year... Now? XCom wins hands down. No. NO! Hands down. Shuddapa your mouth; nothing is better than this game. Case in point: I haven't touched the game in 2 days in fear I won't ever go to sleep again.

Slow week going fast

Yeah that doesn't make sense.. a week where nothing really happens and you're just waiting for the weekend to come. Everything right now seems to hinge on my trip to the Bahamas at the beginning of January, but thats another story.

No real gaming news; WoW Cataclysm comes out next week; will NOT be buying it. YOU CAN"T FORCE ME!! lol It just seems too old an mmo, though I always have a hankering to play Ultima Online ;)

Haven't been playing much; been going through my photos that i've taken and getting rid of crappy or blurry photos. I did pick up Archon from Steam; its probably the only game that doesn't crash besides Civ5. I intend on possibly upgrading my RAM by Christmas.

I'm totally on Team Meat

Though PETA likes to have nude models to get their point across... Tie score.

The Turtle always wins... except in RTS

Two strategy games, two similar approaches.

In Homm5

I play a turtle-y game and once strong enough, I go all out and expand expand expand.
First turn, I'll buy an additional hero that has good skills and add the entire army to my initial army to be able to take on the guards to the primary resource mines which normally are only rank 1/2 at the most. Beyond that, ill attack any weak mobs where there is a high chance of winning with minimal loses and avoiding any fights where the bulk of my force would be defeated. I'd play a building game, every day/round i'd make a creature dwelling and ignore any general city improvements (forts[for creature growth], marketplaces, mage guilds [for spells]). Only once I have about two weeks worth of creatures of atleast the second highest rank, will I normally stack them into my original hero and stomp on the rest of the mines for the secondary resources and in particular the kind of secondary resource needed by my faction.

My second hero is pitiful, as I normally task him/her to simple resource collection, ferrying troops to my main hero or getting weekly resources, never getting any chance to level up, other than from free sources. At this point in the game, i've started saving up for the highest ranked creature's dwelling and if resources permit, i've started building forts to increase the growth of all the other creatures.

Once the army is strong enough, ill empty the creature dwellings (and my gold coffers), once again stacking them only into my main hero and leaving my alt hero with only one slave rank 1 creature, and charge towards enemy castles. Normally this large zerg is capable of taking out the first opposition with relative ease. I don't mix creatures from different factions as it hurts morale and the castle is usually empty anyways as my enemy wanted to deprive me of any creatures. Normally, unless i've lost a big portion of my army, I hurtle forward towards my next opponent until I finally get to a point that everyone is defeated, or I don't have enough monsters for the next battle.

By that time, i've either saved enough creatures from my home castle, or a turtle until there are enough to refill my army.

In Civ5

I tend to play the same way; I tend to leave my neighbors to their own devices. Normally decline open border agreement as from experience sneaky civilizations will settle in my own lands. I'll develop a small army to fend off any local barbarians, but normally only enough troops to eliminate one camp at a time.

Unlike Homm5 where 99% of the time, the objective is the elimination of your enemy and 1% its to find the secret artifact (which takes way too long), in Civ5 there are many ways to win other than the total annihilation. I've found that when in a pacifist mindset, ill go for the cultural victory. But normally any other form of winning is difficult as it just takes too long. Possibly, when the map sizes are humongous and armies too powerful would a technological or diplomatic victory be more viable. I don't have the patience to play such long games, and try to keep a session at about 3 hours and usually play on duel or small maps. Hence total annihilation tends to be the path I take; if any civilization is getting too powerful, ill normally take them out first, unless they're incredibly powerful, ill join up with city-states and conquer weaker nations to amass my own civilization.

Its much easier to amass an army in Civ5 than Homm5; in Homm5, even if you have the money and the creature dwellings, you're stuck waiting for the beginning of each week for new creatures to spawn in those dwellings. In Civ5 if you want to amass an army, you forgo making buildings and non-military units and just make troops instead. Because of this fact, it makes it easier to employ either a defensive OR offensive strategy.

How do you play your games? All-out aggressive style, balanced or defensive-minded?
Does it change if you play an RTS?

Lord of New Vegas

Fallout New Vegas has been completed:
- 56 hours per Steam (yikes indeed)- Energy weapon specialist
- Sided with: Mr. House
- Maxed Speech, Science, Repair
- Favorite perks: Meltdown (aoe blast when killing an enemy with a plasma weapon), Jury Rigging (repair a weapon with a SIMILAR (vs same) kind of weapon)
- Favorite Weapon: Gauss Rifle (with energy weapons maxed = insta kills)
- Companions: ED-E and Boone (until I betrayed the NCR at the end)
- Companion perished: Cass (didn't realize the Van Griffs wanted her dead.. oops)
- Cap (money) high: over $25k

I loved the game. In a quick rundown again; its exactly like Fallout 3 which is a good thing in most cases. It feels a bit bigger in size due to alot of instanced areas. Lots of companions that come with perks and can be upgraded. Crafting is nice, but lacks schematics like the previous version. Speech is HUGE. It seems like the VATS system takes longer to startup. Deathclaws are scary...

I'm on my way with my second playthrough as a evil, melee/unarmed monster with huge strength, endurance, agility and no charisma (it affects the amount of damage and armor your companions have; so it is important in most cases).. probably will side with the Legion or takeover the Mojave Wasteland by himself.

FYI in character creation, you don't need to select a trait (or 2) if you don't want. Traits are good in some cases, but they weaken you in other aspects as well. Being normal is sometimes better.

It's your call

Lack of posts last week due to some good work related happenings; basically chosen for a product development group that is actually rolling out next week. It was very thinking-intensive, so i'd come home mentally exhausted; it was great though.

Been basically playing the new Borderlands DLC (great to play again, but I have too many alts and all above lvl 50). One of the biggest problems in the new dlc is that there is no rocket ammo at the vending machines!! WTF is that?

I'd insert a picture, but the game is proving me wrong with my lvl 61 that it's probably just a level requirement... bah! You won this round Gearbox!

Haven't played Civilization 5 for quite a while.. don't get me wrong, its a fantastic game; its just its too addictive. You'll be stuck there staring at the screen for hours on end instead of getting anything productive done!! Its VERY hard to just jump on and play for an hour. VERY hard.

Very excited still for Guild Wars 2; i'd post some links, but running out of time; check out Hunter's Insight on the latest and greatest.

It wasn't too bad a monday.

Civilizations 5 Higlights - Happy Friday

V is dangerously good.
Another sleepless night tossing and turning b/c I'm thinking and dreaming of playing. One more turn and then i'm done.Till 3 am this time; this is bad.

Everyone is having their review.. so maybe i'll just talk about what sticks out, the good, the ok, the bad:

The new hex format reminds me of Catan (Settlers of Catan).
The removal of stacking units ontop of one spot makes placement crucial but better. I've been playing an archipelego map and there are islands that are so small, its hard to attack b/c only 1 or two units can attack it directly (vs bombardment)

To build units, you sometimes need strategic resources. These resources are not unlimited and usually in small numbers 1-5, meaning you may only get to build 1-5 units that require that resource. Don't think you can get away by trading resources with a civilization and then when the trade is done, you got free units. No. I noticed when the trade agreement dissolved, my Ship of the Line was 50% less effective and my opponents 50% stronger.

I still struggle with concepts of diplomacy such as Cooperation Agreements, Research Treaties (250 gold translates into 1 'free' tech.. but when? 30 days?). I can't tell from leader's cryptic wording whether they're happy, warning me or mad; this makes suggesting defensive pacts hard. Though it was authentic to have these leaders speak in their natural tongue, i would have been happy if they spoke english.

I can actually tell when looking at each city what citizen allocation does, or whether building structure that boosts my gold production at that city by 25% is actually worth it or not. It will clearly outline for you the production of the city: food, production, research, culture, money, etc. Big, bold, easy to find. Happiness is so much easier to manage; i can tell how low it's getting, and buildings affect happiness across the board; no longer is it based on the individual city (too much micromanagement).

The worker unit.. is unfortunately not the best to always automate. Near my capital was a hex that would have 4 production and 2 gold if it had a Mine. The silly worker, when set to automate, would always go there to build a farm instead, when around my capital clearly had many +3 food producing hexes.

Bombardment is a bit tricky sometimes. Sometime you right click on your target and instead of performing a ranged attack, the unit runs up point blank to the enemy. I have to remember more to press 'B' to manually aim and fire. Still trying to figure out the cannon/trebuchet/catapults and how they work; you have to 'set' them first, then maybe next turn you're able to fire.

The game is linked to Steam.. i'm not too sure which it affect this, but in the two LONG sessions i've played, the game has crashed to desktop once each session. Good thing Civ5 has build in autosave, also customizable to be shorter or longer (i'm set to every 5 turns it saves). No disc needed to play... the game does ask me each time what version i want to play; either directX9 or 11.... annoying.

Buying units and buildings is so much easier and makes so much sense now. You can buy anything, at any time, except units if you already have a garrisoned unit, which just requires you to move it out first. So if you have alot of money and settle a new city, you can essentially buy many/all of the buildings to make it grow very fast. There will be policies, wonders, talents that allow you to decrease the purchase amount

Civilization 5 is some Awesome Sauce

I would just like to say: Civilization 5 is amazing.

They're right; you're always saying "just...one...more...turn..."
And then you're late to leave to work. Or its 2am... and you feel like another 'short game.'
I'll write up a review on it, but if you don't like wall of text: Its different, but only in the super fantastic way. Its easy to pickup, even for people that possibly haven't played it before.

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Guild Wars 2 Concept: Downed-state

I like this concept of the downed-state in Guild Wars 2. If you're too lazy to read the link, it works like Borderlands; if you lose all your health, you'll go into this state in which you're immobilized but can still fight. In this state if you defeat a monster, you'll get back up with 3/4 health and shields. You have approximately 10-20 seconds (depending on talent perks) to defeat a monster, otherwise you'd die and res at the nearest save point. If you can't defeat a monster in that time period, a team member can run up and manually res you which takes approximately 5 seconds.

I remember playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the internet ages ago, in which i'd rack up points playing the medic by running around using the syringe and ressing anyone that had fallen. Fun times; I still had a good weapon to defeat enemies, but had the ability to heal people too.

This will really make a difference in the experience of an mmo I believe. Its not good enough to defeat your enemies in pvp, but anyone has the ability to res a person and come back to life on their own. Though people may not be used to not having set classes that heal, they may find being the support-heavy class instead will be just as satisfying, b/c in their own way (not disclosed yet) they'll be able to keep their teammates from falling.

I hope this downed-state is balanced in that, just like Borderlands (b/c Gearbox nailed it), it would be horrible in (say) a game of Capture the Flag, if half the team was in downed-state and the enemy was capping the points needed. What Borderlands allows you to do is to choose to res while in the downed state if you don't think you can defeat the monster, or if its just more convenient to go to the last save point. This would be good if you lost a skirmish and all ressed at the same time to be able to full coordinate with a stronger group than slowly filtering into the fight (and thus getting demolished 1 at a time).

I'm kind of on the fence on whether doing damage to the downed-player should make the downed-time bar go down faster. In the original Borderlands, damage didn't affect the time of the downed-state bar, you always had the same amount of time to defeat a monster. But in the Zombie DLC for Borderlands, if certain zombies (the slow kind) hit you while in that state, your time bar rapidly diminished. I liked that (some monsters cause the bar to diminish faster) b/c you'd have to be very careful when playing against that kind of enemy.

Welcome back Monday....

*slap!*

The only good thing about this Monday is that its the day before the release of Civilization 5.. so i'll forgive you this time.

Tokyo Game Show cosplayers here

And to poke fun at those Westboro Baptist Church fanatics:

Just One More... Turn...

There may be limited blogs this week as i'm having internet difficulties.. hope your week is going great!

Link link and link for lots of cosplay from PAX (i went to Fanexpo in Toronto and the line up to get a ticket was 2 blocks long in the scorching heat... and 1 block to get back in.. needless to say, I didn't go =( )

I borrowed my best friend's copy of Civ4 to brush up and get ready for Civ5... and i realized why I traded my old copy in: I could only play at the easiest difficulty and it was so complex that I never understood most of the concepts and just automated most actions. My strategy is just to go pure all-out zerging of the enemies' town.. one at a time.

Boring.. though addictive oddly.

September Wishlist

I'm looking on various sites, and i've only seen two games i'm interested in getting this coming month:

Halo Reach - Sept 14th 2010
I've only watched cinematics and very few actual gameplay trailers; I really only want to get this game b/c (1)there seems to be so much hype, (2) that my best friend and alot of people will be playing it, (3) maybe it was interesting like Halo ODST... but thats basically it. I haven't read much on it, but I think its probably pretty similar compared to other Halo games.

Civilization 5 - September 21st 2010
REALLY looking forward to this one. I can't remember that last turn-based strategy game that I was excited for besides Heroes of Might and Magic. I've played Civ4 when my computer would crash whenever I'd make a monument, the original nearly 10+ years ago on my father's friend's son's pc and I dabbled with Civilization: Alpha Centauri and even have the book. I wish I had one to practice before the new one comes out.

Am I missing anything?
What are you looking forward to this month?

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One thing I loved about DDO was the ability to grab onto ledges.

In most mmo games, developers probably remove this ability as it would break the game b/c it would allow players to get to inaccessible areas. In DDO it makes a big difference; for example, you thought it would be a good idea to explore the water in the docks area of the main city and found there was nothing there. You swim towards shore only to find only one access to the docks but its a good 2 minutes away. In a normal mmo, it would be a chore to have to swim all the way to that access. Instead in DDO, a character with some jump skill, is able to jump and climb up and onto the dock. Time saved. No longer are your arms only useful for holding weapons and shields.

Its a good thing.

The Best Friday there can be!

Your day just instantly became better:

Your future Bloodelf hottie, Alodia Gosiengfiao for the possible future World of Warcraft movie wishes you a happy Friday.

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For a rather good Civilization 5 preview from Kotaku, go here.

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Aha! I shall be able to continue to write more entries on Borderlands as there is apparently a new dlc in the works. It seems to heavily favor the Claptraps.

21 quests apparently in this one; 9 Main story, 12 side quests. No word on lvl cap increases or what lvl you need to be to access this area.

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Below is a giant touchscreen version of Catan... looks really cool :D