Sins of a PC Empire

Oh man that is a crappy title. It was either that or just use the actual title of the game that this post is about. Sins of a Solar Empire is the first RTS that I have enjoyed since the Warcraft III expansion. It is a mix of Masters of Orion III and Homeworld II in regards to what I have played that is. Apparently it is a lot like Galactic Civilizations II, but as I said I am basing this off what I have played. Linksplosion in this paragraph aside, SoaSE is the first time I have been excited about PC gaming in a really long time. Outside of WoW all of the FPSs that I have been playing are available on the console and usually look better there too.

It has the pacing of a turn based RTS meaning it is not a hotkey button mashing memory game. It also means you can sit down, relax and enjoy managing your galactic empire. It is near turn based pace though which can on occasion be a little too slow. I am a visual kind of guy, I like to see my ships fighting, exploding and ferrying around space. The graphics are a steep above Homeworld II and you can either get down in them or manage everything from the solar system level. If I can convince some friends to pick it up for some coop play, I can see myself playing for a very long time.

Site Watch
Always a fan of AV and more specifically home theaters I was thrilled to find the audio video interiors blog. It has some rough tutorials, but the main attraction is the user showcases. They have pictures of DIY home theaters that average Joe's have built as well as their parts list and budgets.

With a Sickness

Woe unto me, that I did eat greasy onion rings and consume copious amounts of distilled spirits on Saturday night. I then proceed to remove every ounce that I had taken in back from whence it came. I expected to wake up Sunday morning slightly hung over, but no worse for wear. I was wrong.

Sunday brought sickness: stomach pains, fatigue, coughing and sinus drainage. Apparently my body was on the verge of becoming sick and my imbibing Saturday night pushed it over the edge. Push is so tame, it felt like I filled up an old station wagon full of gasoline cans and drove it over a cliff with a lit cigar. I spent Monday and Tuesday laid up and at home as well. It was not a complete waste though. I caught up on reading, Discovery HD and my Pokémon training. Mostly sleep and drinking liquids though.

I started reading listening to Freakonomics over the weekend. So far it seems like a really interesting approach to the topic of economics. Although economics was one of the more interesting topics I studied in college, so it didn't take much to get me interested. A book that made accounting interesting, now that would be a grand feat.

Unfortunately, I being sick rewarded you (the reader) with this boring entry on me being sick. The post Monday about PC gamings decline was thankfully in the can late last Friday night. Hopefully this coming Friday's post will yield much tastier fruits.

Web Based MMOing

Talk about a niche market. The web based MMO is home to more games than you swing a cat at. I have sampled the fare on three occasions (Tribal Wars, OGame and Slavehack) and been left wanting. There is an itch that is just waiting for a big player to come in and scratch it. The issue lies with the lack of cooperate play. People play MMO's to play with their friends. Plain and simple, get that right and you could have a huge success on your hands.

Slavehack was my first dip in the pool and also the game that had the most potential. However my friends and I got in on the ground floor and essentially beat the game before we could appreciate the rest of the building going up around us. It has been developed and refined into what is probably the best game in the genre to date now, but I am hesitant to go back.

OGame and Tribe Wars (I'm currently playing TW) are very similar in game play, but differ in theme. OGame = Space and Tribe Wars = Medieval. They are both RTS games that are just stretched and placed in a persistent world. Players start with a base village and build up towns and armies. I say stretched because were upgrading your barracks in a traditional RTS might take a matter of seconds, it can take hours in a web based MMO. The goal is to become the most powerful entity in the land. The start is very micro, building up resources and farming the weaker players in your immediate vicinity. The end game becomes macro in a big way, you join a guild and start to wage war against other large guilds.

Conceptually that sounds like a lot of fun, the issue is with the lack of cooperative play with friends though. Joining the same server does not mean you will ever get to play with each other. If you join late you could be placed on the opposite side of the map (it is random). Even if you built up fast and caught or even eclipsed your friend you are still too far away to play with each other.

Site Watch
The COD4 mod tools came out on Friday, which means custom maps and mods coming soon. If you want to take a dip in that pool Infinity Ward has a great wiki up to help you get started. Good list of tutorials at MODSonline too.

Format Wars Follow Up

Format Wars

The high definition disk format war sucks. Blu Ray vs HD DvD makes me toss and turn in bed at night. Every time a netflix dvd arrives in the mail I cringe at the old formats short comings in an HD world. Even with upscaling. I hate that my cable HD channels look better than any DvD I put in. Even with HDMI cables.

The scales seem to be tipping towards Blu Ray (as seen above), but unless the major studios aligned with HD DvD are willing to switch then that is neither here nor there. It is either 100% compatible or it isn't. There are rumors and speculation about studios switching, but unless they actually have I will keep my nose out of it. Both formats are essentially the same, which leads me to think that alternatives have a big opportunity in the space.

The major alternative that has caught my attention is HD content delivered via streaming devices. Off hand Xbox live and iTunes come to mind, but there many more players players fighting for your television time. I think it is a safe assumption to say that HD disk won't be the smash hit that DvD was when replacing VHS. If anything once the format war is settled in 1-2 years they (Blu Ray) will make a modest profit and end up competing primarily with streaming media.

Site Watch
Over the years I have become a bit of a vocab geek. If I hear I new word I get excited and either ask the user or get the web and go hunting for origins and definitions. Definr has be come my go to in recent weeks for quick definitions. It is web 2.0ish in name and function and does everything I want it to do. The auto suggestion upon each letter added is the coolest feature and often helps me discover new words.

BioShock or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying...

Originally posted at WNE on 08/27/07

...and love the console.

I've been puffing my chest for PC gaming advocacy for years now. With only occasional dips in the console creek. I purchased an Xbox 360 for my birthday last September in what I would consider a weaker moment. The system usually collected dust outside of Gears of War and Crackdown. I beat and sold both within 3-4 weeks of purchase, they both had good single player elements, but nothing that truly grabbed me. They really shinned at cooperative play (co-op) and would have gone back to the store a lot sooner without it. Live has its merits, but only talking to one person at a time, outside of the game I'm playing, seems like a step backwards when compared to VoIP applications on the PC.

My slow slide towards the console starts with high quality single player games in high definition. This past Wednesday was the first time I purchased a first person shooter for a console since GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 (ten years ago). BioShock is the game that broke my video game console's back I'm afraid.

This game would look jaw dropping on a 15 inch CRT, let alone 50 inches in high def widescreen. Of course it is a raw numbers game, there are a lot of pixels and polys on the screen working over time, but art direction really ties it all together. The game play is engaging, there is a real survivor element to managing ammo and powers. There is five different ways to approach every fight and none of the them is necessarily the right one. Catch an enemy on fire and they will make for the closest water source (if one is available), when they dive in to put out the flames electrify the water to finish them (wow that sounds violent when I write it).

Ultimately the story is what really sinks in the hook. It is told through found recordings of small cast of characters and direct contact via in game radio. There is a slow progression to insanity that really heightens the experience. When you eventually get to fight against or interact with one of the characters it seems like you already know them or at the very least know their motivation. When I do actively think about what is going on in the game, it seems odd that everyone in this underwater paradise would record audio journals and leave them strewn about the world. It is a product of the game play though, the story is slowly trickled out to the player, keeping them transfixed.

To sum up, this is the first game that truly feels "next gen" in its approach to game play, graphics and story telling. This game is art, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Roger Ebert can bend over and kiss his hind parts as far as I'm concerned.

Ugh, I know another post about video games (doesn't he have another blog about games), two in fact. I promise no more after this one, well not directly, but man oh man this game is gripping.