Beaten: Sid Meier's Civilization V (on 7/23/13)

System: PC
Status: Beaten

Civilization is one of those giants of gaming...that I've never had the privilege of actually playing until recently. To be fair, I wasn't much of a PC gamer in my youth, since my PC tended to be pretty low end, and console games were a much more consistent factor (didn't have to worry about the games running properly on those).

Civilization V for me personally, is a great game that I tend to get lost in for hours. I have put innumerable hours into this game, playing different Civs, different difficulties, trying for various achievements and the like. Even when I set it to the fastest game speed (which I always do), it will easily chew up a whole afternoon on its own. I only recently got the two expansion packs, which added whole new dimensions to the game. I can honestly say if you own Civ V, you need to get the expansions despite the price. It is more than worth it for the amount of extra gameplay they add to the base game. There really isn't much more to say about the game that others haven't, I can't compare it to previous games since I haven't played them, I just know this one is extremely addicting.

I have beaten it numerous times on various difficulties, though I am now just working my way up past the 'normal' range. I still have plenty of scenarios and other things to do to 'complete' this.

Beaten: Endless Space (on 6/29/13)

System: PC
Status: Beaten

Endless Space is a 4X game that I found last summer on sale on Steam, and while not the most ingenious or innovative game of the genre, it holds its own at least in my opinion, as an interesting diversion when I'm in a Civilization mood, but don't actually want to play Civ.

The same basics apply of course for any 4X game, you select how big your play field will be, how many players/AI, pick your race and what victory conditions you want, and then go. The game itself is set around various planetary systems that you work to colonize, building colony ships to get to new systems while exploring and finding your opponents on the map. On each planetary system, you will gain population, which will produce science, construction, money and food (FIDS is the in-game shorthand), which is used to help other aspects of your empire.This is generally improved upon by creating improvements in each system, which boost one aspect or another, though all of them having upkeep in the money department. Unfortunately, since you are supposed to rapidly expand as with any 4X game, this means a lot of the time you spend on each turn is building advancements in all the new solar systems to improve their output, so you spend a lot of time tabbing between systems, making sure they have all the upgrades they need (and remembering why you didn't make a certain improvement in a system, since in some cases an improvement would be terrible given the cost vs gain).

The combat itself is...more detailed than civilization, given that you can choose actions which have various rock-paper-scissors bonuses versus other actions, but it tends to only really matter when your military is very close in strength. You can actually custom create every ship your civilization makes, but most of the time you will make one or two designs, and just upgrade them as you get new technology. Nothing really heavily changes the ship designs later, other than the occasional space saving technology which you might need to slide in as it isn't an upgrade. In a long-term war with any other player, the combat gets very repetitive, as the AI will tend to send swarms of ships at you, even though they know they will lose.

The tech tree of the game is very deep and well laid out...which unfortunately means jack-all, since you don't really have any true choices in the tech trees. Each race starts with a basic tech already learned, which might save you a few turns learning it, and has certain special techs they learn higher up in the tree that give unique advantages. The trees are split into science (mostly new material discovery), war (duh), exploration (lets you colonize new planet types), and management (lets you have bigger fleets and lots of new improvements). However, there really isn't any strategy to your research or any true decisions to be made. No matter what strategy you are using, you need to research all the trees about equally. Choosing what to research first may give you a brief advantage in a certain area, and if you go deep in a tree you might get a heavy advantage with it, but the cost to your other research will cost you more in the long term. For example, if you are planning to conquer the galaxy you might think you need to research the war tree above all...which will bite you. You need to research management to field more than a few ships in a fleet and keep your people happy, and you need to research science to get materials that make those shiny new weapons, and you should research exploration to let your fleets move faster and give you more planets to work with. Spending 6 turns on a new war tech when you have a bunch of technologies that would only take one turn or less is a serious mistake.

Other than those quibbles, the game is fun, though probably decidedly average in the grand scheme of things. I tend to only boot it up when I want something Civ-like,  but don't want to play Civ.

Finished with normal AI, need to work my way up the AI difficulties.

Beaten: Front Mission 4

Beaten

Front Mission 4

System: PS2 (Playing on PS3)
Status: Beaten
Currently: Just beat the game, need to go again and do the optional simulators.

Ah, another game that while great, took me forever to beat. I do love the Front Mission series, especially this game with how it portrays fairly realistic mechs. Its a fairly old game by today's standards, but the graphics still look very crisp (barring the wonky trees of course), and the little details they put into the terrain and combat make all the difference in the game and its presentation. The only odd spot there is when people are talking, they have a still image with their jaw moving up and down...which...looks really weird. The voice acting itself is pretty good though.

The characterization and story of the game plays out well. It never gets too deep into philosophical nonsense that has nothing to do with mechs, instead pretty much sticking to the people, their job (or goal), and having you follow them along. The oddity being that the game actually has two stories, one based on a team in Europe, and one based on a team in Venezuala. You would think that with an RPG with two stories like that, eventually they would combine to one final mission...nope. Eventually they do contact each other and exchange information, but you never have a mission where you use both teams. So instead you end up ping-ponging between the stories, following and enjoying each separately.

The game play is fun and enjoyable, though very slow at times. Some missions you can chew through pretty quickly, others are rather rough, and you have to go slow so as to not make any mistakes and keep healed...and that can lead to a mission lasting thirty minutes or so. There is a quick save function so you can resume in the middle of a mission, but sometimes the objectives you need to accomplish are borked by early decisions. The AI is both stupid and brilliant at the same time. They tend to lock on to one target and never change no matter what happens, which is dangerous for you, but it also means they ignore more vulnerable targets. Units that aren't close to you will either get 'pulled' by you getting close, or are activated on a certain turn. Usually this means you slow crawl across the map, pulling units one group at a time so you don't get overwhelmed. The mech designing aspect is simple enough, and you can tweak it to your play style, though there are noticeably better styles than others. Still, with two teams who have different skillsets, you get to experience a lot of different mechs without having to retool everyone, or worry about switching guys in and out.

Overall, a very good game, and considering I got it used for like 10$ it was well worth it. All I have to do to complete it is to do the optional simulator missions, but that requires a replay through on new game+, given by the time I realized they were there, I was already past the point of doing them for the European team.

Daily Review: Valkyria Chronicles

Daily Review

Valkyria Chronicles

System: PS3
Status: Beaten
Currently: Just beat it, finally!

So yeah, I love this game, its unabashed. I'm really regretting it took me so long to beat it, especially since there are sequels on the PSP, and I actually have one now. Not to say its perfect, but it is definately a great game. Its really surprising that lately Sega has been making awesome games (Yakuza series as well), as long as it isn't Sonic franchise.

The game is beautiful, it is drawn in this 'paintbrush' style that makes the entire game look like a painting (including whitened out sections at the top and bottom). The world is a stylized Europe, set in pretty much World War 2, barring certain technology (Its all land war). As a strategy RPG, it works well, you have to carefully consider your movements, jump from cover to cover, guard your approaches, lay down covering fire, hide behind tanks, etc. The missions are usually quite fun, tossing you into situations where you have to adapt and adjust your tactics, and at the same time try to rush to get a good grade for more experience and cash.

Any gripes I have are really nitpicks, and some of them were misconceptions on my part, I'll handle those first. First of all, I played this game like Fire Emblem, and that was wrong. At first I would restart a mission if I lost someone who wasn't important....except all but the character's who you can not let die during the particular mission, anyone who falls you can run up next to, call a medic...then call again in the same mission. Once I realized this, I abused it, in one mission I had a mechanic who would run up, repair the tank, and get nailed by crossfire. I would call the medic, then at the next base I captured, call her up again, and go again. I literally had her shot down four times, and called back into action four times. As long as the enemy doesn't get to that person, they don't die permanently (but will if an enemy touches them).

The other weird part was realizing I could save scum. You can save in the middle of missions...I put the game down at first because I would go through a 5-6 turn mission, and screw up near the end, having to start all over. Once I realized I could save mid mission, I would save at the beginning of a turn where nothing really went terrible, and be able to reload if I made a really bad move. This saved me from having to start all over, and at times wasting hours.

So, other than those two misunderstandings, my main gripes lay in some minor elements. The first, is that for most of the game, the game is played as a straight war stories. There are some 'land battleships' that are too big to be believed, but its kinda acceptable with the mysterious fuel source they use. However, at the later part, you have super-powered beings tearing up battlefields, and the final enemy general goes 'one wing angel' and takes on your entire squad by himself. It doesn't ruin it, but its rather weird since the game would have worked fine as a war story (an idealistic one, but still a good war story).

The other nitpick is on certain missions, you're going to have to go into it, fail, and reload entirely. This is because halfway through the mission, something happens, and then suddenly the team you brought is useless for what the 'real' objective of the mission is. This is in general a complaint for a lot of RPGs, where you have to trial and error a boss, going back through once you find out what they do. Its not really good in any game, you should be able to figure out the boss as you go. In a rather realistic war story, its kinda silly that you have to presciently position your troops to get enemies before they can screw you over. Again, its a nitpick, once you know the happening you can usually give it one more shot and make it.

The story is good, the game is great (albeit stressful at times), the whole thing is very solid. If you see it and you like strategy games or war games, pick it up, completely worth it.

I have it listed as beaten, as the game has in-game medals that you can acquire, and you need to A rank all the missions along with getting all the weapons, maxing troops, etc. I'll consider it completed when I get all of those.