The Movies

The Movies isn't trying to convey any moral message like our previous entry, the apocalyptic Defcon. Instead it seeks to show you the dynamics of running your own movie studio, starting in circa 1925. You must construct business buildings, sets, and other supporting facilities and use them to hire your writers, directors, cast, crew, and supporting staff. Then you direct your staff to make the aforementioned movies in one of five genres: action, horror, sci-fi, romance, and comedy.

Movie quality, and how well it does in the box office and the awards ceremonies, is determined by how good the script is, how skilled the actors and directors are in the genre, how good the actors' and directors' relationships are with each other, how big a star the actors and director are, how skilled the crew is, how well repaired the set is, how much interest the audience has in the genre, and how novel the set or genre is. Quite a lot, huh? It allows you to use several different means to achieve making a good movie.

Actors and directors are interesting creatures in and of themselves. Their appeal is based on their image (fashion, looks, physique), star power, and salary. Interestingly enough, it is not based on their talent in various genres, talent just serves as a means to gain star power which is received upon making a good movie. This, I think, is pretty good commentary on the status of Hollywood today.

There's more than I can really cover in a blog post. The game has several more features which I could go into detail on, including the ability to allow you to make and upload your own movies to the internet, and the ability to customize the costumes and appearance of your actors and directors. It all reminds me a bit of the Sims, but instead of being so open-ended, it gives you a goal to work towards and many different ways to get there.

Once again, its another very tempting $20 game.

Defcon

Another one of the computer game demos I played that was among the cream of the crop was Defcon, a quirky little game where you re-enact the 1980's movie, Wargames. In the game you must take control your world superpowers strategic nuclear weapons in an escalating struggle to annihilate as much of the opposing superpowers' population as you can while defending your own precious civilians. The game progresses in a series of stages ranging from the peaceful Defcon 5, wherein you merely deploy your units and jockey for alliances, to the chaotic Defcon 1, in which LRBMs, Long-Range-Ballistic-Missiles, can finally be fired from your missile silos to attack any spot on the map.

Strategic forces at your command include the aforementioned missile silos, airbases where you from which you can launch nuke-carrying bombers or scout/patrol/intercept fighters, radar facilities for easily locating units attacking your territory, and naval fleets which in themselves contain a mixed bag of battleships (ship/air attack/defense), missile subs (Medium-Range-Ballistic-Missile Launchers), and aircraft carriers (mobile, water-born airbases which also have sub-hunting capabilities).

The elements of this game are simple and easy to learn, but the dynamics of play, even against an AI opponent, are incredible to watch unfold. I am sorely tempted to buy the full version so that I can play against up to six opponents (North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Soviet Union, Middle-East/East Asia) in a game of worldwide nuclear conflict.

This game obviously is walking a fine line in between being a strategic masterpiece and depicting a human tragedy on a level unseen in the annals of history in a manner just a little too realistically for some people. I am of the opinion that it is a gem of a game, but I understand the validity of the other side's argument. Fortunately, nothing like this has happened in the past, and hopefully nothing ever will in the future.

The icing on the cake is an advertised mode called Office mode, in which the game plays out over an extremely slow time scale. Unlike the regular 45 minutes to an hour and a half, the game takes place over the span of eight to nine hours and allows you to make key strategic decisions by only checking for a minute every fifteen to thirty minutes. The realistic time frame and long thinking times make this mode a hardcore strategist's wet dream. I only wish I could be in an environment where I could play a game properly in that mode.

Psychonauts

I'm sorry for the brief delay. I've become enraptured with the new video card I just installed. It is the first time I've played video games on my computer since the beginning of summer, and what fun it was!

Via the wonders of the Steam delivery service, I downloaded eight game demos to sample and play to wet my appetite for serious gaming again. I downloaded those games that people always told me were good, but that I never had time to check out. They will probably make for a series of posts.

One of the best of them, was the action/adventure/platformer Psychonauts. It is a game by legendary designer Tim Schafer whose credits include several huge hits from the golden era of adventure gaming: Grim Fandango, the Full Throttle series, and the Adventure Island series. Now I am a fan of old school adventure games because they combine two of my favorite aspects of entertainment: extremely humorous and well-written plotlines and puzzle-solving. Psychonauts isn't quite along those lines, but it is a gem in its own right. It is a 3d platformer with an incredibly creative plotline and a beautiful environment. In the game you play the role of a talented psychonaut, Raz (short for Rasputin), who is charged with diving into other people's minds and helping them sort out their mental problems. Along the way you become a more powerful psychonaut and gain access to new abilities which help you complete each level, collecting all of the various doodads and achievements along the way.

This is a gorgeous and mostly overlooked game from the past few years which I am contemplating going back to play more than just the demo. I would need a good gamepad, but the cost on Steam was only $20 to download and play without the CD.

Of course, none of this could happen without Harding being kind enough to start allowing Steam through their firewall last year. Before that, I don't know what I would've done.

Empire at War

Last night, I got to go back and play one of my favorite computer games of all time, Star Wars: Empire at War. It is a real-time strategy game (RTS) where you build and manage units of troops or ships, telling them to attack enemies, defend positions, scout for resources, or other various commands. What makes Empire at War so great, is that it is Star Wars, and it is done correctly. It was made by a group of guys called Petroglyph who used to work for Westwood studios on the Command and Conquer games. They brought Empire at War to a level of class and polish that was previously unseen in other Star Wars RTS titles.

The reason this game is so much fun, is because it feels like Star Wars. The space combat segment (what I played last night) has a simple strategy system that is lots of fun to execute. Fighters beat Capitol Ships, Capitol Ships beat Picket Ships, and Picket Ships beat Fighters. However, numerous little intricacies make the game come alive. Rebel capitol ships have the ability to augment their shields at a time of need, Imperial Capitol Ships have a tractor beam that keeps picket ships from running away, Rebel fighters can increase their speed temporarily at the cost of their firepower, and so on. All-in-all, this makes for a very dynamic battle.

Other than playing this addicting game, what sweetened the deal was getting to do so with my former and future roommate, James. We worked together as a team to bring down multiple AI opponents and had a lot of fun in the process. Of course at the same time we shot the breeze and caught up on how each other had been doing the last few weeks. What a great bonding experience it is to annihilate electronic star ships while talking about life!

This game makes me happy, because it makes up for previous Star Wars RTS semi-failures: Rebellion, Force Commander, and most notably Galactic Battlegrounds. Rebellion was great because you got to manage the entire galaxy, but it had a very poor combat system. Force Commander was an interesting game with some unique mechanics, but it was very difficult to control and poorly balanced. Galactic Battlegrounds was a fine game, but it was a direct rip-off of Age of Empires 2, and therefore didn't feel very much like Star Wars. I had fun with each of these, but they all also left me feeling a little empty inside. I'm glad that emptiness has finally been filled with the wonderfulness of Empire at War.