Game 91 - RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 - Week 174 - Apr 23

ollerCoast Tycoon 3

From the get-go it's obvious there's a new target audience in mind - the art style appealing to anyone in a family range to straight up children. It’s like if the Sims 5 changed it’s style to Chibi. But after playing Stronghold and now this - it's pretty clear in my mind that for this type of game Spritework > 3D. I wonder how successful Factorio would be if it was in 3D. Hell if StarCraft 3 released with a sprite mode, how much would that pop off? That being said there are immediately a few clear advantages to being in 3D.

The first being the Coaster Cam. You can take the POV of a passenger and watch your ride. This is absolutely a fantastic way to enjoy your ride and more city builders/sims should do this (Dungeon Keeper 3 please!). Imagine taking the POV of someone in Train Tycoon watching the scenery or Anno 2070 and seeing a day in the life of a citizen. I can understand why they don't do it as they'd need to test and polish the game from a non-isometric perspective and RC has the advantage of most its attractions being external. But how good would it be to see the defence/assault of your Stronghold walls from the POV of an archer, old handler, or offending knight, just like the OG cutscene. I do wish you could do this with a single customer from the gate and experience a day in the life of your theme park from food stalls, to the spookiest ride to vomiting after undertaking the highest thrills. Even though it would have been next level I understand why they didn’t do it – requireing internal modeling for anything with a roof over it (unlike the Coasters).

The second is terrain manipulation. You can create a lot more interesting theme parks with elevation and decreases. Not something I’ll ever really want to mess with outside of creating some kind of mountain forest theme park with lots of water rapids. In general the terrain reminds me of Unity and shitty textures when 3D games were still getting their foot on the ground in the PS1-2 era.

Starting off with the tutorial was a pain. It was very dry and way too complicated especially for its target audience of children. Like 10 mechanics to learn each with 50+ text boxes with potentially hundreds of words. 10x50x50-200(50)=25,000. That’s basically a novella and kids are meant to pay attention to this? It does a terrible job demonstrating mechanics as well. Like how to connect rides via pathways. Hold down on the path and drag up or down to elevate/decline. Or once you place use the arrows on the pathway UI to select which direction they’ll go. It's not explained like that. It felt like I was reading a procedure manual for a task at work going back and fourth when it should have just been narrated and or show a little animation. Additionally there is nothing intuitive about this UI and coming off Tropico 4 it was hard to adjust. For example when you select stuff there’s no sounds to indicate you’ve selected something instead it’ll appear in the bottom right and likely go unnoticed that you’ve done so. Everything in the menu is hard to find and stuck to the left. Between the art style, UI and tutorial the first impressions of this game was not good and by the end of the tutorial I was so drained I didn’t want to play at all.

Something that bothered me was there’s not pre-built rides. The way I want to experience this game is place a lot of rides and try to micromanage the infrastructure of my theme park and min max all the attractions to gain revenue. Then at the end build a capstone ride as the park’s Magnum Opus. That being said I did give it my best shot and built a !@#$ing phenomenal ride if I do say so myself. It took maybe 2 hours in total. I am a noob and would expect this to be significantly improved in some time. Though I will say linking up rides was an absolute bastard. It feels way harder than it should be to create rides that loop in on themselves and have epic peaks and drops, twists and turns. After finishing it and basking in it’s glory it was ready for the grand opening and... to my surprise no one came. Not a single person went on the ride except the Parking Inspector. That’s because the ride nausea and intensity is 16 but excitement is 0. First of all how can intensity but 16 and exhaustion 0 – that’s an oxymoron. Unless you’re saying nauses negates excitement entirely (which would also be ridiculous that that’s possible). When and how is this explained? I remembered I needed to add themes to the rides to make them more exciting – but for some ridiculous reason they’re not available in the first mission of the campaign. Why would you even allow custom rides then if this is the main tool (as shown in the tutorial) to get people to use them? I had a similar issue in the tutorial where you couldn't explore, only select what they wanted you to. I actually found myself enjoying building the ride. Piecing it together over existing rides and terrain was a novel kind of puzzle. But to put so much time into a custom ride and then nothing… I won’t be doing another custom ride for a while because why risk seeing no use from it. I’m not sure the simulation elements of this game should be this hardcore especially considering, as I repeat myself, it’s meant to have a childlike target audience. What child would be paying this much attention not the terrible tutorial to not waste their time like I did? The coaster sim mechanics also feel like they were poorly implemented and when they realised no one would understand them, tacking on ride events to allow people to increase excitement. I have no issue with ride events, they’re cool, but allow me to remove those mechanic’s so I can just saw them to attract people’s attention instead. It feels like there should be a difficulty slider that limits these mechanics or perhaps just implement them better (i.e. don’t allow a mechanic but not another that’s required for said mechanic to work).

If that wasn’t bad enough the ride also messed up the elevation of terrain. Somehow building the rollercoaster elevated a tile by one inch, blocking all customers from the back half of the park and breaking the park. Tried the smooth mechanic and this broke the entire park by blocking the entry way. In the end I found a tool that could let me elevate a tile on an angle and that fixed but my god is it unintuitive. I reinstalled RC2 just to see the difference – and immediately upon starting a scenario I was struck by just how much better it is. The sprites have just held up better. You might say that’s just nostalgia but I’d disagree. I played Stronghold 1 and 2 and thought the exact same thing. But aside from that there are a lot of noticeable differences. The UI is so much easier to use – so much so that a tutorial was completely unnecessary. Compare that to RC3 where I had to go back to the tutorial because I couldn’t find what I was after… You have the option for pre-built and custom by default which makes them so much simpler without having to manage the design and excitement of a ride and also gives you a reference point if you decide to build your own ride. The entrances are built into the ride and match the theme, just hook up the path and off you go. The rest of my time can be spent on micro-managing my park and spying on guests just as it should be - only as the timing or funding allows I'll bother to create a custom ride.

Sorry everyone - Mother Gaia has deemed the park closed.

I might come back to this game as I don’t feel like I properly explored it. Maybe when Gabe blesses the coasts of Australia with the almighty Steam Deck. But I wouldn’t be surprised if this remains on the shelf as I rarely crave for Tycoon games beyond the nostalgia of playing the originals.

Game 90 - Space Hulk: Deathwing - Week 174 - Apr 23

pace Hulk: Deathwing 

Alien inspired Space Hulks? Deathwing Terminators? Yes please. As a Dark Angels player on the tabletop this game called to me. I tried to get into this a few times with friends to little success, never getting to the second mission. Which is a shame because it was quite fun and it’s definitely geared towards multiplayer over singleplayer. But after looking at multiplayer lobbies and seeing the 9999 ping I decided it wasn’t meant to be and jumped into the campaign.

The campaign itself is a totally different experience from multiplayer. I wouldn't quite call it horror but the game certainly takes on a more ominous, tense and atmospheric tone instead of just blasting xenos filth with the squad. The Psyker class becomes the main character, brandishing his warp powers. You form a special squad including assault specialist Brotehr Barachiel who has seen service in the Deathwatch (Inqusition Xenos hunters) and is always seeking glory. As well as Brother Nahum, the rational and logical apothecary of the squad. They follow you as Belial uses your psychic visions to his full advantage over your alien foes. Belial’s rousing speech to his brothers before they board the Space Hulk is all kinds of badass. Exactly what I’d expect from one of the Master of the 1^st Company of the 1^st Legion. 

Belial the Gigachad

The opening boarding sequence is amazing as you punch through the vessel. It would be cool if there was more of a rumbling entry as you explode through steel and ceramite. Upon entry you’re welcomed to a large industrial area. By all accounts decrepit, claustrophobic and soulless. As you move to rendezvous with a squad you notice rustling but do not get attacked.  Upon entering halls that to a regular man would seem large, but in terminator armour seem suffocating, we’re finally ambushed by the swarms. And they don’t stop coming so you need to keep moving. It remind me of Left for Dead in a sense but tighter in its level design and slower. Much more atmospheric like Alien - I loved it. The protagonist – our librarian in terminator armour gets psychic visions throughout the game – dead squads, ambushes, incoming super Xenos, etc. After finding the squad dead, we’re commanded to power up the generators and then prepare for boarding. After slaying a crazy amount of Tyranids we’re joined by the rest of the Deathwing. At first I thought the amount of drop pods was overkill; at 30 or so that’d be the entire 1^st company and one lone pod would be way cooler. But as the story goes on you realise why this is. Also, Space Hulks are gargantuan amalgamations of hundreds or thousands of fleet ships from the warp, each able to hold thousands or tens of thousands of people. The fact that a hundred or so Astartes would be able to survive the horrors within is nothing short of impressive in a testament to the capability of the Deathwing. 

The plot from here is surprisingly well done. It’s nothing too unexpected but it’s certainly fan servicey and does what it needs to. Anyone who’s not a fan might find this pretty meh but for me it was awesome. As the plot progresses Deathwing have found a beacon from a mysterious source that’s raised the claxons (Unforgiven?). After finding the body of a 1^st Legion member dissected, it turns out to be Caliban’s Will, a 10 thousand year old lost relic from the Age of Heresy. After being drawn into the Space Hulk the Tyranids infesting it have corrupted the caches of geneseed aboard it. To maintain the honour of your chapter and genefather, Lion El Johnson, you must recover the seed and more importantly purge any strain of Xenos. For if its reintroduced to a Hive Fleet, it will weaponize the legacy of the Lion and the Emperor against the Imperium. It’s quite an interesting plot, simple in premise yet grand in it’s potential ramifications.

Burn the Xenos.

As you progress the visions escalate and get worse which is awesome. You have a vision of a dead brother Maegon using a Mace of god damn Absolution as he tears through Genestealers. Was the 1^st Legion defending the geneseed to the last man? The dialogue is absolutely superb – my only complaint being there is not enough of it. Typically at the start and end and nothing in between. Brother Barachiel will cheer for slaughtering the foes of the Imperium and apothecary Nahrum will counter this with a more considered approach. There's so much potential for ongoing banter here and it's a missed opportunity. I understand they don't want to chatter too much and ruin the atmosphere - but certainly at some points it'd be welcome like after killing 30 Tyranids or when Nahum heals his brothers. Meanwhile, Belial is always speaking as that person we all know who could convince anyone to join him on a suicide mission. He’s also voiced by the Psyker from Inquisition Martyr which seems to be popping up a fair bit (he's a great VA). 

Brother Barachiel the ultimate badass.

The final mission is set upon a dying Black Templar vessel (fittingly zealous) where you must overload its plasma reactors to set off a chain reaction in each vessel creating a star level event destroying the Space Hulk. Each will have you fighting a terrifying brood lord before you make flight and your final stand is in a hall of heroes. Genestealers and Hybrids come from all sides with no end in sight as you find yourself pushing up further and further with your back to the wall before teleporting. From the safety of your Dark Angel Strike Cruiser you watch a phenomenally animated cutscene as the Space Hulk implodes in all its holy glory. Ceasing to be a threat to the Imperium.

In this final scene brother Nahum didn’t make it. Noooo! I'd say it was meant to be and that I actually like the fact that we didn’t all make. But the reality is the true Nam - an intelligent logical Astartes wouldn’t be as dumb as this terrible AI. It took some save scumming (Psy Gate right before the showdown) and two Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields to get them both through and only barely.

As you make your way through each ship you’ll find logs that add context to each ship as part of the overall Space Hulk. From Inquisition to Mechanicus, Black Templars to Dark Angels. Each has their own stories to tell and ghosts roaming the decks. Mission 3 had you exploring an Inquisition Black Ship that had increasingly bad warp activity such as crew hearing voices. These ships transport Psykers from each world and when you hear voices it’s not something you ignore. The crew wanted to dispose of batch 2952* but were disregarded. Of course they got worse and worse and then they’re trapped in the warp, the voices stop and the log ends. Is this when they joined the space hulk? Later on, you find a mountain of thousands of Psyker bodies so I’d say so. Mission 5 was an absolute highlight as a Dark Angels fan. Exploring Caliban's Will with all the DA iconography. Is this how a Black Templar fan felt in Mission 4? A lot of the time I wanted to stop and appreciate it – but knew it could be my death. A common issue in these games. Space Hulk's really are the perfect excuse for 40k fan service wrapped in an action game. Voice logs would have been cool, and you could have put them in the menu only not to ruin the atmosphere. 

As for gameplay the difficulty is way to high to start. Exploding enemies can drop you in 1-2 hits. A burst of stubber fire can destroy your Terminator armour. AI team mates are dumb as dog shit. Like so dogshit. Waiting for enemies to be in their face slashing away before they even rev their chain gun (WHICH HAS A DELAY). You can be hacking away using a turret and they'll let exploding nids run up and destroy all of you instantly... Eventually I realised it's actually set to hard by default. Not sure why as this doesn’t' feel balanced for starting and you'd need intelligent team mates and better gear to even stand a chance.

Gameplay is actually good. You feel strong and powerful as your assault cannon raws, bolter demolishes genestealer heads or redemption shotgun blasts your foes. While at the same time you feel constricted in a bulky suit of armour and claustrophobic in the tight murmuring halls of the Space Hulk. Scuttling and stomping around you in the crawlspace before you're inevitably suffocated by oncoming Xenos swarms. Even if the jankiness of Streum On Studio persists across their games from E.V.E. to this and Necromunda - all weapons felt punchy but not completely smooth in their gameplay. Possibly the hallmark of a budget developer?  Hellfire and Vengeance are my favourites. Hellfire is a modified storm bolter that spits tiny anti-organic rockets and melts most tyrranids in 1-2 shots. The vengeance is an extremely powerful Assault Cannon with a clip size of 65 (instead of 400). But quantity over quality as this is easily the best crowd control weapon. I will say the Heavy Flamer and Plasma Cannon are the most dissapointing. Particularly in single player where you need to be the main sniper and crowd controller, these weapons are underwhelming AF. I have a soft spot for the Storm Bolter but it's just not as effective as it's souped up contemporaries. It also sucks you can't use force sword/axe with the storm bolter variants. Won't be using the Storm Bolter much beyond chapter 2 when the variants, Assault Cannon or Thunder Hammer is so much better. Last but not least Mace of Absolution is an absolutely beast outclassing the Thunder Hammer in every way with it's AOE monster slaying attacks. It dominates all Tyrranids even including the terrifying Brood Lord if you can parry well enough.

Psyker abilities are fantastic as well. Smiting Nids especially pesty Hybrids with Rocket Launchers at uber long range NEVER gets old. Especially when you throw a desperate biolightning bolt at an enemy Hybrid Psyker (fk those guys). I will say powers interrupting weapon reloads is a huge oversight. Isn't that the advantage of being able to mind blast people? It should have had animation pause when using these powers. Reloading a 400 clip Assault Cannon while smiting that Stalker who gets too close just in time for your barrels to roar and mow down dozens of other nids would be amazing. Other bugs are felt too such as dialogue which is often muted (what little there is) or bugs/characters getting stuck. That being said Psyker was the right choice for gameplay and abilities, but it would have also been cool to be the legendary Deathwing Knight. Twist it a little and allow there to be Psykers in their ranks – I’m sure that has happened before. I’ll admit I’m not a fan of the blue armour for all Psykers, but I suppose you're looking at your Deathwing Squad most the time so it's clever in that sense.

It's a crime to mute something that does fanservice so well...

Enemy design is very good and each feel unique. It was wise to add in hybrids and aberrants with their stubbers, missile launchers and seismic cannons. They’re all fantastic except the Hybrid psykers which are ridiculous. They auto-hit from anywhere and other do more than half your health in one-shot… apart from the Psyker all the Hybrid types are good. The genestealers have your vanilla four-armed kind, but setting themselves apart are the explosive ones who's screech will keep you trigger happy. The stalker strains are invisible unless you use your thermal scope, they’ll always keep you on your toes and looking at your minimap. Lastly the Scythe strain and Brood Lord are the dreaful heavy hitters and will demolish your squad if they get close enough. That is of course until you get Brother Barachiel with a Thunder Shield (where have you been all my life). There are three trees which are essentially combat, psyker and squad buffs. I focused on the former two so it wasn't until the later stages that I unlocked the hammer and shield and he goes from semi-useless most the time to an actual essential tank that’s almost unkillable. Just wish he'd defend the healer more like a good tank. I like this armour system in theory but when the damage is rarely ever spread I don’t think it works. The ducking and weaving of genestealers is well done and animated as they dodge past hails of bolter fire. 

The gameplay objectives and level design consist of get from point A to B. Along the way you’ll navigate the labyrinthin tunnels, many blocked off, with vents and openings in dark corners that Tyrannids will pour out of. Beyond blades, bolters and biolightning, there are several tactical options. Positioning is important for your squad (albeit nigh impossible in single player). For example assault at front to tank, medic at back. Beyond this your radar is imperritive as it shows you the direction of movement and allows you to rev up your assault cannon for when they turn that tight corner and pounce – every second counts. Lastly you can lock doorways and this allows you to cover your rear and create choke points - essential on later levels/higher difficulties. All in all it’s a very AlienS experience.

Most the objectives are go here/recover this but one stood out above the rest. With a lack of intel the final objective on Mission 5 had you combing room to room to find what you need. It felt like a classic Space Hulk feeling as you prodded in the dark where who knows what could lurk… sadly this was the first and last. Another mission came close as you need to hunt down Hybrid Psykers before they contact the Hive Fleet and return their "gifts". Or so I thought... and then the Librarian used his Psyker BS to pinpoint their approximate location. Lame. That’s okay, the atmosphere, dynamic gameplay and level design were more than enough to hold me until the finish line.

On the topic of difficulty at around mission 5 the game got way too easy. I didn’t require a single Psy Gate and used a little over half the med kits. I switched it back to hard and this carried me through to the end. It feels like it needs a difficulty somewhere between normal and hard as this is usually a hallmark of improper difficulty balance.

Something that wasn't apparent to me while playing the game was the absence of music. Perhaps it's because I was sucked into the atmosphere but this was sorely missed in several moments such as intense escape sequences, last stands or even the final cutscene. Compare this to the gloriously brilliant OST of Darktide and it makes a huge difference. The sound effects are also hit and miss. Some weapons fall flat while others absolutely decimate (Assault Cannon looking at you). Enemies sound queues are pretty terrible other than the exploding one and this feels due to necessity more than anything as they'd be rage inducing if they weren't. No roar from the Brood Lord or howel from the Stalker strain. It's a shame because other than the jank the OST and sound effects are what would have propelled this game into the hall of great games. 

Lastly were the Special Missions which unlike the name suggests, weren’t very. Return to a prior map and do a different objective from another side of the map - essentially the bounties in Necromunda. They are great in the sense that you'll likely explore parts of the Hulk you didn't before but not one I'd go back to unless it was for multiplayer. I also tried the Chaplin. The Crozius sucks and I never got the chance to use his abilities as I got obliterated by nids. The last feature worth mentioning is the customization. Like Necromunda this is insane with 15-30 skins for every class and weapon. Darktide could learn a lesson or two from their cousin developers and vice versa with smooth amazing gameplay. Perhaps these two should join forces somehow to make the ultimate single-player/multiplayer game.

The detail on these banners are insane.

All in all the game was superb and only held back by some budget jank. Many will tell you the plot is convoluted to anyone who is not a fan – but I don’t see a licensed game appealing to fans as a bad thing. I hope I get the opportunity to come back to this one and play with friends. 

Game 89 - Tropico 4 - Week 173 - Apr 23

ropico 4 is a title that has a lot in common with the Anno series. Not only from a gameplay perspective, but also in the sense that I’ve wanted to get into it since I was in university. So deciding to continue my trend with city builders jump in I did. 

The characters are all amazing or should I say Caricatures considering how they’re all drawn like goofy Saturday morning newspaper comics. From the education advisor dressed like a sexy teacher with a MASSIVE forehead who flirts with students and the dictator alike to the US ambassador who is completely self-righteous and arrogant in their capitalistic ideals, not making suggestions, but simply putting fourth the “most intelligent option”. It gives the game a distinctive sense of charm, parodying one of the most fearful periods in human history. The voices are on point, reminding me of Stronghold in how each character was an exaggerated version of what you’d expect from that time period. Special shoutout to your main advisor – his “Tropican” accent is fantastic as he guides you through the tutorial, campaign and whenever you hit a snag.

The tutorial crammed a lot in, or so it felt at first – but it was still good in no part due to the fantastic voice acting. Once I played this I jumped straight into the campaign and this was even better at introducing mechanics. Focusing on one at a time with an objective – it almost makes the tutorial redundant. The campaign has no real story – instead you’re a consultant* with 20 missions, each with a unique scenario with the overarching goal of creating an archipelago paradise.

*It’s never explained what you are – as you can choose a dictator for ever scenario and they refer to you as a scenario that doesn’t line up perfectly – but fortunately this doesn't seem to matter 

In the campaign most mechanics are drip-fed, for example

1. Farm & Industry Exports (Tobacco)
2. Mines
3. Tourism
4. Import Resources to create Industry Exports

Like Anno 2070 this is the best way to do it. All of the above synergise to create interesting in-depth gameplay on how to create your Tropico Island. As an example you rarely want to go into the negatives in your treasury as that effects foreign relations and thus imports/exports. So instead look at your expenses (or have a rough idea) and your next export revenue, then use that as your profit margin for your next projects. Or just do what I usually do and build away and then cancel projects (which usually incurs costs) as you hit the negatives, a far less effective and lazy method. Constantly managing wages of every building can get painful. Once you learn how to set it or all buildings and you gain familiarity with the different builders/work types it gets easier. But I do wish there was a better way to macro-manage this (perhaps a building in itself) as I often forgot about a building at which point it whittles down to no employees/production as everything else has risen in wages.

Almanac is your best friend.

The mechanics regarding political factions is interesting and so is developing your Tropican factions which pops up in subtle ways. For example when you build a school you can mandate it focuses on religion or military at the cost of general education by (15%). Or there is my favourite the ministry and edicts. Want to sway the religious populace? Appoint people as ministers, then host a Book BBQ. Intellectuals might not like it but a zealous nation sure will. Couple this with Ideology book and a lack of education and you have a very loyal population (albeit stupid)! Or do the vice versa with Same-Sex Marriage, Literacy Programs and host a Mardi Gras. People not happy? Do you have a rebel problem? Build several Army Camps, Guard Towers and Armouries. Then invoke conscription on your unemployed populace and setup a Secret Police to root out an insurgency before it begins! The gravity at which you enact this inhuman acts is offset by how humorous everything is from the music to the characters. That being said I’m not sure you could get away with Inquisition anymore, which had the picture of a KKK group.

I enjoyed managing imports to create industry but it was a little hard to nail down. There’s no way to see what you’re importing or going to, you just allow or forbid exports. Which doesn’t make sense from an economical POV. Imagine buying a raw resource and not knowing how much you’ll get? Also it’s a shame there's no way to turn off imports. The fact that the game will export a raw resource like sugar when you imported it for the exact purpose of using it is nothing below absurdity. Special shout-out to the UI - having right-click bring up your build menu instead of having it off to the corner is such a huge boon to city building that every game should adopt. Various analytical tools are here from financial graphs to heatmaps that show (and predict) crime or pollution as well as tsunami and volcano danger zones.

Following Tropican's and Tourists, checking their thoughts is one of the best features - a must in any city builder to play big brother! 

Mission scenarios and the dynamic task system do a good job of adding flavour compared to sandbox modes: Accept a task and it gives you $5000 or a free blueprint. But it takes up a 1/5 slot. So you need to complete them before you can take another. It does get boring eventually – some more interesting tasks or even challenges due to dynamic events would be interesting (e.g. imprison or execute 5 criminals, etc). It was around Mission 6 I felt like I’d peaked and experienced everything. I got excited for the scenario where I’d be facing abundant rebels. After rushing military buildings and jobs I was disappointed to find out this was even less than the 0% commie relationship disaster of the last mission. As a comparison in the last mission I provided Amnesty to 30 rebels. On the backfoot, fighting a loosing battle (and loosing buildings) and only just improving hapiness so I could provide hapiness. It was intense and exactly what I want. But this time after silencing several waves of 5 and 7 rebels at a time in the final battle it was 31 in my army vs 3 rebels. It was just too easy and a bore. In the end I was basically rehashing everything I'd already done – Tourism and Attractions. Resources, Imports and Exports. Government, Military and Secret Police and focus on the lowest happiness/faction. It'd be cool if doing something else usually was at an irrevocable cost to another (perhaps on harder difficulties). For example in Mission 4 I had 100% happiness and relationship with every faction but perhaps choosing one factions means there’s a ceiling on relations with another – I like that it can happen but it should be almost impossible (again on a harder difficulty). Disasters are also pretty meek. For the Volcano and Tsunami you get a cutscene and then nothing. No flooded lands or lava spreading over your paradise. At least the Tornado tears through you cities. This could have been a great opportunity to mix up the formula – similar to Anno 2070 sending a hurricane through my city centre and wiping out my entire economy and massive treasury. But as a counterpoint, perhaps it's just not the type of game you're meant to binge but instead play a session and come back in a few weeks. As a result in the end I wasn’t feeling it much. It’s somewhere between Rail Road Tycoon “yeah I could play this but probably not” and Anno 2070 “holy shit did 3 hours just pass… just… one… more… turn…”.

Cutscene is meh - wish you'd see people running as a wave washes over your tourist 'trap'.

At least oil spills have a presence on the map.

I didn’t try any of the other modes but if I come back I’ll definitely be giving Sandbox ago. Seems like you can create some interesting scenarios and basically make your own campaign, change the topography and resources then the world starting state such as stability, tourism appeal, random events – but also random effects like rebel attacks occur often or God Mode (start with 500k and there’s no attacks). So it could fix my issue with boring and easy map conditions. There’s also the Extra Missions which had nothing to be found (perhaps DLC?) and Challenges which I’m not sure what this is but seems to be related to multiplayer. Perhaps challenges or maps created by fans but I'll never know. Overall the light hearted parodic Tropico 4 was a blast and I look forward to being a dictator again in the future with Tropico 5. 

My best island - welcome to Jesus Land! 

Game 88 - Shadow Tactics: Aiko's Choice - Week 172 - Apr 23

hadow Tactics: Aiko's Choice

Typically I wouldn’t do an entry for a DLC but I’ve made an exception for two reasons:

• Shadow Tactics is phenomenal and I feel I didn’t do the story or gameplay justice in my last blog.
• It’s a standalone game that can be played without the main game (well, kind of, we’ll get into that)

First off the gameplay. If I had to pinpoint what games it’s similar to I would say WarCraft 3 meets Ghost Recon. On paper that makes no sense at all so let me elaborate. It’s an isometric game where you control 1-5 characters in real time (WC3). The combat focuses on stealth, manoeuvring your ninjas, a samurai and an old guy into position to perform various takedowns with the ability to queue and execute multiple attacks at once (Ghost Recon). Each has a unique skillset and faults that requires them to work together if they want to accomplish their guerrilla objective.

• Mugen the Samurai can kill other samurai or multiple enemies and has double health
• Con: armour and can't swim or climb (other than ladders)
• Hayato the Ninja can kill silently and from range with a shuriken
• Con: vulnerable to samurai
• Aiko the Kunoichi can use disguises to distract for extended periods
• Con: samurai can see through disguise
• Yuki the Girl (also a Ninja) can create traps and climb/vault instantly
• Con: weak and slowest to drag or hide bodies
• Takuma the Old Man - can kill from great range
• Con: old (slow) and can't swim or climb (other than ladders)

In addition to this everyone has a method of diversion. The Samurai can throw Sake luring the less intelligent foes, our Ninja can throw stones, the Kunoichi can reduce view distance with a special concoction, the young girl can lure with a whistle and the old man has an adorable little Red Panda. It’s interesting how these interact with the environment. For example on islands you’ll leave footsteps in the sand that will garner enemy attention. Normally a deterrent, but with Yuki you can use it to easily lure enemies around corners into her senbon trap.

Each move set is fun on their own but the game absolutely shines when lining up multiple moves with "Shadow Mode" to execute your ultimate strategy in an oh so satisfying manner. As a very simple example – Hayato, throws rock and distracts ones guard, shuriken’s another, (now execute Shadow Mode) and stabs the original distracted guard, Aiko uses perfume to shorten range on three enemies, Mugen moves in to cut them down in a storm of blades. There’s a bit of trial and error but with some practice and a generous save system, this quickly becomes a non-factor.

With everyone in position, Yuma pulls the lever triggering a trap that kills two guards as everyone else sinks their blade. 

Some of my favourite moves are actually the distractions. Yuma the Red Panda is a mobile distraction that doesn’t require any kind of line of sight but just needs to be in range of Takuma. His cuteness will attract lovely pats and a silent blade that befalls them not long after. Aiko is a close runner up from Shinto priestly garbs to Geisha outfits that are absolutely beautiful. Being able to walk around the villages with no risk of detection (beyond the sly Samurai) and distracting guards with your charm for an indefinite amount of time before producing a senbon from your sleeve is always immensely useful and satisfying!

Aiko distracts a Guard as everyone moves into position. 

The story is a simple one and the focus is where it should be – on the excellent cast of characters. Each character is just as unique as their move set which is captured perfectly by their personality, dialogue and background. The plot is as follows: Lady Chiyo, Aiko’s Sensai returns on the eve of their plot to assassinate Kage-sama, using her network and intel do undo their work. She captures the old man and child as collateral and tries to execute the others. You must rescue Yuki and chase Yakuma down, sabotaging some of Kage-sama’s gun powder supplies while you’re at it. Finally you track down Lady Chiyo and assassinate her.

I have a few issues with this. Despite the urgency of the Shogun’s order the rescue Takuma because they “owe Takuma”. It doesn’t feel very Bushido, especially with Samurai seeking to avenge his master in the group. Feel like they could have found a better reason. Perhaps they stand a much better chance sieging Kage-sama by eliminating his spy network and need Takuma to do so? Which is the direction the plot goes in anyway, it could have just been spelled out better. Also the fact that this interjects itself on the eve of assassinating Kage-sama (half way through the game) makes it weird as a standalone story. It fits seamlessly into the main story and would have been cool to play it through as one all-inclusive experience (and give you an excuse to release a definite edition!).

Ah Mugen. I missed seeing you cross blades...

Beyond that the characters are still great. Hayato is confident, arrogant and to the point. His banter with the Kunoichi and their difference in method’s is interesting. Yumi and Takuma have an interesting relationship as sensi and pupil. Takuma as a wily old man is easily the most fun. Laughing after he strikes down a foe with a long-range rifle hints at a derangement from years of experience (later somewhat confirmed as he state he’s walked many lives – including training Ninja and Kunoichi). Mugen and Aiko have what I thought was a brother-sister relationship as he comforted Aiko in her resolve to end her master. But later I remembered they were lovers. When did this happen? I didn't remember this at all but after rewatching Mugen's sepukku, I was reminded of both their romance and what Aiko hinted before Mugen's death. 

The gang is together again! 

The focus is of course on Aiko as she confronts her old master and makes the final act. The final mission is a culmination of all your learnings and one of the best in both games. You have three routes you can take – poison her or set an explosive trap. I choose the later and slowly worked my way up to the shrine. The final area was heavily guarded and inaccessible to my non-ninja. So Aiko entered disguised, Hayato threw a Shuriken at a guard in the corner, then Aiko quickly planted explosives while the attention was diverted before fleeing into a secret cave. When everyone lost interest, Lady Chiyo inevitably wandered to the shrine and took a face full of gun powder.

All along I thought “this was too easy” and I was right when Chiyo reveals herself to Aiko in their prologue campsite. Her plan all along was to use our band of thieves to disrupt Kage-Sama and escape into retirement. Now comes her choice – murder her or let her escape. Considering she revealed herself and put her at Aiko's mercy I considered her a threat no longer. Also she did help us, and after revealing the well-hidden fact (in Chiyo’s words) that Aiko is pregnant I let her live. "Let this be a time of peace" – well said Aiko. Yes she used us, but I don’t see this as very different to the Shogun using his blades to end a murdering tyrant. The story ends with Mugen and Aiko agreeing to start a family and inviting the rest of the gang. A village of ronin and ninjas…. wouldn’t that be an interesting tale? Sadly it’ll never come of course as their assassination attempt fails and Mugen does his Samurai thing and the others go on to avenge both the Shogun, but even more so Mugen. It also reveals what Aiko’s last gift was to Mugen and his last words “another life ends, another begins. Just at it should be”. Which makes it all the more sad that a son has to live without a father because of the Bushido. But even so, realistic and faithful to the honour and feudal culture. I would love to have sequel with Mugen Junior and Lady Aiko. Perhaps combining their mother (or Hayato) and father’s skillset? Aiko’s Choice was a nice addition to give us more time with all of the characters and add more weight – perfectly positioned on the eve of Mugen’s end.

Game 87 - Grounded - Week 171 - Apr 23

rounded described in one word? Charm. Pure, unadulterated charm oozing from every pour of this game. Even before some friends asked if I wanted to play with them it always caught my interest. A novel game in all appearances like no other that took the idea “what if we made Honey I Shrunk The Kids: The Game” and ran with it so hard and fast they took off and flew away with the concept. But I had no idea just how much depth there was to this game and 130 hours later it’s very apparent just how special this game is. From the kids who are our main heroes. Normally in everyday life they'd be weak and vulnerable to the outside world but in this yard their meek strikes and childlike imagination make them Apex predators. To the music and sound effects listening to bugs snore, spiders bristle as they stalk in the night or kids geek out and gawk in disgust as they eat bugs and mushrooms. To the yard itself whether it be toys lost in the yard that serve as function, tape tracks, milk molars, sand pits that become kingdom walls or a picnic table with a DND set. Even the base elements of grass, weed stems, mushrooms and pebbles have an adorable art style that increases 10x when you use them to build your base. Grass tree-houses and tables made from clovers. The bugs of course are the star here, each with their own character whether they be deadly stalkers like the spider, territorial beasts like the Larva or Black Ox, food like the weevil or agile aphid or neutral (but you bet your ass you better not mess with these absolute monsters) like the… ladybug? Almost everything is a usable resource as you repurpose grass into shelter, bugs into armour just a lovely as the original (cultish helmets withstanding; ladybug, acorn and black widow I’m looking at you!). The base building is much more inventive than I could have ever known. With the ability to make castles, walls, palisades, grass plank pallets, farms, pet houses, beds, tables and chairs, food racks and even fridges! That’s before you even get into your workshop with the various crafting table, spinning wheels, anvil, smoothie mixer, grinder, etc. It all comes together to create a game that feels unique based on whatever your creativity conjures up. Never in my wildest predictions would I have imagined enjoying this game as much as I did.

The game has an arachnophobia censor option - yes they're that scary that when you hear one you run and hide.

The game it’s core has an addictive survival loop. At a macro level the classic formula is here – build a base, venture out, gather resources, return to base, repeat. But it’s at the micro level that this really becomes special. You gather, survive and explore, find science and unlock new recipes to craft, upgrade your base which in turn lets you upgrade your armour further and expand your dominion of the backyard, exploring more and finding new resources to upgrade with. That is the heart of the game – and it’s pure gold. The three highlighted words are really what make this game special. Exploring allows you to discover that various charming locations of the yard but also research, gather science and progress. The map reflects this as well. Bugs are separated into tier 1, 2 and 3 and so are the weapons and upgrades they’re made from. Use the best of tier 1 to explore and find tier 2 bugs, upgrade, explore and so on and eventually you’ve explored the entire yard. It's hard to explain how clever the sense of scale and perspective is without experiencing it. But I’ll try anyway. It doesn’t matter where you are in the yard whether it be the kid case you spawn in, the highest peak, or swimming away from the monstrous koi fish but you can always see the House in the background. Not only this but there is a large oak tree which immediately draws your attention (and has the first science lab), a fence, shed, science equipment and a big !@#$ off crow. This dominating background consistently makes you feel small and you never forget where or what you are. It serves as a major factor in creating that immersion. From there you explore massive versions of every day items – battle toads, milk cartons, barbeques, chairs, etc that have a renewed sense of character and charm. The art style is a perfect choice in supporting this. 

There are two stories happening in Grounded. Your personal story and the baked in plot. This is the first survival game I can remember playing that has an overarching story and a definitive end. The plot is secondary to your own story of survival but it was still interesting enough to keep me invested until the end. You wake up in a dark and dirty ditch next to what looks like a normally small case, except it's not. “Where are we? What happened?” say the kids. And from then on its up to you to figure out why you’re so small and get big again. First stop is the Oak tree, which is no easy task considering its where the Wolf Spiders sleep. Not only can they kill you in 2 or 3 hits unarmoured but they applied a heavy poison as well that can easily finish you off. Couple this with their many red eyes, immense size and the gurgling noise they make when they stalk through the grasslands and you have a terrifying AF foe in your way. Luckily it’s pretty easy to sneak past them and that’s exactly what we did. At the science lab you find BURG.L a charming robot left by Wendell who you eventually find out not only created the robot but everything in this back yard and is likely the one behind your shrinking. 

The robot doesn’t know how to make you big again but these labs had data left by Wendell so it’s time to go find them! The labs themselves are awesome. Great dungeon and puzzle design clearly showing Obsidian’s strong RPG roots. Every time you complete a lab by finding it’s superchip and return it to BURG.L, you learn a little more about the “embiggening” process and get one step closer to home. After this and upon sleeping you’ll experience a cutscene that reveals a little more about Wendell and who he was working with. It’s drip fed you in a nice pace that’s balanced well with the upgrade loop, working your way through the bug tiers. As it turns out this is Wendell’s yard and he built these labs to learn shrinking technology and has a contract with some shady military organisation that wants to use it to make weapons. When he figured this out he shrunk himself and fled to the yard. The military continued with what they had and that ended with you. Eventually they disposed of you and so that’s how you end up in the backyard. It’s an interesting mix of Jumanji meets Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Bugs Life and Antz. I think the developers are all fans of those movies and likely watched them in prep for this. I loved the labs. Each one felt like a present to open and explore with a surplus of supplies and consisted of killer robots on defence protocol. Whiteboards had mock plans for embiggening concepts, how to create a Mant (instead of a Minotaur - lol), a half-ant half-man designed by Wendell as a last-ditch effort to prevent the baddies finding him. 

Director Schmector - I'd be made if that was my name too.

You get to use later with the Mantsterious Stranger mutation - fantastic Fallout reference.

As fantastic as this story is and I do think it provided a much-needed structure to the survival and exploration that a lot of games are lacking - it was the sense of wonder and discovery in between that made this game so special. Exploring the hedge which is absolutely chock full of spiders, and hiding from wolf-spiders in the night at start as you attempt to get a proper base and gear. Building your first Red Ant armour and then discovering you’re now friendly to Red Ants which than allows you to explore their entire ant colony and find the superchip within. Not only this but you can now steal their eggs (they won’t be happy about that) and turn them into explosives! Unlocking new areas of the game. It has a very Metroidvania feel to it. Mapping out areas to return to when you have the necessary upgraded Tier 2 and 3 tools.

Those scary bugs at the start? You can now bait them into your many friends!

Next was mastering the infected zones. Full of “infected” bugs due to a leak in a can of Weed Killer 420 (lol). That’s another thing worth mentioning, whether intentionally or not this game is full of inuendo. It reminds me of old school family shows like The Simpsons where a whole family can watch (or play in this case) and enjoy it with hidden jokes only the parents will understand. The infected bugs cause radioactive like explosions and unique quirks to mix up compared to their clean version. Next came the pond – and as much as I was tired of swimming by the end of it (really should have done myself a favour and focus on the upgrades first!) it was amazing to explore the underwater base. With it’s own set of bugs like the adorable tad poles and not so adorable bell spiders.

Next was the The Black Ant hill which gave us a new Black Ant shield (being most important item in the game) and led us to a lab where we fought the assistant manager. This was intense and after dying the first time we spent a good 10 or so hours upgrading and harvesting blood sausages (mosquito sacs) to prepare for this. The boss had several waves that felt more in like with a Dark Souls boss. The robot itself shot lasers and bubbles of electricity at you but would also summon his robot grunts and lasers from large pylons which you had to jump or duck while fighting everything else. It was incredibly fun and intense and the feeling of overcoming it felt like no other in the game since or after.

After this came the Sand Pit. It was an interesting challenge as the entire area would “sizzle you” i.e. burn you to death from how hot it was. You had to kill Antlions to make armour to protect you from this and interestingly enough they were only found in the sizzle area. So to protect you from the sizzle in the area where you get the sizzle protection you had to fight them at night or draw them to the shadows which is what we did. Once we had the armour we were free to explore! With this armour area had a cool cowboy desert vibe. The sandcastle was interesting but disappointingly didn’t have much to it (no secret dungeon, come on!). The sandpit was full of quick sand holes with Antlion’s that would pull you in and destroy you. Killing them revealed an underground network of caves with valuable resources to upgrade your weapons.

It was at this moment we discovered how useful ziplines were so we decided to level up our base a little. At this point I had been growing mushrooms in about 20 farms much to the confusion of my friends and now it was time to reap the harvest. I used them to not only build a castle of mushrooms on the hill, but a tower so high that you could see the entire yard in all its messy glory. This tower had trampolines that you could use to boing boing your way to the top. And from here I connected ziplines to each corner of the yard for easy access. I wouldn’t be surprised if this saved us a good 10-20 hours in the late game as our base was quite central at the kid case, so it allowed us to quickly access the tier 3 areas.

Zipline tower in the background was built on the castle and connected to all corners of the yard. An absolute asset. 

Last was the Uppder Yard, an interesting area, at first mysterious and full of terrifying tier 3 bugs. On the left side you had the spilt BBQ which prevented you from getting up due to sizzling (requiring us to get the antlion armour as previously mentioned). But once we did we explored the canyons full of black ox bugs and pupa, and then eventually the wood pile full of Termites. These were necessary to get the (imo) best weapon in the game. The Tier 3 axe not only looked amazing as a tomahawk but let you harvest must of the Tier 3 resources like pupa leather to make Tier 3 armour). With it Wolf Spiders were now as threatening a threatening as any tier 1 bug. The termites however were the bane of my existence. They were so numerous and bulky you were fighting the durability of your gear as much as them. I never died as much as I did in those burrows of wood.  They reminded me of Tyrannids – swarms of death bugs. Eventually we killed The Termite King and got everything we needed but they were the only bug that I had zero interest in going back to and actively avoided, giving me a sense of PTSD. The final quadrant of the yard let us explore under the house full of spiders bugs and cob webs (and one big ass Brood Mother spider!) and we also finally found Wendell! But the yard also had some interesting sections such as the stump with a giant Moth boss on top and acorns to make cool magical staffs! I loved the toy army men jotted through the yard in various warlike scenarios. It reminded of my sandpit as a child and the parachutable army men you could buy and throw off our cubby house.

After finding Wendell our journey and the story came full circle. Or so we thought as there was still the Brood Mother and Mantis to kill. This was a lot easy than I thought it would be an it probably helped that were fully geared out to the max. The Brood Mother was a cake-walk due to how easy it is to telegraph spiders. It summoned spiders but one of us just distracter mumma while the others killed its babies.

The Mantis on the other hand had an interesting move set with AOE earthquake moves and leaping swipes. All in all both were great fights. Originally I was interested in getting all the achievements but was turned off by one that required you to 100% the game which included literally everything. Every milk molar and data log.... I warmed up to the idea when I saw how few data logs were left but after attempting to collect the few that remained it took forever. Then I did the math on and I noped out of that…  17 Molar's, 13 Mega Molar’s, 8 SCA.B, 6/8 Mix'rs, 40,000 raw science. I would receive 18k from Mixr’s and so need to grind another 21k from quests which give you 100-500 a pop, so at a guess 1000 quests… Not only that but the Molar’s have no easy way to track what you have vs. need. Meaning you would need to comb threw the yard for every molar. Likely another 20-30 hours.... screw that. Instead of risking the game loosing it’s lustre (which it already felt like it was) we just decided to do the final optional boss Director Schemctor and finish it. Beating Wendell’s nemesis was no easy task. He summoned super powered ORC spiders, shut dozens of bubbles and lasers. All of which very deadly even this later game. Eventually we beat him after four attempts which cured Wendell and let him de-raisin (a process that causes adults to shrivel up when they go through the shrink process). He returned to his wife and family and the kids all go to go home, get an education and (presumably) grow up. A happy ending for all!

The gang stands over their prize. Left-right - Nathan, Me, Sandy.

It's hard to express how much I love this game and it’s easily the best survival game I’ve ever played. A friend of mine said he’s always attracted to a game that just goes fully in on an idea and commits to it. Deep Rock Galactic or Valheim come to mind and Grounded is no exception.  I shouldn’t be surprised considering it’s made by the behemoth of talent that is Obsidian. As much as I want them to make a new mainline Fallout game I would absolutely love to see a 4-player co-operative New Vegas survival game. Return to that exact setting and give us the same experience we got in Grounded. Not only would it be amazing but it would shit all over Fallout 76. Grounded is a phenomenal game for all ages that'll have you addicted to exploring every inch of Wendell’s backyard for hours on end. I hope the DLC is good because even after 130 hours I’d love any excuse to continue exploring someone's backyard.