It'sa meeeee!

Wow, days just seem to blitz past, it's december already.

To get my girlfriend to play more, and more importantly, to9 play something other than Mario Kart Wii, I got her the New Super Mario Bros. Wii (which is a stupid name in my humble opinion).

The only thing I can say about it is that it's pure awesomeness, especially in multiplayer. While you have to keep together, the way you block and bounce the other player makes it a very frantic experience. Causing the untimely loss of a 1up of your fellow player will happen, even if you don't actually try do do so.And the more players are playing, the more stressing it gets, as you need to watch your mates more than the enemies or levels.

Other than that, it's standard Mario fare with a few new power ups, which in itself isn't bad either. If you own a Wii and even only remotely like plattformers, just get that game.

In other news, I'm slowly progressing through Dragon Age: Origins. Many review sites already told you how awseome it is, and I agree, allthough I kind of get tired of Biowares formula of very lengthy dialogues and swamping you with sidequests that don't progress the story. Of course I know that they are optional, but still, I'd really like to see a game where sidequests help you finish the main story by other means than simply buffing out your character. Bioware should really try to move on rather than simply repeat the old KotOR formula. Not that this formula is bad, it just is getting to grow old on me.

Also, I "liberated" the copy of Fallout 3 from my brother and I am playing it. While I didn't like it initially when it came out, as I was and still am a militant fan of the two original games by interplay, and I hated Oblivion with passion, I kind of enjoy it now. Don't know why, really. Perhaps it isn't a bad game after all, even though I still think it would've worked better if they didn't abuse the fallout name for it.

Tough shell

It seems I had, or even still have, an affinity towards wearing armor. At least that's what I guess after discovering another of my alltime favourite games: Looking Glass' Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri (1996)

Sadly, it wasn't a success back then, even though it was critically approved, had great gameplay and for that time stunning 3D graphics that boasted a never before seen viewing distance. Every hill on screen could actually be reached in game.

It also had many features that are now standard in tactical games, like open maps that allow multiple tactical approaches and freeaim.

The setting has also quite a twist to it: you're Nikola Ap Io, Squadleader of the newly formed Strike Force Centauri, and it's your job to defend the colonies of the Centauri System against pirates and against the dystopian Earth Hegemony.

The story is beautiflly detailed and told in personal e-mails, news and videos with real actors. It also features a vast library of in-game lore. In fact, there is more background story than in most modern triple A RPG titles.

I find it actually quite sad that nowadays game universes are all pretty limited to the actual game's story. Even last time's Crusader came with extensive background literature. Not only do these things make a good reading while you can't actually play, for example because you use the lavatories, but they add to the immersion into the game world.

In other news: It's my birthday today, so if you have loads of spare cash, you might gift me some games on Steam, as I'm quite low on cash to get them for myself at the moment... Here's my Steam Community Page. Just add me to your friendslist anyway.

My whishlist:

Dragon Age: Origins

Borderlands

Left 4 Dead 2

Torchlight

Killing Floor

And there's still the weekend sale for Mass Effect

Retro Bliss!

Recently, I found my old copies of one of my alltime favourite game franchise: Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret by Origin.

Released back in 95/96 both are DOS games which are a bit of a hassle to run properly on Windows XP or Vista (and I guess on Win7 too), but thanks to DosBox, at least No Remorse runs flawlessly. I haven't tried No Regret yet, as I want to finish the first part first.

As for the game: It's as awesome as it was back in it's days: It's a top down "run&gun" type game where you are a Ex Silencer turncoat aiding the resistance aigainst the World Economic Consortium, a quasi fascist one world governement. The gameplay is deeper though than just running and gunning, you have to advance tactically to succeed, let alone survive on the higher difficulties, and you have numerous gadgets and weapons to help you with your goals. My all time favourite would be the spider-bomb which you guide to your target via remote from a safe position.

But there are other things that made it stand out back then: the crisp graphics, smooth animations and the superb industrial/techno soundtrack. And it being 2D, it's graphics aged very well. It might not impress you like it did back in 95, but at least you don't want to rip your eyes out while looking at it.

Also, the storytelling is superb, despite it's 90ies Sci-Fi cheesyness.

So conclusively, it's a game that I can recommend to anyone, either to dive in the warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia, or to witness the zenith of 2D gaming.

In other nostalgic news: Remedy of Max Payne fame released a Windows compatible version of their debut title from 1996: Death Rally. Check it out, it's a great game.

Again, long time no see

Hi folks! Sorry for the lengthy pause since the last update, but there were several real life things keeping me busy, as well as me spending time gaming rather than writing about it.

But today, I got some minutes off, so I just keep you informed on what I'm up nowadays.

On the Wii, I'm pretty hooked with the Metroid Prime Trilogy. I never got around to play the first two on the Gamecube, and as part three never got cheaper so I never bought it. It was a gift from the heavens of Nintendo to get a bundle with all of them, plus it was actially 5 Euros cheaper than MP 3 standalone.

Not really much to say about the game though, as I am only one third through with part 1. I can only say I like it. A lot. It's one of those rare games that makes me scribble down notes on rooms so I don't lose track of hidden things I found which are not yet accessible due to not having the proper equipment yet.

I do imagine it quite tedious to regain all of the equipment in each part, so I propably will take a lengthy break between finishing every part.

I haven't touched up on multiplayer, mainly for two reasons: living in a two person household, I lack adversaries, and my girlfriend just doesn't touch anything except Mario Kart Wii. Well, at least gaming wise... cough...

Wich brings me to the deepest gripe I have with MPT: no online multiplayer. Boooo!

On the PC, there are two things keeping me occupied. Firstly, I ran across a 10 Euro Splinter Cell collection, which I couldn't resist buying. Back in the days I only played part one, and have lost the disks since then, so it was a neat opportunity to brush up on Splinter Cell before the fith installment arrives. Right now, I'm about two thirds into part one, so plenty of sneaking to do until I finish it. Review-wise I don't think I have to say much, except that I don't know why I haven't played the Splinter Cell sequels when they were released.

The second game occupying my precious free time was Risen. It's made my the german developer Piranha Bytes. If you know them, Risen won't surprise you as they basically made the same geame thrice already: Gothic, Gothic 2 and Gothic 3.

If you don't know the series: They're RPGs without character creation. You start as a nameless generic char and decide if he will become a mage, a fighter, thief, hunter, alchemist, smith, whatever while playing. In all three games, the story telling is rather a weak point. But the huge believable worlds suck in anyone with a tiny bit of a need to explore. You have to beware though, as none of these games take you by the hand and guide you through it. You're pretty much on your own. And, at least at the beginning, even the lowliest standard monsters are a serious threat. So you better beef up before venturing too far from settlements. Which makes the games quite hard, especially during the first few levels, but ultimately, I like that approach more than level scaling like in Oblivion.

Little surprise that the only superficial difference between Risen and Gothic is that the again nameless hero has no goatee.

Beneath the surface there are some differences though. The one that gets most obvious is the scale. While Gothic 2 and especially 3 offered huge freely accessible landscapes, Risen only features a small island, not much larger than the prison in Gothic one. Also, while you could sink hundreds of hours into gothic 2 and 3 before finally beating it, Risen only takes twenty hours to finish.

While that sounds short, unless you compare it to FPS games, the small scale was the main reason Risen isn't such a bugfest as Gothic 3. Also, you spend less time wandering through vast, yet beautiful, landscapes just to get on with the quests. These two things make for a better paced gameplay and actually don't harm the overall game.

So I can definately recommend it to anyone who's into rather hardcore RPGs.

The next stage

Just a short update, as I haven't been following much recently.

After a discovery of a new track by a community member at a BTCC race, Scawen Roberts announced it officially: Rockingham will be the first real track in LfS. And it will be the first S3 content to be relased, along with another new car, which is yet to be disclosed.

I guess it's still at least a year off though, judging by the Scirocco, which should've come out back before Christmas 08.

The Final Frontier

Recently, I stumbled upon Naev via one of the forums I frequent. It's basic features are things I do very much like: 1) Space exploration and trade? Check. 2) Realistic Physics (on a 2d plane)? Check. 3) Open source? Check.

I played it for a few hours and I suck at it. It made me long for a more accessible and immerging experience. So I opted for the good old Darkstar One. I chose it over X3 this time, because I always get put down by the huge micromanagement neccessary later in game. I still love it, but I missed out on DSO back then, and I thought now was the perfect time to fill this gap.

It has a few quite nice touches like customizing your ship to your tastes, a better story than the X series and it feels a tad less generic. Stil, there are some quirks, like only having your one ship, dispite all the customizability, and it's impossible to run on Vista without some illegal measures, especially since the developers download server for all the patches and fixes doesn't exist anymore.

Playing this space opera, it made me wonder. Why did the genre die out, except for open source and fan made games, like Vega Strike or various releases for the Freespace 2 Source Code Project? Back in my time, those kind of games were bets selling titles, and especially Chris Roberts' Wing Commander series was pushing videogames forward in general, with their 3D technologies requiring the newest hardware to run, and hollywood like story telling.

Just imagine the beauty of space with todays technology, both graphically and physically. Instead of rendering a detailed world, all the processing power could be used to render vast armadas and highly detailed ships.

But it made me also wonder why all the space games still use the very ancient hitpoint mechanic. Thinking of Il2 especially, as the space dogfights play similar to WW2 dogfights, I imagine that a realistic damage system would be awesome.

You wouldn't just shoot your enemy to zero HP, but you'd have to hit vital parts to down him. The ships would have to have all those components and subsystems inside them so you could hit and damage or destroy them, with realistic effects.

Of course, realism in space games can only go that far to be annoying. While newtonian physics might work, having no sounds seems dull (well, no sounds as long as there are no particles effecting your ship... I guess you would "hear" an explosion IRL if particles hit your ship.. and you'd still hear all your own systems and weapons). Also realistic speeds wouldn't really work. Ships speeding at several thousands miles per hour would just speed past each other, eradicating the beloved dogfights.

Well, if any game developer is interested, just contact me, I'm full of great ideas for a game I'd like to play. Honestly!

Knighthood

Yesterday, I got accepted into the Mount & Blade Warband Multiplayer Beta.

There was no NDA to be agreed to, no serial, just a plain and simple download link for the installer. Even the official beta discussion forums are open for everyone to see, so I guess it doesn't do any harm to discuss it here a little.

The basics are simple: Warband is the upcoming addon to Taleworlds' great Mount & Blade. Its main features are slightly updated graphics and more importantly a multiplayer option. The beta being solely a multiplayer beta, I don't really know how and if the single player aspect has been altered or improved.

After a first few rounds, I can say it's going to be awesome. At least if the few remaining quirks are gone by the release date, which, by the way, isn't announced yet.

Not surprisingly, the multiplayer ditches the global aspect of the game, so you won't lead an army around the fictional medieval continent of Calradia, there are no taverns to visit, no tournaments to be fought, no quests to be fulfilled. It's just two completely player based armies fighting for survival.

The game mechanics themselves aren't really that spectacular. First, you choose a faction, then a role, and after that, you can spend gold you earn by killing the opposition, winning, and at best even surviving a round to beef up your equipment. Once a team is obliterated, a new round starts.

So far so good, but thankfully TW didn't just make two same teams with different colour schemes. The server determines the factions from the pool of kingdoms already in Mount & Blade, and the factions have each very unique and special troop types. The Nords for example are mainly an infantry faction, while the Khergit Khanate features only cavalry, with the other kingdoms sporting a mix with focus on pikes, armored knights or crossbow archers, et cetera.

While it's obviously a balancing nightmare, it does have it's merits: No map plays the same, as each faction needs to develop a distinct strategy against any enemy on any map. While a horde of Khergit Horse Archers might sweep the floor with Nord Berserkers on sweeping, open hillsides, the outcome changes drastically if the map features a city. Even one team falling back to a farm house can turn the tides of a battle greatly. I really do love that concept, especially since I am no fan of artificial balancing. I prefer if a team has to do with what it has got and make the best out of it.

Speaking of balance, the basic troops pretty much act as they would in real life: archers kill melee infantry with no problems if they don't let them get near, but are usually wiped out by an onslaught of cavalry. Cavalry on the other hand is pretty dead if it tries to storm a group of pikers. The pikers stand no chance against ordinary infantry though. Then there are hybrid troops like Horse Archers who fill in some gaps. Other gaps can be closed via your equipment purchase, so you can buy some javelins for example to give your pike wielding soldier a means to attack from a distance.

Also, player skill can overcome the class differences. A talented piker for example can skewer almost anyone who's approaching from the front.

The small community of Mount & Blade has it's advantages. Even on public play, there are serious tries to create some tactics, which is especially great if they work. I can't wait for real competitive play between clans. That's where Warband should really shine.

And for those of you who haven't heard of Mount & Blade yet, here's a brief description. It's made from a small turkish team (that has been internationalized a bit) and it is the most realistic medieval RPG/Action Combat/Sandbox game. It looks dated but still nice, which means it runs on older rigs just as well. It has some bugs, which can be overlooked if you share both my love for realism and my kind of generosity towards small independent developers, and best of all, it's open to mods and there are tons of great mods out there for for it.

Go check it out. It's available in stores and via Steam. And there's a demo which let's you play until you hit level 6 or 7, so plenty of time to judge it.

Return to Wolgograd

On the Homepage of the german magazine Gamestar, there surfaced some info on Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. Some of you might know that I dearly loved RO back from whet it was the tiny little version 1.2 Beta as a mod of Unreal Tournament 2003, up to when it got released on retail.

The info is as follows:

*There will be a SP campaign for both russians and germans, and it will be beatable in coop. Coop is also available in a skirmish mode.

*You will be able to position troops with a simply user interface.

*Heroes: You can become an online hero. Only hero players have access to the bets and rarest weapons, plus they boost the moral troops on their own side while causing fear on the opposite side.

*All earned medals and perks will be available to check by players in game.

*There will be a first person cover system.

While it has some features that I do like, like the SP campaign from both the Russian and the German perspective, Coop play, and finally a First Person Cover System. (All caps on purpose, for more info, see the very first post on this blog.)

But other than that, It too much sounds like CoD4 for my tastes. I think it's especially worrying that there isn't a single word on how RO is more realistic than any other game out there. At least on infantry level.

Well, these news do put me in a great position though. RO2:HoS just became a very unlikely candidate to dissapoint me. Sadly, that's because my expectations plummeted.

Good Exercise

Sorry for the lengthy absence, but I was preoccupied with loads of work. Sadly, none of it involved any payment. To be more precise, I helped my girlfriend's brother, who shared the flat with her, to move out, I helped a friend of my girlfriend to move, and I moved in at my girlfriend. That meant a lot of carrying heavy stuff, a lot of assembling furniture and a lot of cursing. No surprise then that I won't touch Sokoban for a while now.

My moving in came to a premature halt, as we discovered a huge mold patch on the wall in her brother's room, which is going to be my office with a guest couch. So we're not done yet.

But now back to gaming: Not having much time at hand, and starting to get used to physical exhaustion, and also because I really craved to try out WiiMotion Plus, my new gaming fix is Wii Sports Resort. Actually, I wanted Grand Slam Tennis, but I chose not to get that due to various reasons:

Firstly, with Wii Sports and Mario Power Tennis, my girlfirend would've given me the look if I'd brought home another tennis game.

Secondly, my girlfriend isn't much of a gamer. The only thing she plays is Mario Kart Wii. Quite excessively. So there's a potential to turn her into a gamer, but it has yet to be tapped. So I thought going for something versatile would help.

Now let's discuss the game. Having twelve sports tripled the offer of Wii's standard title Wii Sports. Now I won't review every game, especially as most of them come in up to three different flavours, making mastering them all quite an effort, even more so if you're also after the Stamps, which, according to the IGN guide, can be a PITA to get.

There are two sports which shine brightly, because of their visceral and very satisfying gameplay: Swordsplay and Archery. I dare say those two alone are worth the actually quite humble price Tag of 45€, as the package contains the game and one WiiMotion Plus addon. Having played those two modes excessively, I can't wait for a medieval action or RPG game to use those controls. I'm thinking along the lines of Die by the Sword or Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Could be a Samurai or Ninja themed japanese game too.

The three games more or less directly ported from the original Wii Sports - golf, bowling and table tennis play nicely as usual, allthough I found the original bowling a tad more intuitive.

Which brings us to the downsides already: the other sports range from unremarkable to annoyingly gimmicky, and I'd stay clear from the biking and air play modes. They simply are not fun.

Especially flying planes is not very well thought through: you ought to hold the WiiMote like a toy plane, meaning at it's "belly", but you need to press the buttons on top of the controller to play it. I'd rather had the WiiMote upright as flightstick and the nunchuck as a throttle control. That might have upped the complexity a lot, but would've been much more intuitive.

Other things I don't like: Most games make you play in turns, which makes four player games quite lengthy and tedious. Of course this allows you to multiplay without having 4 WiiMotion Plus controllers (Which add up to 85€ each, if you have to buy the WiiMote, WiiMotion Plus and a Nunchuck), but it makes mulitplay less frantic and fun.

Also, limiting table tennis and dogfighting to two players takes a lot of possible fun away.

The worst part is that there is no online multiplayer possibility. It would make the game much more interesting, especially if there isn't someone else around if you want to play.

Another annyong point is having to unlock most of the games and features. I know that's not a Wii Sports Ressort specific problem, but still, I can't understand it. Either you don't have every game at your disposal, or, because you already unlocked everything, you're considerably better than anyone you play with, making them not wanting to play with you.

Of course, in Wii Sports Ressort you can unlock most things in multiplayer mode, but still the problem somewhat exists, as you don't always want to wait for a friend to unlock a game mode you want to try out.

On other news, I can highly recommend Neotokyo is a great TC for the Source Engine. It has an Akira or Ghost in the Shell like setting, and gameplaywise it strongly resembles the good old Frontline Force for HL, which I really liked back in those days. I'd only whish they'd go down more towards the anime looks, which would make the game more stylish and somewhat mask some realism problems, like having a generic screen zoom rather than using the beautifully modeled optical sights on the guns.

And lastly, RO:Ladder has announced the next Red Orchestra Nations Cup. We're trying to field a team, so if you're Austrian and interested, get in touch with me, or sign up on roladder and reply in the topic on the forums there.

Migration

Now I know what most of you think: the blog's migrating to somewhere else. But that's wrong, I am physically migrating. Now, as a part of a lengthy process, I brought my gaming and work PC to my girlfriends place, where I actually do spend most of my time. So it's one very significant step of moving in together officially, which should be completed by the end of the month. Whish us luck.

And now let's get back to gaming related topics: Angband got released on the Android Market recently, and I'm hooked. It's a concept that's so simple , yet still so deep and realistic that I truly long for something similar with a technically modern approach, without losing the initial depth of it. Also, it made me play Iter Vehemens ad Necem again, whenever I'm near a PC. Yay for rogue-likes.

Just one small warning to those of you who want to download the app for their Android phones: It needs a keyboard, so you're pretty much screwed if you went for a HTC Magic rather than the good old HTC T-Mobile G1.

More free stuff!

Now don't get me wrong, I don't plan to become a freebie announcement center, but I couldn't skip hat one:

To celebrate the series 15th birthday, Bethesda chose to offer The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall for free. The download can be found here, in addition to the first part of the series.

Mechwarrior for free

With yesterday's announcement, Battletech authorized the free distribution of MechWarrior 4 with it's expansion packs over at Battletech.com. The download should be up soon.

Now's the perfect time to get your mech-fix!

A dream is coming true!

It's been a long time since I've been excited about an upcoming game. But when I stumbled upon the news on IGN today, I almost creamed my pants.

Yes, it's a new MechWarrior in the make! Hopefully, it will see the light of day.

Protection

Last weekend, I attended a "Die Ärzte" concert in Linz. Much to my surprise, they had a very neat offer there: for 20 Euros, you could obtain a USB-storage stick with the live recording of the concert, plus a voucher code to download the encore the next day.

Now what really struck me was the vendor who told me upon purchasing the strick that the music didn't have any copy protection, so I could copy it to as many computers as I wanted. Even the band announced the stick, and added: "Or you can download the songs on piratebay tomorrow."

Of course they won't offer them there themselves, but still, not trying to prevent that, and even encouraging it, was an epiphany for me.

It actually works. The DRM on music is a last struggle of the dying music industry, but the artists themselves have other means of generating income: live concerts and merchandise. The internet basically made buying CDs obsolete, and most people know that only a tiny portion of the CD revenues land in the hands of the artists. Thus, you don't neccessarily have to feel bad about downloading music rather than buying it. Also, you can't download the live experience, so go and support the bands you like by going to their concerts.

I know this sounds rather like a pro-piracy article for now, but here's the turn that also connects the topic to gaming: while free distribution does work for music, it can't for games. There are no live concert like events to substitute for less bought copies. Thus I can understand the industry's try to rescue itself by copy protection systems. The problem is though, that they cannot possibly work.

Not only are many protection systems very intrusive on the systems, they're all breakable. In fact, most games are cracked and available for download before the actual release date. Also, you don't have to register accounts, always have the DVD in the drive or other inconvenients associated with legitly buying a game.

So basically, using protection to fight piracy is a battle that can't be won. It costs money, and I guess not little, to use SecuRom and the likes of publishers. And they don't achieve what they're meant to, they can't stop pirates. The only thing they do achieve is alienate people who would want to buy, but don't want to open their computer to protecting and possibly data mining (*cough* The Sims 3 *cough*) applications.

So I for one think that the publishers should skip the whole DRM business and give the customers incentive to buy their games rather than suspiciously eyeing at them like everyone was a pirate.

Incentives could be a comeback of gimmicks going with the game, like cloth maps, novels, soundtracks, or pretty much anything else that comes with collectors editions nowadays. Or online systems you can't live without (even though that might need registering).

On a sidenote, I'd also like to see the price of downloaded games via Steam or other means to be reduced. I think it's ridiculous that a game costs more on steam than in a store, especially since I can play the latter outright and have a printed manual to read. I don't think that servers cost as much as a world wide physical distribution.

An unlikely relative.

This weekend, I got to try out Overlord 2 on both PC and PS 3. I only played for some hours, so I don't feel I know it well enough for a deep review, but I can say I like it, and I do think that it's an improvement over the already quite fun first part.

But what really struck me was that it plays very similar to Little King's Story I mentioned in my last post.

In both, you expand your residence. In both, you send your different minions via a button press in the direction you face to do various tasks. In both, your main tactic to defeat strong enemies is the timing of attack and retreat. In both you can (and should) lead a promiscuous life, and lastly, in both you strive for world domination. In fact, there are only three major differences I could make out:

1) The setting: You're basically Sauron in Overlord, while you're a cute little king, quite surprisingly, in Little King's Story. While the first is very pronounced in portraying you as evil, I actually like Little King's approach more. It all looks cute and cuddly, while you're actually genociding the local wildlive, agressively conquer other kingdoms and marry multiple princesses.

I find it quite interesting how the perception of a game changes based on how it looks rather than what you have to do.

2) The perspective: Overlord features an over the shoulder view, while LKS is top down. I prefer the first, because it's easier to aim with your minions and you feel more involved with the world.

3) The combat: Overlord features "The Scorcher" among other very visceral weapons. LKS has a sparkly scepter. No need to say more...

Another thing I want to adress are RPGs. Why do all modern RPGs feel so shallow? I am on the brink of finishing the first Mass Effect, and while it's a great game, it doesn't capture me like old school RPGs like the original Fallouts or the Ultima series.

That dawned on me after participating in this thread on the Tripwire Interactive forums and reinstalling Arcanum, which I actually never got into, despite it's heritage. And right now, I'm totally sucked in and I love it.

Another tip for old school RPG players, even though it's more a hack and slay type of game than a true RPG is Eschalon. Worth checking out, especially when you're rig isn't up to modern games.

At your service!

Last week, two games which are admittedly quite old, used up a large part of my limited sparetime: ArmA 2 and Little King's Story.

ArmA 2 is exactly what I expected it to be: a very realistic combat simulator at infantry level, with reasonably well done vehicle parts. The differences to Armed Assault are rather cosmetic from what I could gather, but I haven't yet toyed around with the new commander interface, nor with the again powerful editor.

The only real gripe I have with it is, despite the expected bugs, is the strange bloom/blur that isn't even removed with Kegety's no bloom mod. And the pale greenish color correction.

Little King's Story is quite an unexpected gem. It looks like a kids game, and honestly, I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't read some very enthusiastic reviews on the web. I'm not too far into it, but it seems to be a very deep game disguised as a childs toy.

I will write more about those two games in the following weeks once I get to spend more time with them, as both games don't deserve a judgement too prematurely.

Mobile Gamer

To be honest, I am not much of a mobile gamer. I always thought that mobile phones ain't too suited for gaming, as (as much as I love my Wii) I tend rather to deep games over casual ones.

But last Weekend, it happened. Tidying up my basement, I found a box full of my old LucasArts, or even Lucasfilm Games, Adventures. And thanks to me copying all the discs to CDs, they were still fully operational.

Now you might ask what this has to do with mobile gaming. And rightly so. To explain: I use the T-Mobile HTC G1, also named Google G1, and there's a neat little app for that phone: ScummVM. It's easily available on the Android Market and it's completely free of charge.

If you still haven't figured out the connection: ScummVM let's you play the old SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) games on modern hardware, and mobile phones.

I can't stress it enough how appealing it is to revive your old childhood gaming memories on the go, on the bus, on the toilet, you name it.

The best thing is: all the games look crisp due to the tiny screen, and Androids ScummVM is fully audio capable, so you can enjoy both the score and speech, especially of the late games like Full Throttle or The Curse of Monkey Island. Allthough you should use headphones, because the speaker of the phone doesn't only sound aweful, but as it's on the backside of it, you annoy everyone around you as they hear it much louder than you do.

Which brings me to the most important gripe of the G1: you can't use the headphones and recharge it at the same time, as both use the microUSB slot of the device.

Honestly though, playing those games on your phone has a few drawbacks:

1) Controlls are a tad uncomfortable: touching the screen performs a doubleclick, which is great for quickly navigating the games, but it's sucky for everything else, especially if you need precision.

2) Coming to precision: the trackball sensitivity is so low you get blisters on your thumb from turning it from one side of the screen to the other.

3) Right clicking is very uncomfortable with holding the camera button and clicking the trackball, especially if the keyboard is extended.

and lastly

4) You realise how short those old adventures were. Back as a kid, I could spend weeks with a game, but today, because some solutions are more apparent to me now, some are still stored in my memory and the easily available walkthroughs in the web, you only spend two to three hours per game.

Also, as closing words: is playing old PC software on a phone really regarded as "mobile gaming"?

How hard can it be ? Part deux

In the forums of one of my most favourite game devolper, Tripwire Interactive, the forum regular Murphy initiated an interesting discussion on the subject of difficulty scaling, using Burnout and Unreal Tournament 2004 as good examples.

I can't really agree, but I'm too lazy to summarize the discussion, especially since it might grow. So follow the link to the thread to read up and participate.

And while you're there, you might aswell check out TWIs titles, which are both quite recommendable.

What's huge, hard and full of jocks?

As you might have noticed already, I am not intimidated by complex games. In fact, I rather prefer games that need me to get into before knowing all the nuances, instead of being pick up and play.

Last week, I discovered such a gem of "hard to get into"-games, and I have to admit, I still fail miserably at it. But it's just too awesome to rage-quit it. Also, it has some mechanics that prevent that, but that point will be covered later. Now, drumroll please, the game I discovered: Titans of Steel - Warring Suns by Vicious Bytes, published by Matrixgames back in 03, but nowadays freely available.

And why is it awesome? Battlemechs, or rather Titan Attack Techs, or Titan-ATs in short. If that doesn't suffice to convince you, you will probably not like it. Still, I'll elaborate a tad more: much like the original Battletech board game, it's a very complex hex-strategy game where you control squads up to 8 jocks who pilot said Titan-ATs. Just as the source of inspiration, it features multiple hit zones with internal damage, independent torso movements and heat and ammo management. If that wouldn't be complex enough, all your pilots have a multitide of skills that can be improved upon, much like in an rpg. Also, it isn't as strictly turn based as Battletech, but uses a system similar to the Brigade series, where each action takes time and once it's done, you can give new orders.

Additionally, you have to worry about the financial wellbeing of your squad, which is rather difficult in itself.

Another perk of it, and that's where the "no rage-quitting" comes back, is that your squad is persistent. If you quit during a mission, your squad will not be able to do anything except of continuing that mission, or retrieve you squad for the quadruple of you upkeep costs you pay per mission. Which, with a cheap beginner squad, amounts to the price pf a whole new recon mech. That retrival doesn't only cost dear money, it also nullifies any XP gained during the mission, so it's quite a hefty price to pay. Also, it's the only way to "revive" fallen jocks or completely obliterated Titans, so woe to you if you just lost your best man but can't afford to retrieve the team. Thus you think twice before accepting a mission.

The 1.2.2 Beta Patch somewhat takes away from that by allowing loans (at horrendous rates) or cloning of dead soldiers (at the price of decreased constitution of the jock, additionally to a hefty sum), but it's still a tough blow to lose.

This persistent squad system is also what scares me away from multiplayer battles, as I don't want my four cautiously leveled "greens" (the second of 10 ranks) to be obliterated by "heroes" (the tenth rank) who play since 03. Also, I do think that it's quite hard to get a partner to play unless you get a friend of yours to play it with you. If anyone of you wants to scrim sometime against either my Greens or against an all new squad, just drop me a message and I'll see what I can do.

But for now, I'm stuck with single player, which sadly is somewhat of an afterthought. At first it looks like it's only up to 4 squads 2on2ing on random generated maps, but after some searchng, you can find several campaigns with rudimentary stories, and difficulty ratings. But don't get fooled by them, because my green team struggles even on "rookie" (the first rank) missions. So you better spend some time in random matches with the rules set to outmach your enemy greatly until you'rt jocks and mechs are improved enough to go on. You can also switch campaigns between missions, so for example you play the first two missions of campaign 1, then head over to the first mission of campaign 2, which might let you capture a mech that makes mission 3 on campaign 1 easier.

The start is also quite hard because it's nigh impossible to judge which of those more than 150 Titans to chose from are any good at the start, so you might end up with Titans not suited for the tasks at hand.

Still, if you like Battlemech, that game is the one for you if you need a quick fix for your needs, and once you start winning, it's certainly very rewarding. Just make sure you install the 1.2.2 Beta Patch.

How hard can it be?

Spending last night on a friend's Playstation 3 for some mindless fun, I discovered one of the plagues pestering modern gaming: difficulty scaling.

The principle of it seems pretty neat in theory. After a short calibration phase, everyone get's to play a game that is tailered to his specific skills. That way, everyone should be playing a game that is challenging, but neither frustatingly hard, nor overly easy.

The problem is though, that in reality, it doesn't work.

Now let's get back to the game I was playing: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Specifically the two story modes. Nobody cares that the story is shallow, badly written, seriously badly dubbed in german and about four times the length it should have, as it has this one flaming flaw that overshadows everything else: the difficulty scaling, which overrides the difficulty setting you chose in the options menue.

The premise is that it starts of easy, but get's harder with every opponent you knock out, and gets easier everytime you have to press 'O' to continue after a lost fight. Now what really is borked with that is that the rise in skill is too steep, leading to following situation: You win three fights easily only uppercutting the oblivious enemies, but the fourth fight is suddenly extremely hard and the AI just kicks your sorry butt around the screen in one long combo until you're out.

Now beat'em-ups getting harder with each victory is pretty much the concept of the genre's single player mode from it's very beginnings, so I have no problem with that. In every other beat'em-up, a tough enemy is a means for me to hone the skills I have with that particular character I chose, learning new moves and tactics to overcome the opponent.

And this personal skill gain is completely defeated by the level scaling, as once I lose, I don't have to look for combos that give me the edge, but simply button mash the now miraculously retarded AI.

What's wrong with me chosing my level of challenge on my own via the options? Thank god only the story mode is plagued with that. So stay clear of it.

Another example of difficulty scaling done badly is the Need for Speed series, especially since it went "underground": The AI rubber banding. That's what I call the phenonemon of the AI cars always being faster than you when they are behind you, but being slower when they are in front of you, causing the AI to oscillate around you like they were strapped to you with an invisible rubberband.

Again, in theory that system provides a challenge for every player, as you can't lose without hope of winning, but yet can't get away too easily. The problem is though, that again, it actually hinders the player in getting more skillful with the game. If you crash three fourths of the race in every object on and off the track, but drive the last fourth well, you win easily. If you blitz through a race but happen to get caught somewhere in the last corners, you lose. In some parts of the series, it went even so far that races were easier if you refused to upgrade your car.

Not only does this system, like most scaling systems, reward you for playing badly, but it also provides only a fake challenge, as once you're overtaken it's usually pretty easy to retake the lead from the AI which left their brains right at your rear bumper, unless they catch you late in the race.

Another bad example of scaling is TES 4: Oblivion. I don't think I have to say more on that one.

Now, as I like to think myself as being fair, I'd like to share a list of games that did scaling well, and explain why. Only I couldn't think of  one single game.

What's new?

Seeing the financial crisis kick in, I am sadly working less than I'd like to, and seeing that I spend most of my now quite vast spare time with my girlfriend, I also game less than I'd like too.

Still, there are some news gaming wise that are worth writing about.

Firstly, as I am a longtime fan of turn based tactical games with RPG elements. In fact, I am hooked to that genre since Jagged Alliance. Now I got my hands on a new one of it's clones: 7.62 High Caliber. It's not really new, especially since it's been out in Russia for ages, but I like it notheless. It's a great sequel to Brigade E5, improving on every aspect of it. As a short description, it's not really turn based, but pause driven. Everything happens in real time, each action takes time, but after each action, the game pauses itself you you can plan, thus making it basically feel like a turn based game. The concept is hard to explain, but it makes traditional turn based games feel very restricted and unrealistic.

It still has some severe bugs though, some of which require a complete reinstall of the game to play on. So sadly, I can only recommend it to fans of the genre.

Secondly, PC Gamer UK spoiled Tripwires announcement of their Game 3 (game 1 being Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, Game 2 being Killing Floor) by prematurely publishing a preview on it. Not really a surprise, but its a follow up to their first game, now named Red Orchestra: Heroes Of Stalingrad. It will again be realistic, allthough TW plan to make it more easily accessible for people who are less willing to sufferthrough an enormous learning curve to get enjoyment out of a game. It will feature SP campaigns for both Russians and Germans (a genre novelty, being german was limited to strategy games until now), a coop mode and some more refinements. It seems that especially the damage to players will be a novelty, with more detail than other FPS-Games, plus there will be bandaging. I do hope though that they don't mess it up like the bandaging system in Americas Army.

The Ring

Long Time no see, my one single imaginary reader!

This time I want to talk about "The Ring". Now depending on your preferences, that might be a mediocre horror flick series (slightly better in it's japanese original), or the place where a great Xbox-FPS, yet mostly mediocre PC shooter is set.

But for those of you who have at least virtual gas guzzling through your veins, it's the infamous Nürburgring Nordschleife, aka the Green Hell. This interesting and unique curcuit kindled my intrest while I played Gran Turismo 4, and pretty soon became the only track that I could get enjoyment out of. Soon after, I discovered Ben Lovejoy's site on  the Ring and I was completely drawn into that 20 odd kilometers of asphalt in the presumably lovely Eifel.

Now as I can't afford a trip to the Ring, let alone a car that is worthy driving on it (and most likely to be repaired after that), I try to get my Nordschleife-Fix virtually. Now, already hinting that my funds are quite limited, I have two choices, using my PC and my old, trustworthy, fat Playstation 2. I heard that there's the Ring in the Forza and Project Gotham Racing series, but as I don't own an XBox or Xbox 360 and an adequate TV set, that will have to be postponed until I either come to money miraculously, or someone will more miraculously donate one of them to me.

So, with what I got, I have surprisingly much to chose from. The PS2 offers the Ring on GT4 and Enthusia, while on the PC, I can go for a spin with either GTR Evolution or rFactor (which offers 4 different versions to download.)

A while ago, I made a quick video comparison using the same car in both Enthusia and GT4, to be found on youtube. Please excuse the crappy voice over. It was tediously enough to get it audible that I won't do something similar soon. But I digress. A summary of the video: while I prefer driving Enthusia for it's better physics (a shame that it was such a flop), I like the Nordschleife better in GT4. Which is annoying, because no matter what I play, I crave the other for it's merits.

So let's go to the PC. As already mentioned, I used GTR Evolution and rFactor. For the latter, I solely used The Ring 2007 v 2.2a, as that one seems to be the best version of the Ring.

Concerning details, no matter what game, they are ahead of the PS2 Rings, allthough both GTR and rFactor, sharing basically the same engine, lack in the track lightning department, making the Nordschleife look quite sterile. They have some advantages though. GTR has full dynamic weather, allowing any track condition from bone dry to monsoon rain and also features changing weather during a long race. The rFactor track comes in four flavours (summer, fall, winter and wet) and allows night racing with realistic change of daytime and light. To be honest though, I did not ever finish a lap in both rain and night, making a combination of those two both awesome and aweful.

Now, as I didn't use comparable cars this time, it saved me from doing another split screen comparison. In rFactor I used Niels Corvette C6 with Real Feel, with is pretty much the only way I can get to grips with rFactors physics.

To sum things up: I like GTRs driving better, and the Ring feels more polished. The Ring in rFactor feels more raw and brutal and is a lot less forgiving, even with Niels changes to the grip-level and bumpyness, so I imagine it to be the more realistic simulation of the sensation. Again, I can't really give a definite answer on which Ring is the best, until I actually go there and take a car around it myself.

So conclusively I can just say that whatever you chose to get your Ring-fix, it will do, as there is no version that's outstanding in all aspects, at least from the four I tried. If you want to take a look for yourself without having to buy, install and play four games, you can see a lap of each game both from the cockpit and a TV-cam replay on my Youtube channel.