2009
Halo news...
Sooo....
After the huge shamble called ”Halo Wars” I’m very glad to hear about a couple of news items on the horizon. First we have the ”Halo ODST” in September 2009. A Halo FPS (thank god) but without the cheif and cortana this time. It places it self just before the second Halo game, on the time line.
After this, sometime 2010 comes ”Halo Reach”, of wich I do not know much at all. As far as I know it connects to a new book series that takes place during the time of the forerunners (basically a mother of a prequel). Both I’m looking forward to
Plants VS. Zombies
So the Casual gamer master of all time has done it again! In spring 2009 they released this superb game called ”Plants vs. Zombies”. You can find it at THIS place. At it’s core it belongs to the genre TD (Tower Defence Games). Most surly as old as Tetris at least. But it does not end here. Popcap has done the second only thing one can do when a new inventions is not possible: improved upon something allready existing. So with a huge dose of irony and funny bone they have made a true gem of on the casual game heaven.
Basically you have to protect your self from a nearly never ending line of funny looking zombies. The come through your lawn, backyard, pool and over your roof. The leave funny little notes to you and much more. To your aid you use a plethora of trust plants. The too come in many shapes and forms. The game changes day and night cylcles now and again, as well as actual location. You will allways see what types of zombies you will encounter som you can choose plants wisly.
The game is also littered with mini games and surprises. All in all it is a fantastic thing they have made. It truly is! The player is constantly kept busy. Picking up sunshine, money, planting new plants and also keeping an eye out on the zombies themselves. You can unlock new minigames and other stuff during your playing. What starts out simple enough soon becomes very difficult but in the sam time hard to stop doing.
They have also released the game on multiple platforms so no one gets left out of the fun.
At the end: if you are only to pay one indy developer this year let it be Popcap. They most surly deserves it - AGAIN
Sins of a Solar Empire
Once up on a time there was a independent software delveloper that was famous for it’s good policies towards customers. They had made several good games that contained no copyright, DRM or any crap to scare off gamers. They took good care of all paying customers.
Not long ago they made the game ”Sins of a solar Empire”. A 4X game that played more like RTS. It looked good and played equally good.
No DRM, no crippleware and such crap. You had to use your serial to download patches from the game website. That was it. Excellent initiative. The game sold VERY well indeed.
But around version 1.05 and later something happened. I’ve not been able to find out what for sure. But Stardock launched their online platform (think Steam) ”Impulse”. Suddenly games and software was encapsulated in some strange way. Also you had to have IE7 and .NET 2.0 event to install the main platform. And if you did not you could not install or download new expansions OR patches any more. Gone was the download option via the game web site and suddenly it became irritatingly difficult to upgrade.
And I thought to my self: Well another game developer who can not keep it’s viritual hands off the products they sell. They simply want to controll all avenues of download and this allways complicates and restricts access of the buyer/gamer. Without exceptions.
So this game is nothing I support anymore, or any other title of theirs for that matter. If they keep meddling like this, I simply keep my hard earned money. I will still play SOASE but only up to version 1.05, and I will never buy the expansions.
”Impulse” sucks major crap. It is buggy like you would not belive. Many have huge problems with it. You also have to install IE7 and .NET 2.0, which is a HUGE no-no if you want to keep a slim gaming rig with as few installed things in it (except games naturally). Not even Steam demands any thing else but the main platform software.
So this is the saga of Stardock. Once a customer friendly developer. Now a simple DRM hugging peddler of computer software. R.I.P
Halo Wars
At the end of February I got my (long awaited) copy of the spanking new ”Halo Wars”. This is an Xbox360 exclusive title and it does not involve Bungie at all, despite being a game taking place in the Halo Universe.
I naturally did not quite trust that Halo would lend it self well to the RTS genre, being a long time excellent FPS series. But never the less I was looking forward to the ”prequell” position of the game story, taking place some 20 odd years before the first Halo game. So let the saga of Halo Wars begin:
I got the special collectors version. Expensive as it was it came in a nicly looking metalbox. A thinner printed paper box was next to it, containing all the extra materials. This extra stuff was as follows: One hardcover comic book about the very beginning of Halo Wars: Genesis. Nicly written and well worth the read. Also a rubber tag (nice looking) and six collectors card presenting the different heroes available in the game.
The game it self is on one DVD disc. The box felt hard and heavy. In reality it felt like it contained much more compared to reality. But it goes well with the Halo 3 box which is in the same style.
The game boots quickly and you get a nice looking start menu and upon enbarking on the campain you get a very nicely rendered intro movie. In fact all in game movies are of high quality and highly watchable.
So how is the game to play? Does it play well as an RTS?
Well the answer to those question is ”good” and both ”yes” and ”no”.
The graphics are very nice. It flows well and much details and animations are visable. All in all it looks quite good. The sound is good but I’m sorry to say it has a LONG way to go before reaching the hights of previous Halo games. This fact also severly reduces the mood in the game.
The play mechanics are fairly good. But quite a bit repetative. Much more so than previous games. As an RTS the player is much more removed from the action, sitting in a outside position above all the action and not in the thick of it at the front. So obviously at least I felt not nearly as ”swept off my feet” by the game. Many small details constantly reminded me of the fact that the world was a construct. This also reduces the mood.
Also several levels are quite stupidly constructed. Even on easy they take som doing to get through and some even have timers so you have to reach the goals in time (god I hate stuff like that).
The controls are good. Much better than perhaps any other try in this genre before. But still not good enough compared to regular mouse and keyboard. And not even close to precise. So a good try in this department but not a full point goal. Often you find your self hopping around the game area and fumbeling to gain control. Very often it all comes down to building as big of an army you can and then mow down the enemies and hope it is enough to win. And then you have to fight the less than stellar path finding of your own units (which is crap when many units on the same area). Yawn... :-O
In the end you know a game have trouble when the only reason you stand the game play is to get to the next ingame movie.
I sadly conclude that I would rather have payed to get all the in game movies put toghether into one long movie, maybe with a few action game sequences to string it along. This would have been much more entertaining and taken quite less time to watch.
As it stands I will probably not see all the story in this game since I can not bring my self to play all the levels. Either to hard (even on easy) and meaningless and repetative.
And where is the bloody superb mood the other games had?
What a sad thing this is. I hope some one will put up all in game movies on the net someday.
So I can get something out of this massive waste of money. Do I have to say: Don’t buy this - even if you are a fan of the Halo mythos....
So sad....so very sad!