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