December 18, 2008
The Five-Car Garage.
AKA: "Top 5 Cars I'd actually use"
In the first stall:Here we have the Daily Driver. The car that I use on a regular basis to get to work and cart myself around. I'd have to ship one over from Europe, since they aren't available here.
2010 Scirocco
Next to that, we have the Cruiser. This car is there for the odd trip to the movies on a nice summer night, or for taking a drive around the lake, or along the river.
2005 Thunderbird
In the third stall, sits the All Terrain Vehicle. Used for camping and the like, this is there to attach a snow plow on, and brave the weather in.
2007 Wrangler
The SuperCar is next. This is the car that I would take around the track, go the the high school reunions in, and perhaps learn how to drag-race with.
2003 Ford GT
And last, but not least, is the Wild Card. For me it is a mud buggy. For use in the mud.
December 9, 2008
Game Review: Red Alert 3
This picture says it all.The game is fun. I will allow it that, but only because the rest of this review will dismantle it, and I want to make clear that it is indeed moderately enjoyable to play. It is also moderately enjoyable to watch, but only to a certain extent.
Style
When you first load the game, you are greeted by women. Women in the startup screen, women in the cinematics, women throughout the game. All of these women are attractive, and they are all scantily clad. The adviser that you are faced with for the soviet missions is dressed is what looks like light bondage gear. Some degree of sexuality is expected in video games, but RA3 takes it so far beyond any degree of normalcy that it makes the game immediately ridiculous. If a normal computer game is something like a SciFi novel, RA3 comes across right off the bat as something more akin to Maxim.
I am not sure how I feel about this rampant sexuality. I know that because of it, my wife would likely find the style juvenile and pathetic, even though she enjoys most of the RTS style games she's played. Heck, I find the style juvenile and pathetic, and I am supposed to be the target audience. I also understand that it was almost certainly engineered to be over-the-top in exactly this way, and while I do see the humor in it, it comes across as very forced, and the first Red Alert game achieved the effect with essentially zero budget.
The style for the rest of the game is disjointed and horrible, pretty obviously an afterthought. The entire menu system is formulated around a stylized version of soviet propaganda materials from the post WWII era. This could have been done well, but the way it turned out it was just flat and boring.
Gameplay
The game is an RTS, through and through. For the company that (arguably) invented the genre, Westwood had been able to refine their skills through the first three iterations of the CnC franchise. Then they were bought by EA, and they released RA2. The game was a cartoon, and while fun, it was completely predictable. Westwood seemed to lose the progressiveness that had brought them the first RTS ever, and that hasn't changed for RA3.
The combat is interesting enough, complex and fast paced, requiring a lot of attention to large groups lest an entire army be lost to mismanagement. The economy of the game is centered around ore collection like in previous CnC games, but it is executed poorly, forcing the player to build a collection facility essentially directly on top of centralized ore 'nodes,' and still maintain collector units and separate buildings. I am definitely down with the concept of point-based resource collection, but the execution here is overcomplicated and unsuccessful. The graphics are top notch, as expected, but nothing awe-inspiring.
Overall the gameplay is acceptable, but nothing more, The sole shining light in the game is the inclusion of Co-op campaign modes. This is absolutely fantastic, and should be included in every RTS from here on out. Of course, it has been done in countless mods before this point, so it is definitely not new, but it is a welcome addition to the game. The inclusion of water as a integral and playable surface is welcome as well, but more of a gimmick than anything. It really only serves to flatten the battlefield and it doesn't alter tactics too much, since most units can traverse both mediums with no real trouble.
Overall
The game is for me a failure because it is firmly lodged in the 'sequel' mentality. The style is clearly half-assed, and the gameplay is clearly a copy-paste from RA2. This game could have really made the CnC franchise stand out, but instead it ended up being nothing more than another EA cash cow. It is fun to play, but that is where it stops; there is nothing that stands out, nothing that would make this game anything other than one iteration in a series. EA understood what they needed to make a buck on this game, and once they put forth the minimum effort that is exactly where they stopped.
If you need proof of this, you need look no further than the DRM shipped with the game. Not only does the game come packaged with 'security' software, it is also nothing more than a rental with an install limit, subject wholly to EA's whim. I won't go too deeply into the maddening way that EA insists on punishing game owners, suffice to say that it is the primary reason why I will not buy the game (I played it on a friend's computer to write this, obviously).
So, next time they need to bring something to the table. With Spore's lackluster gameplay and now this, I will most definitely be trying any large EA game in a free capacity, with some pretty hefty criteria for success before I even consider buying. The game is purely adequate, nothing more. Perhaps worth 20 bucks, even less with the DRM.
December 1, 2008
What is Killing PC Gaming?
It took me a good 10 years to get back into the console market. From the middle of the PS1 all the way to the end of the Xbox's run, I was a PC gamer exclusively. I picked up an Xbox because it was pretty cheap ($150 when I got one) and I figured there would be a game or two that I really would enjoy.All the way up until the 360 entered my living room, I still considered myself primarily a PC gamer. Consoles were the side dish.
Now the 360 is my primary gaming platform, but not because it is the superior system. If I had my way, I would still be primarily a PC gamer, but the market has had a different effect on the two mediums. The games on the Xbox are no better than the games on PC. In most respects, the PC is a much better system due to the huge number of inputs available.
Alas, oh, the DRM!
The first game that really started to kill my PC as a primary gaming platform was Bioshock. The game was top notch. The SecuROM DRM was something that I was not willing to abide. I now own the game for the 360. Spore was the second big blow. The game is still excellent, despite its inability to live up to its own hype. The DRM is inexcusable, however, and sadly for this one I don't have a console alternative. Now, one of my favorite game franchises of all time, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, has its third installment available. I will not be purchasing it, can you guess why?
The last game that I bought for the PC and felt good about was Sins of Solar Empire. The game comes with only a CD key. No invasive DRM, just a great game that has made tons of money for Stardock. Perhaps PC gaming as a whole is not dying, but for me, DRM has nearly been a system killer. Every big name title to come out in the near future will likely have some form of horrible security software bundled with it, and I won't buy it for exactly that reason.
Steam is a compromise that I am willing to accept for the time being, and since Fallout 3 has been released on Valve's system, perhaps that is one way to successfully abate the layer of dust settling on my keyboard. I can only hope, for my own sanity, that Blizzard does not go the way of EA, and has mercy on us when they release Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. Their BattleNet service has been a nearly flawless way to enforce piracy restrictions, and I can only hope that they continue that format.
I guess it's time for me to draft a letter to the RA3 folks, to let them know my distaste.