Oh, And While We’re On the Subject of Stuff that Has Nothing to do With Politics
Because, frankly, we’re getting sick of it. Not that it isn’t important, it’s vitally important, but we all need a break from time to time. We know we do.
Just like we need our Gun Pr0n threads, our open threads, our whatever you’d like to talk about threads (and we’re very much open to suggestions there. We’re a community, after all, made up of a pack of wolves who have wide and varied interests), we need to let off steam on something that hasn’t got anything to do with the parasites in DC.
Such as games, and we’ll mercifully stick the rest of this beneath the fold so it won’t clutter up the front page.
I’m a strategy/sim gamer, on the rare occasions where I have time for that kind of stuff. Sure, I love the occasional FPS, who doesn’t like shooting shit and blowing up stuff, I guess you never get over that once you’ve been introduced to it, particularly when you can do it without worrying about being blown up or shot at for real yourself, and I love just having fun too. But my real passion is with games that you can dive into, live inside and use your brains to beat.
And I love space games. Ever since the first Elite back in the days of poorly drawn wire graphics up until now, where star systems look like live pictures from the Hubble telescope. Elite, Starlancer, Freelancer, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Privateer, you name it. And don’t get me started on 4X strategy games, the archetype of which has to be Master of Orion. I don’t particularly like RTS games, at least not the original type where you couldn’t pause and lay plans and form strategies, which led to a ginormous clickfest where your success depended on you clicking fast enough and not forgetting that unit down in the lower left quadrant who, left without orders, had just been destroyed because it was just sitting around like a moron, waiting to be killed by the AI.
But there have been great RTS games too. One example would be the Homeworld series, which combined battle with a great storyline and, most of all, the ability to pause and issue orders. I do believe that having your AI foe move while you move rather than sitting around helplessly while you outmaneuver as in a pure turn based game is a huge improvement, it certainly is more realistic, I just don’t want to lose a battle because my mouse got stuck in a puddle of tomato sauce while I was frantically trying to issue a movement order to a fighter wing in quadrant XQ87.
Let your opponent move while your forces are executing their orders, indeed let them react to your moves while they’re happening, that’s awesome. Just don’t let my success or failure depend on how clean my mouse and keyboard are and whether or not the phone rings, the dog barks or the kids drop a jar of jelly on the floor.
What I’ve always loved the most in games though is the “sand box” mode. Now I know that term is in itself limiting, since “true” sand box means that you have no plot, no story, no anything, and there are plenty of exceptions to that rule that I’d still call “sand box.” Sand box, to me, is a space sim in which you can choose to do whatever you want in a living universe and jump in and out of history as you like. Explore new star systems, take a stint as a smuggler, join a rebellion, mine asteroids, do whatever the fuck you want, but it still has to have the illusion of being “alive”. Elite, the one I mentioned before, had it. It was horribly primitive by today’s standards, but it was revolutionary back then. You get a ratty little ship, a few credits, an enormous universe to play around in and nothing but “go have fun.”
Why can’t somebody make that same thing today, only upgraded to exploit the resources that computers have now?
I guess they’re still trying to figure out how to get zombies into it.
There’s literally nothing. The best you can get are the new MMO beasts, but we’re really not all that interested in games that consist mainly of trying to dodge 13-year-old pimpled freaks who won’t get a date unless their parents buy one for them lying around in wait to boost their self-esteem by being complete arseholes. Not that there is anything wrong with being an arsehole, surely there isn’t, but if you’re being one solely for the purpose of being one because your life is otherwise worthless, then it leaves a bit to be desired. Certainly enough to make us not want to part with real money so we can spend hours dodging idiot campers whose entire lives are based on misspelling “fail” and “pwned” in the comm channels.
And then there’s the “minor” fact that we, having an actual life, really aren’t that hooked on spending a monthly subscription fee on something that we might, if we’re lucky, be able to spend a couple of hours playing during that month. Which is why we’re still big fans of solo campaigns. Not because we don’t enjoy playing against actual human beings, it’s the greatest thrill there is, but we just don’t have the advantage of living in mom’s basement with no social interaction beyond Tweeting “OWS, fuck capitalism” occasionally.
We would love to be able to spend days online, but we have other obligations, such as a family that would like to see us, and we still haven’t quite figured out why they’d want to but we’re eternally grateful that they do.
They’re quite dear to us.
So we’re constantly looking for The Next Big Thing in casual sand box gaming. And we’re finding nothing. So we got desperate enough to even start looking into Eve Online. Hey, it’s got great graphics, space, sand box and everybody is talking about it. It also had one huge thing: You didn’t have to be logged in all the time to advance. You can pick something you want to work on, and your character will keep working on it even if you’re distracted for a few days by something insignificant such as the very real people you love. We positively love the fact that the entire universe it plays out in, right down to the economy, is governed entirely by the players’ actions rather than some computer algorithm and, well, the graphics. And you can literally do anything you want, including just sitting around making “money” on the virtual “stock market.”
But then we got really interested and learned that there is no such thing as maneuvering your space ship. No dog fighting, no clever dodges, no daredevil Crazy Ivans turning the tables on a foe technically vastly superior to you, no artful dodging missiles and laser blasts to take out shield generators, literally nothing at all. Unless you’re part of a big fleet, all you can do is to pick a target, click on it, then watch as your ship parks next to it and exchanges blasts with it until one of you, with mathematical certainty, takes the other out.
Yawn.
Seriously. Why not just have a stat card for every ship in the game and then, to save time, just compare stats and instantly decide who wins? It would be every bit as boring and, at the very least, quicker. Where’s the fucking thrill? Where’s the being the obvious underdog, yet coming out on top through a combination of skill, dumb luck and who knows what else (after having your ass beat a hundred times)? Sure, if you’re part of one of the clans, sorry “corporations”, and are part of a fleet, you can use maneuver and skill, but where’s the fun for somebody who just wants to jump in and be bad-ass? You know before you enter battle who’s going to win. Big fucking whoop. You can stay and win if your stats are better or you can haul ass. No maneuver, no luck, no crazy. Let’s just draw cards for the win, why don’t we?
So where’s the next X-Wing? The next Freelancer? The next Elite?
Nowhere to be found. Until somebody figures out a way to put zombies in it, of course.
Blech…
Categories: Imperial Thoughts | 
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23 Comments »
I think an amazing game could be built around the concept of a first-person shooter and a whole bunch of liberals.
Mark12A @ #:
Where’s the challenge in that? Some liberal shakes his finger at you and you point a gun? He stands there and whines and you shoot him.
Or you find a heard of Occupy Space and Waste Oxygen protesters and start mowing them down. They just stand there playing with their Ipads.
angrywebmaster recently posted..And the latest victim of Chief Justice Roberts is…
Oblivion
Skyrim
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
All sandbox games, all offline, all dirt cheap and all immersive as hell. Skyrim is incredible, the graphics are spectacular.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QUjGxgbC68
Do you like games based on history? Are you more interested in strategic or tactical games?
Axis & Allies and Mission Barbarossa to name two.
This info is from SDN.
I’m mostly into untimed hidden object, mah jong & match 3 games.
I too loved Homeworld. I keep meaning to dig up my discs and play through them again. I was always more of an FPS player, but Homeworld was amazing.
Mark12A @ #1:
Sounds like a great opportunity to bring back the ‘Redneck Rampage’ franchise.
I just got Redneckopoly which is banned. For a great fun evening around the kitchen table try Monty Python Fluxx.
“Why are solar power panel factories never powered by solar?”
LC Gladiator @ #:
Because they can’t generate sufficient electricity to run the machines in the shop silly.
angrywebmaster recently posted..Independence Day comments
Most of the American population are aware Obama is a fraud (except the Jews here will still follow him off a cliff for unknown reasons). Obama will not show his transcript grades or his Draft Card… or his passport!
His history is so convoluted… it is mind numbing! Around 1979 Obama started college at Occidental in California. He is very open about his two years at Occidental, he tried all kinds of drugs and was wasting his time but, even though he had a brilliant mind, did not apply himself to his studies. “Barry” (that was the name he used all his life) during this time had two roommates, Muhammad Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid, both from Pakistan. During the summer of 1981, after his second year in college, he made a “round the world” trip. Stopping to see his mother in Indonesia , next Hyderabad in India , three weeks in Karachi , Pakistan where he stayed with his roommate’s family, then off to Africa to visit his father’s family.
My question – Where did he get the money for this trip?
LC Gladiator @ # 11:
LC cmblake6, Imperial Black Ops Technician recently posted..Another comment that MUST become front page
LCBrendan says:
Seconded on Skyrim. I know His Vileness is a huge fan of the Fallout games, if he liked New Vegas he should like Skyrim too. I’ve also been playing Battlefield 3 recently, great fun.
LC Alric says:
You guys are conspiring to ruin my life!
Played all of the games on the list except Skyrim (and yes, I bloody loved Oblivion as well as the Fallouts), so it’s only a matter of time before I give in. And then I’ll disappear for a few months and you’ll only have yourselves to blame
Emperor Misha I recently posted..Happy Fourth of July!
The only problem with games like the Elder Scrolls series, and the Fallout series is that they don’t turn out enough of them. It sucks having to wait so long for the next installment… well, after you run out of all the downloadable content, and mods if you’re playing on a computer.
That’s the reason I never got into EVE Online – boring as heck 99% of the time, which isn’t made up for by the rest of the time where it’s the best thing ever, especially at $15 a month. Star Trek Online got me my spaceship fix, though it’s far from sandbox (and too bad it burns through the content really quickly; at least it’s free to play).
If you want a new Elite-type game, there is the X- series, with X3 being the newest. Not going to say they’re anywhere near as fun as, say, Freelancer, because the controls are pretty off, and it’s just so SLOW. Not quite EVE slow, but was still too boring for me to play very long at all. Someone with more patience and love for the genre than I might like it, though.
My Liege,
A tear came to my eye. I LOVE Space Sims and I miss them desperately!!
And while you named, ALL of my favorites, you left out two of the best and those would be
Descent: Freespace: The Great War and Freespace 2
Wow! What a great series, too bad they ended it after the second one.
LuckyLeo @ #:
Ah, Freespace! My apologies. There have been so many over the years but, sadly, no more. No zombies in them and 11-year-olds are having trouble with controls more complicated than “WASD and mouse”.
Yes, those were great too. And while we’re on it, the Wing Commander series. Like all of the X-Wing/Tie Fighter/X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter ones, they had a great story line stitching together nail-biting missions. Not “sand box” at all, I know, but if you give me one heck of a good story that creates a believable universe for me to “live in” for a bit, I can live with it.
I was particularly impressed with the story line in Tie Fighter, and what impressed me was that I was expecting the usual “character agony when he realizes that he’s fighting for the Evil Side because, deep down, he loves the
United Nations of Galaxies and their Blue HelmetsSenate and Jedi “Do-Gooders” and all that they stand for, blah, blah, blech” that you always get when a game lets you play for the “bad guys.” Oh, and the fact that the game came with an actual manual, made out of paper and everything, that was more than the 6 pages (5 of which are made up of the EULA and credits) we get nowadays, if we get that much, not to mention, in the grand tradition of Elite, a whole dadgum novel to set the mood and give you the background.Wow. And it didn’t cost $60 either, although I’d gladly pay that kind of money today for something like it.
Oh well. Someday they’re going to grow tired of zombies or, more likely, one of the many “Indie” devs who are churning out better and better material every year (because they don’t have a “publisher” who gets to order them to release unfinished product and who gets 97% of the proceeds when it goes gold) are going to put out something exactly like what we remember, and maybe even better. It doesn’t take a 200 member dev team with hardware that mere mortals cannot hope to buy anymore.
Speaking of Indie and space: Have you checked out “Endless Space?” It’s a traditional 4X in the mold of Master of Orion, only it looks a lot better and plays pretty damn well too. I got the “alpha” for dirt cheap as part of a pre-order deal, and that “alpha” plays better and is of a better quality than about 75% of the gold release versions that most “recognized” publishers throw at people today (thus expanding the Microsoft concept of “paying beta testers” to the gaming world). No, I’m not exaggerating. I launched that “alpha” and my immediate reaction after having played it for a couple of hours was “this is ALPHA? What the fuck are you guys going to IMPROVE on?”
They went gold yesterday. Check it out if 4X space strategy is your thing.
Emperor Misha I recently posted..Happy Fourth of July!
LCBrendan @ #:
OK, so Skyrim it is. The graphics are OK, I’d say, though a bit “meh.” But not bad at all.
Want graphics? Here’s a link to graphics. That shot is from a WWII U-Boat simulator, in-game, not promotional. That’s what it actually looks like.
I keed, I keed, although the screenshot above IS quite real. Skyrim actually does look good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I won’t be posting for a couple of months.
Emperor Misha I recently posted..Best. Windows. Wallpaper. EVER!
Man, those were the days!
I would kill me for some Wing Commander and Tie-Fighter!!
I love Tie-Fighter, even more than X-Wing. I played the hell out of that game!
I do hope Space-sims ma
ke a comeback – with a Flight Stick! I really did love Freelancer (it made me miss the Hell out of Privateer, though), but I love using a flight stick. Using a mouse interface like the one in Freelancer seemed just a bit too easy. Maybe that is just me though.
Now Endless Space seems interesting. I think I will check that out! I loved me some Master of Orion, too!
Emperor Misha I says:
Heh, I wandered over to this thread specifically to mention Endless Space to you guys after reading about it on RPS and you’ve already beaten me to it!
The problem with the graphics in Skyrim, along with many PC games, is that they are ports of console games, thus limited to the weakest of the console graphics systems that the game appears on. I’m told Witcher 2 is one of the better examples of good PC graphics atm.
As for me personally, I’m farming a bit in Diablo 3 while wandering in and out of Bastion. Yeah, I know, on the surface both are ARPGs, but they are wildly different games (loot whoring with friends vs single player story driven). I’ve got the rest of the extended humble bundle V to go through, although my first impression of Swords and Sworcery was “WTF is this hippy drivel?”. I’ll give it another go when I have time.
Boryon says:
I’m ahead of the curve. Comes with being an Emperor and all that.
Still had to check out RPS again, thanks for that tip!, and it appears that Creative Assembly are working on the second iteration of Rome: Total War. Now that’s going to be epic. I still play the original and love every second of it, but if they take that and apply all of the upgrades, particularly to the AI, that they’ve added to the others, then I’m SOLD.
CA has always had trouble creating an AI that would behave like an actual human, and they’ve worked hard on it over the years and, bless ‘em, opened their creation up to modders and, in turn, taking the hints from those mods. They’ll get it eventually because they’re honestly trying, and when they finally hit the sweet spot, they’ll be the rulers of the strategy genre. They’re quite good at adapting. I remember when they first started mentioning maybe creating a Total War with muskets and artillery in it and everybody, including myself, thought “nah, that just won’t fit with what you have, ain’t going to work.”
We were wrong. Empire: Total War did just that. I remember when I first tried out the historical “first line shoot, second and third reload, advance, rinse and repeat” strategy in that one and it actually worked exactly the way it did in history.
I have high hopes.
Emperor Misha I recently posted..Tripling Down on Stupid
Emperor Misha I says:
You’re welcome. That’s another series I wish I had time to play, the Total War series…