Clippings

Inspired by this episode of the Three Moves Ahead podcast, I recently revisited Star Wars: Rebellion and Empire at War, two grand strategy games released almost a decade apart.

Rebellion is… interesting. After playing for several hours, I was still getting a feel for it, and I don’t know yet whether it’s good or bad. Playing as the Rebels, I experimented with massing guerrillas in an attempt to incite uprisings on Imperial-controlled worlds. When that failed, I launched a conventional offensive with the Rebel fleet, took out an Imperial garrison that had its boot on the neck of the Corellian Sector, and was rewarded when multiple planets flipped to my control. My main complaint so far is the UI – not as bad as I’d feared, but still, it can be a hassle managing the galaxy.

Rebellion does intrigue me, and that’s more than I can say about EaW. I last wrote about EaW about a year ago, noting that I vastly preferred its skirmish mode to its campaign. I gave EaW‘s campaign a second chance and unfortunately, it’s still bad.

In other news:

• This week’s notable release is the PC port of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, to a favourable reception. I remember the original Dragon’s Dogma on PS3 as pretty difficult – I didn’t make it very far in.
• USGamer reviews the cleverly named Aviary Attorney, which may appeal to adventure game (and Phoenix Wright) fans.
• Next month will be big for strategy gamers, with the release of XCOM 2 in early February!

Heading into December, my gaming time has been split between recent releases (Fallout 4, Thea: The Awakening), other purchases from Steam’s November sale (the British DLC for Company of Heroes 2), and finishing off my Nobunaga’s Ambition campaign. I’m looking forward to more time with the newly released Charlemagne DLC for Total War: Attila – it’s well-regarded, doesn’t look too big, and, based on my short and ill-fated first campaign, offers a good challenge. I’d also like to finish Tales from the Borderlands and try Life is Strange, which I also picked up during the Steam sale.

Meanwhile, we’re learning more about next year’s major strategy releases:

• Paradox is broadcasting a weekly staff multiplayer game of Hearts of Iron IV, pitting the UK against Germany. You can find episode 1 here; as at the time of writing two episodes are out, and a third is due to air tomorrow.
• While Paradox is more circumspect with Stellaris footage, the dev diaries are promising. I’m particularly interested in the research system, which presents a dynamic choice of technologies rather than a static tech tree, and about interactions with pre-spaceflight species, which players will be able to uplift.
• XCOM 2 footage is also out – I like this video from Eurogamer, which showcases the base screen, soldier customisation, and tactical combat, accompanied by developer commentary. Also check out USGamer’s interview with Jake Solomon.

In other news:

• Fallout: New Vegas Tour is a really cool look at the places that inspired the game. I had no idea they were so rooted in fact.
• This USGamer article has done a lot to pique my interest in Yakuza 5. Mini-games built around serving ramen and talking to taxi passengers? That is unique.
• And this is an interesting discussion of violence in Rise of the Tomb Raider. In some ways, it echoes my thoughts about the 2013 reboot.
• With Xenoblade Chronicles X just out, Eurogamer examines the career of its creator.
• Finally, Gimmen Gong, who composed much of the soundtrack for Guns of Icarus Online, has written in to tell me that an expanded album is now available. It’s dominated by slow, mournful ambient music, of which my favourites are “The Last Spirits of Time Forgotten” and “Original Main Theme”. There are also several faster-paced tracks; I like “Captain’s Maneuver” and “Grand Skyway of the Armada”. If you liked the GoIO soundtrack, the samples are worth a listen. Note that this album excludes the main menu theme and the drumbeat that plays when going into combat (“Adventure” and “Battle”, respectively), which were composed by Zain Effendi and are included with the collector’s edition of the game. It does include 3 tracks towards the end that overlap with the collector’s edition.

September saw several notable strategy releases:

• The PC version of Shenandoah Studios’ Battle of the Bulge;
• After Dark, the first paid DLC for Cities: Skylines;
• The English version of KOEI’s Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere of Influence; and
• Act of Aggression, the latest RTS from Eugen Systems (Wargame).

Battle of the Bulge is the only one I’ve played enough (3 playthroughs¹, totalling several hours) to assess. The iPad version has drawn a lot of praise, from the likes of Troy Goodfellow and Bruce Geryk, and wow, does the PC version live up to the hype. It’s the kind of quick-playing, evocative, elegant strategy game I love to evangelise² – the panzer divisions will run wild for the first few days, while the outgunned Americans buy time, hold strongpoints, and maybe launch the odd spoiling attack. Once the skies clear, and Allied reinforcements arrive, it becomes the Allies’ turn to bludgeon their way back across the map.

As much as I like the game’s design, its implementation suffers from two flaws. First, the AI has the bad habit of overextending itself. On several occasions, I was able to cut off isolated German spearheads, leaving the once-fearsome panzers stranded without fuel or ammo. Second, the game is a bit buggy³ – on a couple of occasions, the screen began shaking and I was unable to give orders, forcing me to quit and reload. Still, the underlying design is so strong that I look forward to seeing the sequels on PC.

While I haven’t had the chance to play much of Nobunaga’s Ambition: SoI or Skylines: After Dark⁴, I’m optimistic about both. I’m looking forward to unlocking the new entertainment and tourist precincts in After Dark – tourism was rather bare-bones at launch – and the new day-night cycle (added via free patch) is gorgeous. Check out the image at the top of the page!

Speaking of gorgeous, I love the aesthetic of Nobunaga’s Ambition: SoI (above). KOEI’s strategy franchises, such as Nobunaga’s Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, have great art, great music, and the only character-driven 4X/grand strategy mechanics outside Crusader Kings. I suspect SoI’s campaign will take quite a while to play – RotK 11 suffered from “strategy late game” syndrome. If I do dig further in, I’ll be sure to report back.

The only one of the four I haven’t picked up is Act of Aggression. First, I’m not sure it’s my cup of tea – it’s a homage to the ’90s, C&C-style RTS (and a spiritual sequel to Eugen’s earlier Act of War), a genre on which I burned out many years ago. Second, its reception has been mixed. On a happier note, Eugen is working on a free map patch for Wargame: Red Dragon –  that might be my cue to jump back into the Cold War.

In non-strategy news:

• Here is an on-stage Q&A with Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida – I’m listening as I type. There is a detailed summary here. His view on the Vita is here.
• And see this coverage of the Tokyo Games Show, which succintly declares that “mobile rules at TGS 2015”.
• A look (from April) at the grey market for PS4 games in China.

I’ve just picked up the first episode of the new King’s Quest, which came out at the end of July. As a newcomer to the series, I like what I see! One hour in, it’s a pleasant, charming fairytale that has made me laugh out loud a couple of times. My only complaint was a single, reflex-based action sequence – I’m horrible at those things! – and even then, it was manageable. KQ was well-received back at launch, and I look forward to playing more.

Meanwhile, Satellite Reign, the cyberpunk strategy game, is now out to positive reviews (Metacritic link here). From the few minutes I’ve played, I am not entirely impressed by the game’s technical performance – my high-end gaming laptop sees frame rates in the 10-30fps range regardless of whether I set the graphics to low, medium, or high. But when my plan broke down at the end of the tutorial area, and my agents fought for their lives, technical issues melted away in the thrill of the moment. Cautiously optimistic.

In other news:

• Eurogamer profiles Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox. For a more in-depth account of how the Paradox team ended up packing Crusader Kings 1 boxes themselves, check out this Polygon article from 2013 – that has always stuck with me as an example of the travails that come up in small business.
• Here is an interesting piece about the implicit urban philosophy of Cities: Skylines. Note that I disagree with the old cliche, briefly referenced in that article, that The Sims is an exercise in materialism. That hasn’t been true since Sims 2, which added lifetime desires and an underlying ambition (such as Fortune, Family, or Knowledge) for each sim.

Several interesting interviews this week:

Space Game Junkie has a Q&A about Paradox’s upcoming Stellaris. Some interesting tidbits — Victoria-style internal politics sound long overdue for the space genre.

The Wargamer interviews the designer of Rule the Waves, the Dreadnought-era naval simulator. Did you know that Master of Orion inspired the ship design in RtW? If you ask me, RtW makes better use of that mechanic than 90% of the space 4X games that followed MOO’s footsteps.

Meanwhile, the Flare Path’s write-up of Pike & Shot: Campaigns has prompted me to add the game to my wishlist. Between Quadriga, Vietnam ’65, and Rule the Waves, that column has become hazardous to my wallet…

A retrospective of Circle of Blood/Broken Sword, the classic adventure series.

In non-game news, here is an interesting article about the rise of ebooks on mobile phones, buoyed by larger screen sizes. The article doesn’t discuss “cell phone novels”, which have been around for some time in Japan, complete with a prose style adapted to the medium.

Finally, check out this high-resolution concept art from Endless Legend. Beautiful!

Update: Paradox has officially unveiled Stellaris – here is RPS’ preview, the best I’ve found. It is neither related to Coriolis, nor like EFS. Instead, it sounds more like Distant Worlds, with a dash of the procedural generation that characterised Paradox’s abortive Runemaster. A galaxy populated by randomly generated species, an emphasis on discovery and exploration that will last throughout the game, new factions popping up… I look forward to finding out more.

Gamescom has kicked off, with the big news – for me – yet to come. If my guess is correct, Paradox may be about to announce a new space game!

The facts: Paradox is working on “Project Augustus”, a new mystery game that will be unveiled at Gamescom. Pending the announcement, it has released a number of cryptic hints, which you can find here.

The speculation: Based on the arguments in this post, plus the subsequently released hints, I’m convinced the game will be set in space. Paradox has published an ebook named Coriolis: Dark Between the Stars, apparently set in the universe of a Swedish tabletop RPG. And it has recently registered a new trademark, “Stellaris”.

The wishful thinking on my part: Could Project Augustus be a spiritual successor to the sadly underappreciated Emperor of the Fading Suns? “Dark Between the Stars” is a term from the Fading Suns setting, and a Crusader Kings-style character-driven game would be perfect for a “feudal future” setting such as EFS. I’d love a remake – EFS was one of the most unique games I’ve ever played.

In other news:

• A good interview with Ian McNeil of Slitherine.
• And here is an interview with John Riccitiello of Unity.
• A look at Steam refunds, now that the hullabaloo has died down.

Amateur admirals, ahoy! This week’s highlight is Rule the Waves, a dreadnought-era naval strategy game. In RtW‘s strategic layer, the player designs new ships, pays for them out of a limited budget, juggles crises, and last but not least, appeases the politicians. In the tactical layer, the battleships, cruisers, and destroyers come out to play. Now that I’ve found my way around the interface, I find the game pretty elegant to play, and after two campaigns, I can report that the game is cracking good fun. My only wish is for a way to automate tactical battles and just focus on the strategic layer.

Here is the Flare Path’s write-up. Here is a Let’s Play over at the official forum. You can purchase the game here – note it takes a little while for the serial number to arrive. A few tips, if you pick it up: (1) submarines are great value – they’re dirt-cheap and seem very effective at forcing enemy countries to the negotiating table, (2) you will need a lot of hulls for coastal patrol/ASW duty as the game goes on – I like building cheap patrol boats on a minesweeper chassis, and (3) playing as the US, most of my battles were cruiser vs cruiser skirmishes (I guess I was too remote for other countries to justify sending in the battleships) – it paid off to invest in outsized heavy cruisers.

This week’s other links:

• A great 2012 interview with Jenova Chen, of Journey fame.
• A retrospective of Earthbound, a cult classic JRPG that I never played.
• In non-gaming news, here is a fascinating look at movie props. Did you know that there are legal requirements for prop money?

A mix of interviews and retrospectives this week:

• A great interview with Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida about The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy 7. Here is a separate profile of Yoshida and Sony, from this February.
• And speaking of Sony announcements, here is an interesting retrospective on Shenmue, and the way in which it brought its world to life.
• An interview with Koji Igarashi, of Castlevania fame.
• Tim Schafer takes a look back at his career.
• A 2014 blog post from Jeff Vogel argues that “The Indie Bubble is Popping“, as too many games chase a finite amount of attention.  Still an interesting read.
• Finally, this review highlights Her Story, a unique game in which a player pieces together the story by watching FMV clips of a single character’s interview with the police.

No EU4: Common Sense update this weekend, I’m afraid – real life has intervened. The adventures of Meiguo will resume next week.

Between Dishonoured 2, Fallout 4, and The Last Guardian, this E3 was my favourite in years. You’ve probably already seen the high-profile stories; here are a few that slipped through the cracks:

• Nintendo used to design Mario levels on graph paper. Very cool!
• An interview with Chris Avellone.
• What the player actually does in No Man’s Sky (gather resources, craft better kit, go on more distant voyages)
• A somewhat lukewarm hands-on preview of the new Star Wars: Battlefront.
• An interview with the CEO of Square Enix. Final Fantasy Tactics is now out on Android!

Big week in strategy game news – CA has announced The Last Roman, the first add-on campaign for Total War: Attila. TLR will cover Justinian and Belisarius’ attempt to reconquer the West; here is the announcement video (complete with developer interviews) and here is Rob Zacny’s summary.

Meanwhile, a new round of Hearts of Iron IV previews is up; Three Moves Ahead has a detailed discussion; and quill18 has posted almost 30 minutes of gameplay footage. My take-aways are: (1) the current (alpha) build needs a lot more work; (2) beneath the glitches, there is a lot of potential; and (3) I’m glad the game has been postponed until 2016.

In other news:

• PC Gamer visits a three-floor electronic mall in Taipei. Taipei’s not the only Asian city with similar attractions; any tech/PC/gadget lover passing through Kuala Lumpur should drop by Low Yat Plaza, which contains seven floors of goodies.
• The Flare Path has a fascinating piece on the first flight simulators, created in the late 1920s!
• PCInvasion interviews the developers of Expeditions: Viking.
• The Playstation Blog outlines Wattam, the upcoming game from the creator of Katamari Damacy.
• USGamer previews Abzu, a very pretty (seriously, check out the official website) underwater exploration game.
• Finally, here is an adorable trailer for Yoshi’s Woolly World (h/t frogbeastegg). So cute! And there’s a “mellow mode” for platformer-challenged players, such as me!

The big news is 2K’s announcement of XCOM 2, due out for PC (and only PC) this November – IGN has the details. Highlights include randomised maps, secondary mission objectives (hopefully this will make missions a bit less grindy), various refinements to combat, and a novel premise – XCOM lost the war; Earth was overrun by aliens; and decades later, the remnants of XCOM are continuing the fight. I will most probably cover the game – although this time, I might turn the difficulty down!

Meanwhile, Paradox has announced a new Crusader Kings 2 expansion focused on Mongols, nomadic tribes, and the Silk Road; you can read the first dev diary here. From what I can see, reactions have divided into four categories: (1) “Woo! Mongols!”; (2) “Woo! Dothraki for mods!”; (3) worries that the larger map will lag the game; and (4) “Paradox should deepen/refine the existing mechanics instead of enlarging the game’s scope”. Personally, I loved the time I spent on the steppes in CK2, and I’d like to see how Paradox can build on that.

Speaking of Paradox, a press preview event is currently on for Hearts of Iron IV. The preview embargo lifts next week, so I’d expect to see articles and footage then.

Finally, at the time of writing, Bethesda is a few hours away from a Fallout-related announcement. Here is a 2010-vintage interview with the developers of Fallout: New Vegas, an excellent game that I still need to finish!

• A raft of previews have emerged about the new Mad Max game; USGamer’s is the most thoughtful.
• A fond retrospective of the original Mass Effect.
• Another Rob Zacny piece on TIE Fighter, and its depiction of imperialism.

In the last few weeks, I’ve dipped into a variety of games, without spending much time on any one:  Assassin’s Creed 4; Shadow of Mordor; Counterspy; Order of Battle: Pacific; Kerbal Space Program; and Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles.

Mostly, I like them. AC4 is as enjoyable as ever. Kerbal captures the wonder of spaceflight when I see the horizon before me, and the terror when I try to get my Kerbonauts back down. After a few hours, I’m comfortable calling it one of the best science fiction games I’ve played. Mordor, Counterspy, and Order of Battle: Pacific, so far, live up to their strong reviews and word of mouth. (Or, in one case, live down – I agree with the consensus that OOB: Pacific‘s naval battles are the weakest part of an otherwise strong game.)

Dracula X is the odd one out. I had never played a Castlevania game before, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Unfortunately, I think I started with the wrong one. I am not good at platformers… and this is a difficult platformer with limited continues. After beating my head against the first two levels, I am about ready to download a saved game that will unlock the other included Castlevania release, the well-regarded Symphony of the Night.

In this week’s news:

• The Witcher 3 is out, to rave reviews. Pick your favourite gaming site, and odds are it’ll have a favourable review.
• Logic Artists has announced Expeditions: Viking, a sequel to Expeditions: Conquistador. This is great news! Conquistador was an original game in an original setting; I’d love to see what the developers do with Vikings.
• Firaxis has announced Rising Tide, an expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth – here are interviews with PC Gamer and RPS. After being disappointed by Beyond Earth, I am reluctant to part with any more money…

This week’s biggest news item is a movie – Mad Max: Fury Road is out, to rave reviews. It deserves them. Fury Road is what Mad Max movies should be. It’s what Mad Max movies can be, given a reported US$150M budget. It’s thrilling, visually spectacular (sometimes downright beautiful), and features a tough, capable female lead – I can sum it up in one phrase: “Holy @*&%, that was cool!” If the upcoming Mad Max game can live up to the movie, it will be a blast.

In other news:

• There are plenty of upcoming space games; Rebel Galaxy‘s unique features are (1) a country music soundtrack and (2) that it gives players a capital ship instead of a fighter. Here is USGamer’s video preview; here are written previews.
• Brief but interesting – USGamer takes a look at genres that did better outside their home countries.

• Hearts of Iron IV has been delayed again, with the new date to be announced after the team is done working on “a large milestone”.
• Still on the subject of WW2, reviewers are glowing about Order of Battle: Pacific, a new game inspired by Panzer General and Unity of Command.
• PC Gamer reviews Kerbal Space Program, version 1.0. The game has been available in pre-release form for ages — I wrote very briefly about it years ago — and so the PC Gamer piece reads more like an appreciation.
• In adventure game news, reviews are uninspiring for Broken Age: Act 2. I’d held off buying until the entire game was out. Perhaps I should keep holding out for a better discount?
• And finally, a game I never knew existed: A-Train 3D, a crunchy train management game for 3DS.

• My link of the week is this trailer for the upcoming Mad Max game, due out 4 September. It looks great! Let’s see if it lives up to that potential.
• USGamer previews Xenoblade Chronicles X, the upcoming Wii U sequel to Xenoblade. And here, Nintendo presents an hour of gameplay footage.
• Creative Assembly states that it will develop Total War: Warhammer in parallel to, not instead of, historical games.

• With Bloodborne and Pillars of Eternity released to glowing reviews, it’s been a big week for RPG fans. My link of the week is this excellent interview with Hidetada Miyazaki, creator of Bloodborne and the Souls games. Did you know that it was Ico, of all games, that inspired him to become a game developer?
• A look behind the scenes at Paradox development (while the article contains some new screenshots of HOI4, its focus is on process rather than any individual game).
• I don’t think I’ll ever play Vietnam ’65; all the same, Rob Zacny and Tim Stone make it sound fascinating and unique.

• Sid Meier’s Starships is now out, and reviews are mixed. Apparently, it places a bit too much emphasis on the “light” part of “light strategy”; I will probably give it a miss.
• The developers of Endless Legend are planning a new free update, to be followed by an expansion pack in April.
• Another new expansion has been announced for Age of Wonders 3. It will add the Necromancer class and two new species, the Frostlings and the Tigrans,

This has been a great few weeks for strategy gaming; we’ve seen the launch of Total War: Attila (very good) and Homeworld: Remastered (on my ‘to play’ list), and Cities: Skylines and Sid Meier’s Starships are imminent. I’ve been playing a review copy of Skylines, so keep an eye out for my thoughts.

In this week’s links:

1. Here is a great Hearts of Iron IV preview from Rob Zacny at PCGamesN.
2. Oreshika, a Vita RPG high on my watch list, has released to generally positive reviews. Its premise is unique and intriguing – you command a clan with fixed lifespans. They’re born, they adventure, they gain experience, they die, they pass their abilities and heirloom items onto their kids. This sounds about as close as JRPGs will get to XCOM (and Training Roulette) – I plan to pick this up.
3. Still on the subject of JRPGs, here is a retrospective of Tri-Ace — the studio that developed one of my favourite series, Valkyrie Profile. Now that Tri-Ace has been acquired by a mobile games developer, I guess I can finally bury my dreams of Valkyrie Profile 3
4. A love letter to Grim Fandango‘s Rubacava (spoiler warning).

After the disappointment of Beyond Earth, early videos of Sid Meier’s Starships are a bit more encouraging. Start with this overview (skip to about 33 minutes in):

Then watch this video (complete with Sid in Starfleet cosplay) for a more in-depth look at gameplay:

This preview contains a bit more information.

In other news:

• Still in space, here is a preview of Homeworld Remastered.
• Not having an N64, I missed The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask when it first came out. This review of the new 3DS version doubles as a retrospective.
• USGamer lists the essential last-generation console RPGs. It’s a good list, with the proviso that it excludes portable games — my one addition would be The Last Story (for Wii; my writeup here). Including portables, I would add several excellent PSP games — Tactics Ogre, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, and Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions.
• Previews (PCGamesN, RPS)are popping up for Act of Aggression, the upcoming RTS from Wargame developer Eugen Systems.
• A retrospective of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. My take would be: disappointing narrative, great aesthetic, great fodder for a Ghost in the Shell fan, very good overall experience. I even enjoyed the boss battles!
• The real XCOM underground base?

I’ve been juggling several games, lately. On the PC, the run-up to Attila‘s release has seen me replaying older Total War titles: Shogun 2 for my Let’s Play (Part 2 coming soon!), Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai, and Napoleon: Total War. And happily, I’m enjoying Fall of the Samurai and Napoleon a bit more this time around.

On the Vita, I’m a little way into the original Suikoden (pretty decent), Grim Fandango Remastered (still delightful), and Rogue Legacy (courtesy of Playstation Plus).  I don’t think you could go wrong with these if you enjoy their respective genres.

In this week’s links:

• Several interesting games are out, to generally positive reviews: Sunless Sea, Apotheon, and Grow Home.
• Far Cry 2, distant relative of the survival game?
• The resurrection of Grim Fandango (hat tip: frogbeastegg).
• And here is a similar interview about the relaunched Homeworld.

Total War: Attila previews are trickling out, comprising a mix of write-ups and Youtube videos. Here are the more useful ones I’ve found:

• TJ Hafer, IGN (probably the single best)
• Q&A with the same previewer
• DarrenTotalWar, new features (video)
• DarrenTotalWar, overall impressions (video)
• Kevin Van Ord, Gamespot
• Adam Smith, RPS

I’m not worried that Attila will launch as poorly as Rome 2 — after that fiasco, the previewers are falling over themselves to be cautious, and so far I haven’t seen reports that Attila is broken. I am a bit worried that the game will turn out like Fall of the Samurai — a brilliant concept that needed a few more months in the oven. Either way, keep an eye out for my thoughts once the game is out.

In other news:

• Firaxis has announced its latest project, Sid Meier’s Starships. Out of the several previews I’ve read, by far the most informative is Eurogamer’s (hat tip: frogbeastegg). Firaxis stumbled last year with Civilization: Beyond Earth; nonetheless, with Sid himself helming up Starships, I will keep an eye on this one.
• Hearts of Iron IV has been delayed until late in the June quarter. I can’t say I’m surprised — given that it’s already late January and the game still isn’t in beta, there was no way it could have been finished (and polished!) in time for its original March-quarter release.
• Finally, here is another quirky Ubisoft game — Grow Home. The trailer doesn’t make it quite clear what the gameplay will involve; given that Ubisoft’s last “small” games (Valiant Hearts and Child of Light) were flawed-but-interesting, this might also be worth a look.

My first clippings for the new year! This week, I have two fun pieces about retro games:

• Here is a piece by Rob Zacny on how TIE Fighter moved past Star Wars’ traditional black-and-white morality. No joke, now I’m itching to write revisionist Star Wars fanfic…
• And here is a profile of Marc Ericksen, who did the cover art for a host of 1980s and 1990s games. I didn’t realise one person was responsible for so much of the art from that era — he did everything from Tetris to Mega Man 2 and my childhood favourite, Herzog Zwei.

Just a short update this week, as I’m away on holiday:

• Before Call of Duty became shorthand for “blockbuster, mass-market games that I’m too cool to play”, there was Modern Warfare. Eurogamer takes a look back at COD4: MW.
• USGamer previews Code Name: STEAM, a 3DS tactical RPG that it describes as “Valkyria Chronicles, XCOM and Silver Age superhero comics [having] a baby”.

Hope you’re having fun, and I’ll see you in a week’s time.

Back in 2009, Valkyria Chronicles was the game that made me buy a PS3. It was innovative, beautiful, and grossly under-appreciated by consumers – the sequels moved to the PSP, and the third game never even came out in English. Now the original game is coming to PC, and for fans of tactical RPGs who missed it the first time, it’s well worth a look. Yes, there were balance issues. Yes, the plot was disappointing. But I can forgive that, because at VC‘s heart rested an insight: squad-based tactical TBS can have the spectacle and excitement of shooters. You can see that idea recur in XCOM, and I believe the Xenonauts developers will follow suit with their next game.

Here’s some gameplay footage of Valkyria Chronicles on the PS3. Skip to 3:00 to see the actual battle. Note that whenever you see the player taking a shot, whether it hits is determined by the soldier’s accuracy (as in an RPG or strategy game) rather than the player’s skill:

(Edit to add: USGamer has a good overview of the Valkyria Chronicles series’ history.)

In other news:

• Something I forgot to mention last week – I tried on an Oculus Rift for the first time (in a non-gaming context). The technology isn’t quite there yet… and all the same, it was impressively realistic. The obvious gaming applications are first-person shooters, space sims, and the like; I think it could also work well for an adventure game such as Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments. I’d love to see how it looks in a year or two.
• When I learned that Platinum was developing a Legend of Korra tie-in game, I thought this was a match made in heaven. In the end, reviewers panned the game — but word of mouth is much more positive. Check out the user reviews on Steam.
• The studio behind King of Dragon Pass is working on a sequel!
• Panzer Front Ausf B, a reportedly excellent 2004 PS2 tank sim.

Heads up! Civilization: Beyond Earth pre-loads are now available – the game will unlock on the 24th (Friday), just in time for the weekend. The download is 2.7GB.

Not much to report otherwise. I’m pecking at XCOM: Enemy Within and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments on the PC, both of which I enjoy – in fact, I fired up XCOM so I could compare something with Xenonauts, and after rediscovering the joys of Firaxis’ game, I can’t go back. On PS3, I’m playing Okami HD, the port of one of my favourite games of all time. And on Vita, I’m slowly progressing through the marathon that is Persona 4: Golden.

In this week’s links:

• Previews are popping up for Ardennes Assault, the upcoming single-player expand-alone for Company of Heroes 2.
• How the original Gabriel Knight used colour as a motif (warning – extensive spoilers).
• Julian Murdoch (of Three Moves Ahead) writes about the XCOM boardgame. It sounds pretty cool…

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments is now out, and emboldened by generally favourable reviews, I snagged my copy. Two hours in, it’s really good!

The key is that Crimes and Punishments sells the illusion that I’m experiencing a Holmes adventure. Its production values are pretty good, and the writing and voice acting are very good. It also has a sense of humour. For all the cool authority Holmes projects, Watson is clearly the one who has to put up with him on a daily basis, and their banter is laugh-out-loud funny. The traditional adventure game “examine everything” mechanic makes perfect sense in a game about Sherlock Holmes, a man renowned for his powers of observation. And uniquely, it’s possible to reach the wrong conclusion on the basis of the evidence. My one gripe – there is no “save anywhere”. There isn’t even “save and exit”. Instead, the game uses a checkpoint system.

Meanwhile, Jane Jensen informs me via email that the soundtrack for the Gabriel Knight remake will not be sold separately:

Hi, Peter – no, it is only available digitally as a gift with the pre-order of the game.  It will not be sold separately due to our licensing agreement with Activision.

In other news:

• I wasn’t the only one having fun at a con over the weekend. Here is Eurogamer’s writeup of Firaxicon, complete with Sid Meier anecdotes.
• Below is a teaser for Vane, whose devs are ex-Team Ico. I can see the resemblance — it shares a dreamlike, fairy-tale atmosphere with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. One to watch!

• Impressions seem favourable for Age of Wonders III‘s expansion pack, Golden Realms, and for Endless Legend. Both are on my “buy on sale” list. Reviewers are generally positive on Endless Legend‘s artwork and original world, with the caveat being the game’s AI. And it sounds as though Golden Realms addresses pacing, my main concern with the base AOW3.
• Hands-on previews are trickling in for Civilization: Beyond Earth and This War of Mine. I wonder how much depth there will be in This War – its premise is certainly great.
• And speaking of premises, check out SWAP, a capture-the-flag FPS minus the shooting, and upcoming indie tycoon game Big Pharma.
• The newly announced Zodiac is a Vita and iOS game that owes a clear debt to FFT (name and music), and to Valkyrie Profile and other side-scrollers (gameplay). I am a little concerned by the possibility it might be free-to-play – we’ll see if that’s confirmed.
• Finally, USGamer takes a look back at Resonance of Fate, a PS3/X360 JRPG that I’d like to finish one day.

I haven’t forgotten about that Europa Universalis IV piece! I have half of it written, along with half of a first impressions piece about Xenonauts. The short version is, Xenonauts is a clever homage to the original X-COM, and my first seven hours have been a blast – but I wonder if the next seven will be as fun. Perhaps it’s the rose-coloured glasses talking, but Xenonauts‘ ground combat seems slower and more grindy than X-COM‘s. It’s definitely slower and more grindy than Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Just a few links this week:

• Wasteland 2 is out… and reviews are surprisingly lukewarm. Judging by the couple I’ve read, critical reaction seems to be “good, not great”.
• IncGamers interviews Jane Jensen about the upcoming Gabriel Knight remake.
• Eurogamer previews the upcoming World of Diving, which has a great concept: diving game + Oculus Rift.

The good news is that The Sims 4 is out. The bad news is that reviews are lukewarm. Read one review, and you’ve pretty much read them all. The consensus is that TS4‘s new features, such as the ability for Sims to multi-task, don’t make up for the loss of TS3 features such as a wide-open neighbourhood. As someone who’s loved The Sims ever since the first game, this is a bit of a disappointment – I think I’ll stick with 3.

One game that has come out of nowhere is space-opera RTS Ancient Space, developed by new studio Creative Forge and published by Paradox. Beyond a couple of good-looking videos, details are scanty. I don’t think I’ve seen a single hands-on preview, and this for a game due out next week. For now, I’m cautious. Once the game’s out, I would love to hear impressions.

Did you know that there was an ill-fated attempt in the ’90s to create a Witcher video game? Meanwhile, The Witcher 3‘s release date – next February – has crept up on me. I still haven’t finished the second game…

What I have finished is my Ayutthaya run in Europa Universalis IV. Good fun! I’m also this close to finishing Final Fantasy X HD, which is very good despite a few flaws. I’ve written part of a follow-up article about EU4, and I will probably post some concluding thoughts on FFX, so stay tuned. And I’m fiddling with a preview build of  Offworld Trading Company – if you have any questions you’d like me to ask Soren Johnson, please leave them in the comments.

In book news, I’ve been reading quite a bit by fantasy author Daniel Abraham. Most recently, I’ve been reading his Long Price Quartet: the first two books are decent and original, the third book was a WHOA, and I hope the fourth will be as good. Here is a good write-up of the series. I hope to add my own write-up about Abraham once I’ve finished the last book.

Lastly, if anyone wants a free copy of the original Warlock: Master of the Arcane, please comment during the next week – I picked up several copies from Humble Bundle promotion. They’ll expire if not redeemed by the 22nd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYQCQuiPSlk

Above is a trailer for Crimes and Punishments, Frogwares’s upcoming Sherlock Holmes game, which showcases Holmes’ fabled ability to size up a person in a single glance. I do see the risk that the Sherlock scan will turn out to be an unintuitive guessing game, or a glorified pixel hunt, and from what I recall, the previous Frogwares games received lukewarm reviews. Still, my interest is piqued — the trailer looks pretty cool, and the separate gameplay trailer made me chuckle. The game will come out on September 30, and looks like one to watch.

In book news, I’m slowly going through the superbly readable The Guns of August. Good if you want an introduction to the opening days of World War 1… although I should note that it doesn’t have much to say about why the war broke out. I’ve also recently read a couple of very good specialist books on World War 2, Adam Tooze’s  Wages of Destruction and Gerhard Weinberg’s A World at Arms. All three books are candidates for the reading list I’d like to create for this site.

I can also report that the Android version of King of Dragon Pass is mostly good. My play-through was marred by two bugs – one minor, with the interface, and one major, which interfered with my choice of difficulty and game length. As at the time of writing, the game length option has now been fixed, while the difficulty settings are still bugged. The game itself is still very good, and its interface otherwise works well on my Note 8, so I would recommend it once the bugs are gone.

Other than that, I’ve been re-playing, re-reading, and re-watching old favourites. Europa Universalis IV as Ayutthaya – a Southeast Asian nation located in modern Thailand – has been a lot of fun, as I’ve progressed from middle power to the new top dog in Asia. The Wargame: Red Dragon campaign has also been a lot of fun, if sometimes hair-pullingly difficult; managing to stop modern Soviet tanks with 20-year-old relics, a handful of helicopters, and a lot of rocket artillery has been a lesson in improvisation. I’m also re-reading, for the umpteenth time, Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion – the book I linked to last week. It’s as good as I remember, and for two more days, it’s still pay what you want! And I’m slowly rewatching my favourite anime, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit – a warm-hearted tale of adventure, loyalty, and parenthood in one of the best fantasy worlds I’ve seen.

This week’s other links:

• IncGamers has a hands-on preview of the Gabriel Knight remake I mentioned last week.
• Here is a brief preview of Cities: Skylines from Strategy Informer.
• General interesting geek news: Bloomberg takes a look at the shortage of power outlets in US airports.