Starcraft II
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, and its following expansions Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void mark the long awaited continuation of Blizzard Entertainment’s landmark RTS title Starcraft, one of the most popular and successful real-time strategy games of all time. Starcraft II follows directly on the heels of the narrative setup by the original game with numerous characters returning to fill greatly expanded roles. Mechanically the sequel builds heavily off its predecessor, continuing and expanding on many classic mechanics and strategies.
When taken all together, Starcraft II’s campaign, formed of three individual campaigns each released with the base game or one of the expansions, is perhaps the greatest single RTS production element in the second decade of the 2nd millennium. Each campaign focuses on one of the game’s three main races, and follows iconic characters that were the movers and shakers from the previous game as they continue to chart their own paths, and those of their respective races, through the deepening conflicts in their home system. The various campaign sections feature new units, mechanics, and abilities beyond Starcraft II’s standard multiplayer fare; these variations not only keep the very large string of missions exciting and engaging, they also perfectly showcase how effectively the game’s design tools were implemented and thus the great level of customization available to modders. This is all in addition to watching a very colorful cast of characters interact between missions inside the “command ship”, a semi-interactive debriefing and prepping area that serves as the “lobby” for the campaign missions and the workshop were the player upgrades and customizes their units and abilities.
The downtime between missions is another great addition from Blizzard. Pacing is balanced between diverse and sometimes rather hectic missions and the controlled, casual environment of the command ship, without ever bringing the player out of the overall campaign experience. Aside from a slightly distorted sense of time, primarily due to “time-sensitive” missions being optional due to multiple choice selections, the game world and its nuances are continually in the fore of the player’s space. The interaction between the different points of the command ship, and the characters within, also serve as the perfect vehicles to establish plot points and the campaign’s narrative in an environment where the player would not be easily distracted and can engage or skip them at leisure.
Pacing is most certainly an element that Starcraft is known for, at least as far as action economy is concerned. The first Starcraft was famous of high-speed, knife-edge missions and matches where players had to be continually focused on balancing long-term goals while addressing short term needs. Starcraft II maintains this trend most obviously in its multiplayer, and in its campaigns to a lesser extent. Blizzard was very careful to preserve the design elements and mechanics that make this level of action possible, including a proliferation of hot-keyed commands and abilities. The campaign missions are for the most part a more casual sampling, which is entirely appropriate considering the highly detailed levels, colorful faction designs, and intricate plots. Of course varying levels of difficulty are still including to satiate more experienced players and some of the higher level missions include their own parameters for increased challenges such as time-limits and resource limitation.
Starcraft II’s developers were also able to take advantage of its famed multiplayer and stellar single player to introduce an element that was still in its infancy at the time. Cooperative play, in which two or more players join together through LAN or internet play to complete a single mission, was introduced in the form of a specific multiplayer option where players could each take control of a commander, represented by one of the notable characters from the campaign, and lead their specific roster of units alongside their ally against singular pre-built missions. With each completed mission, the particular commander that was used gained experience, unlocking new units and abilities, up to a final level of 15. Over the years Blizzard released more coop commanders, gradually increasing not only the unit options but also the very mechanics of gameplay for each commander. Players can not only use familiar units from the campaign and multiplayer lineups, but also experience completely new rosters and mechanics developed specifically for cooperative play.
All of this variety comes in a refreshingly concise and smooth package. Starcraft II demands its share of memory space, but can operate on most internet connections and high graphics settings are manageable on just about any gaming computer currently on the market. It also launches quickly, has very well developed tools to maintain internet play, and practically seamless party chat and matchmaking tools. Its graphics levels have also aged well, and while not up to the standards of modern FPS titles it can still provide enough grand explosions and minute, interactive details to more than satisfy any level of RTS gamer.
It’s always difficult to confidently say that a particular title is the greatest genre champion of its generations, but as one of the few RTS franchises still viable and active, Starcraft II most certainly deserves accolades as a game worthy of its fanbase and the legendary popularity it has boasted over the years. It is still supported by Blizzard and continues to receive new content. The base game is also free to play and its other assets are available at reasonable prices through Battle.net. The RTS genre may have faded, but Starcraft II should still hold a place among anyone’s game library as an enjoyable single player experience and a fun multiplayer excursion.
XCOM 2 | Game Review
XCOM 2 is the successor to Firaxis Games’ reboot title of the famous XCOM series: XCOM: Enemy Unknown. XCOM 2 was produced by 2K Games and released in February of 2016. An expansion pack, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, was released in August of 2017. XCOM 2 follows right on the heels of Enemy Unkown’s premise and greatly expands on the story, gameplay, and experience of its predecessors.
XCOM 2 begins its campaign twenty years after Earth’s original attempt to fend off the invading aliens, the XCOM Initiative, suffered total defeat. The aliens now occupy the Earth through their puppet government, the ADVENT administration, and maintain a benevolent facade while developing their secret Avatar Project. XCOM has morphed into a resistance movement led by the Commander, the player’s avatar in the campaign. XCOM’s forces are now based out of the Avenger, a retrofitted alien supply ship that keeps XCOM’s assets on the move and away from ADVENT retaliation.
Galactic Civilizations III
Galactic Civilizations III is the long-awaited sequel to Stardock’s enormously popular Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords and the third title in the Galactic Civilizations series. It was published by Stardock in 2015 and has since then received two expansion packs, Mercenaries, and Crusades, and a third is to be released later in 2018. Similar in nature to the Civilization series of 4x strategy games, Galactic Civilizations holds one of the premier positions among the space 4x titles of the 21st century.
At its core, GalCiv III follows a familiar pattern of 4x gameplay. Individual planets take the place of cities or settlements, with each planet featuring a number of build slots where improvements can be added to increase planetary production of such resources as research, credits, and production. Each planet contributes to a global fund for credits and research but utilizes production individually and production is further diversified into social production, which is used on other improvements, and military or ship production. All planets that sponsor a shipyard can contribute their military production to the construction of space vessels.
Supreme Commander 2
At its core Supreme Commander held true to the overall conventions and mechanics of its series. A centrally important command unit begins the construction of a base with static resource-generating
Supreme Commander 2, which was developed by Gas Powered Games and released in 2010 by Square Enix, follows in the footsteps of the highly successful real-time strategy game Supreme Commander as a spiritual sequel to the combined arms, free-range style of combat pioneered by Total Annihilation. The single player campaign continues the story of the three competing human factions, the UEF, Aeon, and Cybrans, and is set several years after the events of Supreme Commander. Unlike the first game, Supreme Commander 2 did not receive a full fledged expansion, but a large DLC featuring many new units titled the Infinite War Battle Pack was released later in 2010.
structures and unit-producing factories. Naval, air, and land units could be produced and conduct operations in their respective terrain types across the battle map. The super-powered experimental units return from the first game with a greatly expanded role and are now divided into two tiers based on their level of power and the effect they could have on the overall battle. These experimental units are produced from dedicated factories instead of engineers in the field.
Endless Space 2 – Prologue
Endless Space 2, developed by Amplitude Studios and published by Sega, is the direct sequel to Amplitude’s previous 4X title Endless Space and the latest release in the Endless series. After a widely publicized and well-received early access period Endless Space 2 was released on May 19th, 2017 for PC and Mac. As yet I have not had the pleasure of experiencing everything the new release has to offer so until there’s some real review material to present I’m going to put up some quick notes about the eager anticipation surrounding Endless Space 2.
Out of the numerous 4X titles released in the last decade few came close to matching the vaunted Civilization series’ quality and appeal as Amplitude’s last title, Endless Legend. Endless Legend combined Civilization’s highly accessible user interface with the Endless series’ science-fantasy mythos and invigorating territorial control mechanics to make a 4X experience that was able to capture and hold a player’s attention across each game’s progression. The enjoyment remained consistent across single player and multiplayer and a new take on 4X diplomacy, while not perfect, kept competitive and cooperative play intriguing.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ in 2009 is the spiritual successor to Relic’s initial adaptation of Games Workshop’s dystopian sci-fi tabletop game, Warhammer 40,000. Dawn of War II has enough relation to previous titles in the series, namely in the its single player narrative, to warrant its claims as a sequel, but fans of the series will quickly recognize the numerous differences that make this follow-on radically different from its forebears.
Dawn of War II takes much of the inspiration for its gameplay mechanics from Relic’s other successful series: Company of Heroes. Combat consists of controlling a single, iconic commander unit and small squads (three to four soldiers) of specialized units. Cover is scattered around the map and divided into light and heavy cover which are identified by yellow and green movement markers respectively. Larger units and some special abilities demolish cover, exposing any troops that were sheltering behind it.
Each unit available to the player fulfills a particular role and is rarely, if ever, made obsolete by advances in production tiers. The standard format for each faction’s army consists of light scouts, adaptable main infantry, fire support and anti-armor infantry, super-heavy infantry, and light and heavy vehicles. The average combat force generally consists of six to eight infantry and one to two vehicles, in the campaign missions the force is limited to four units and the commander.
This style of gameplay actually hearkens more to the tabletop game’s most common format than it does to the original Dawn of War. The Warhammer 40k universe is well suited to this style and it allows the campaign missions to come off as flavorful, immersive, and dynamic. The characters take on more importance to the mission and to the player when each individual unit counts for something when the lead starts flying.
Yet this small squad format departs heavily from Dawn of War II’s predecessors. Large scale combat between armies was far more frequent in previous games and hero units, while still strong, served more as unique tactical assets rather than linchpins around which to form a strike team. In emphasizing small unit tactics Dawn of War II removed the galactic scale and sense of endless war from Warhammer 40k. Missions are engaging, but the player rarely gets a sense of how great an impact the victories are having on the conflict as a whole. Enemy forces, while always numerically superior and still dangerous, seem passive and underwhelming.
Dawn of War II’s campaign follows loosely after the events of the previous Dawn of War series and continues to follow the series’ protagonist faction, the Blood Ravens space marines. Several characters from previous campaigns appear as AI controlled allies or in cutscenes. The player controls a Force Commander that serves as his/her avatar and can be named by the player. Several squads of space marines, each representing a different combat type, serve as the force under the player’s command and are each led by a character that provides flavor and narrative throughout the campaign.
The campaign is played out over three planets. More missions with varying objectives, including side missions that provide benefits but do not advance the main story, become available as the campaign progresses. Strategic play is measured in days, with players allowed one deployment per day, although they can gain additional deployments by achieving a high score in missions or completing certain objectives. Most missions consist of the Force Commander, and whatever squads the player chose before launching the mission, landing planet-side on a tactical map representing desert, jungle, or urban terrain. The player’s forces progress across the map taking tactically important locations before progressing towards a final objective like a powerful enemy that needs to be eliminated or a strategic location in need of defense.
Dawn of War II’s single player experience is nothing if not character driven. The slinking and slug fests of the missions would seem meaningless and wearisome where it not for the thematic import that the characters’ perspectives and personalities applied to it. Cutscenes and in-game commentary bring the dark universe of Warhammer 40k to life, give meaning to the objectives, and explain the motivations and behaviors of the various antagonists.
These squads are also heavily customizable, gaining experience for levels with each mission allowing players to increase their squads combat and support abilities and even defining if the squad is optimized for melee or ranged combat. Armor and weapons, in the form of Wargear, is randomly dropped by enemies or acquired as a reward for completing missions. Wargear can be equipped to a squad during the strategic phase of the campaign and each piece of Wargear lists which squads it is suited for.
Skirmish mode lacks this character-driven narrative and noticeably suffers for it. Skirmish battles are wearisome tug-of-war matches over resource production nodes until the player has built up a strong enough army to actually destroy the enemy’s command center. In fact the command center, while poorly defended, has so much health and armor that a match’s finale usually consists of one to two minutes of units shooting at a building. All races and units are available in Skirmish mode thus maintaining some interest for players willing to put up with the repetition for a chance to try out new units and abilities. However these flashy toys are wasted on a predictable and repetitive AI.
Multiplayer serves as a balance between the two, with the presence and challenge of human opponents compensating for the simple objectives and generic maps. Dawn of War II is well supported for online play and its integration with Steam’s network makes matchmaking and setup a simple process. Players are likely to get the most enjoyment out of head to head matches, as opposed to team games against the AI, but this certainly decreases appeal among casual gamers.
Dawn of War II’s close-in, tactical focus demands high performance from graphic and audio processors. Modern machines are sufficient to run the game smoothly, but any models introduced before Dawn of War II’s release will struggle at higher performance settings.
The shift in mechanical style the Dawn of War II introduces ultimately produces a dichotomy in the game’s appeal to fanbases. Players that enjoyed Company of Heroes will likely enjoy Dawn of War II’s single player experience if they choose to enjoy Warhammer 40k’s narrative. Fans of previous Dawn of War titles can still get a thoroughly satisfying experience out of the bloody, lore-heavy storyline but will find skirmish and multiplayer to be lackluster, repetitive, and restrictive.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 was developed by Westwood Studios, officially re titled Westwood Pacific, and published by Electronic Arts in 2000. The fourth Real-Time Strategy title in the Command & Conquer franchise; Red Alert 2 was the direct sequel to Red Alert and followed its predecessor thematically and mechanically. It would be followed in 2001 by an expansion pack, Command & Conquer: Yuri’s Revenge, which added a third faction as well as additional units and fourteen new single player missions split up into two campaigns.
Red Alert 2 was also the first title to be finalized after Westwood and Electronic Arts had completed their merger and did not suffer the development problems that had plagued the previous title in the series: Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. It also reflects some of the design changes that EA would begin to implement in the series, such as an increased focus on setting-based tropes (in this case Golden Age America and the Cold War) as well as a gradual lessening of the dichotomy that factions had displayed in previous games. Yet EA wisely chose to keep the story premise largely intact and to build closely off of developments that had occurred in Red Alert.
Red Alert 2 picks up where its predecessor left off. The Allies defeated the aggressive Soviet Union and established a puppet government to oversee reconstruction. Thus the Allies, including the newly arrived United States, were caught completely off guard when the Soviets began a secret re-militarization and launched a surprise attack on the United States from three directions. Initially the other Allied nations are not involved, but gradually join the war effort as Soviet aggression continues.
The player takes the role of a specially appointed American commander in the Allied campaign, or an up-and-coming Soviet commander in the Soviet campaign. Most of the missions take place in the United States and its territories, with Europe and Russia itself also featuring a number of locales in various missions. The missions, and the regions they take place in, are heavily thematic and geared towards making the game’s challenge, and Cold War feel, the centerpieces of design.
The Command & Conquer series always did a masterful job keeping the player at the center of the campaign’s narrative. The most important battles of the conflict serve as the missions of each campaign, with the commander taking a pivotal role in either stopping the Red Menace for good or completing the final conquest of the various Allied nations. The cutscenes and in-game cinematics are campy and perfectly reflect Golden Age Cinema techniques; they also don’t distract the commander from the RTS experience, keeping such elements as moral choice and NPC involvement to a minimum.
The portrayal of in-game units in the cinematics, as well as the perception that the commander is one of the first officers to gain access to new technology when it becomes available, keeps the immersion throughout cutscenes and missions. Some missions contain segments where particular units are required, but for the most part the player may choose whatever strategy that their current unit roster will facilitate. More advanced units and buildings are unlocked as the player progresses through the campaign; in multiplayer each faction’s roster is completely available for use.
Westwood RTS products have always been a little finicky when it comes to multiplayer games, but Red Alert 2 had a strong online following in its heyday, although it was admitted that the vanilla game was unbalanced in several aspects. Connection issues once a match has begun are rare and often more indicative of localized malfunctions instead of issues with the game itself. In the present day no public servers exist for online matches, but community run servers are still available for games between friends.
Red Alert 2’s AI does what it can given the conventions of RTS design at the time. In the campaign the AI can prove to be a very enjoyable opponent given its terrain advantages and often superior positioning. Most campaign missions are also of a substantial duration and can be accomplished through multiple strategies and tricks, warranting each faction’s campaign at least two-playthroughs. The Skirmish AI suffers without its campaign bonuses, as it follows predictable patterns and often fails to keep consistent pressure on the player. There are even cases where the AI will stop trying after a suffering a certain degree of setbacks. Yet for all its weaknesses, Skirmish mode does allow players to explore the game’s nuances at their leisure and test the capabilities of units in a more relaxed environment.
Red Alert 2 is widely considered to be one the of best Command & Conquer titles of all time. Its combination of fast-paced dynamic combat, traditional mechanics, and campy fun appealed to a wide range of gamers and also made it easy to learn and enjoyable to explore. Ironically the expansion pack Yuri’s Revenge upset that balance in the online arena, but self-imposed moderation in the online community as well as a host of balancing mods have kept the core game’s online experience intact. Red Alert 2 marks the high point of RTS gaming in the industry’s history and rightly remains one of the most beloved RTS titles of the first decade.
Small World 2
Small World is a strategy board game, published in 2009 by Days of Wonder. It is also hardly something that would seem at home in the realm of computer games. Yet in 2013 Days of Wonder released Small World 2, a digitized version of the game for computers and mobile devices. The game is available on Steam for PC, Mac, and Linux; the Appstore for Apple devices; and GooglePlay for Androids.
In the far off ages of early computers, particularly the late 90s and early 2000s, desktop computers came with a complement of simple games like Solitaire, Hearts, and Chess. These games were very simple, easily to repeat, and required little on the part of the gamer to utilize and enjoy. Small World 2, being a digital projection of a token-based strategy board game, follows a very similar vein.
A game of Small World 2 consists of a static landscape with plain, hill, mountain, swamp, forest, and ocean terrain tiles. Players are given an option to choose a randomized mix of race and type, the type being a single word that describes the style of mechanic for that race. Each race and type comes with a special ability. For example the Troll race always places a lair when placing a token on the board. If the Troll race had the Mounted type, the Trolls would get a bonus to taking over occupied plain and hill tiles. The game features over two dozen different races and types with no limits on which types and races can be mixed.
Each race and type comes with a number of tokens. These tokens are placed on tiles of the map that the player wants to control, with each tile providing one victory point per turn. When the player runs out of tokens their chosen race goes into decline. The tokens are flipped over and continue to generate points, but can no longer be moved and their abilities cannot be used. There is no limit to the number of times players can put their races into decline, however it normally takes a full turn to put a race into decline.
On a player’s turn they take all the tokens in their pool and begin placing them on valid tiles. Normally a tile requires two race tokens to be initially occupied with an additional token required for each enemy token on that tile, if any. Once all possible tokens are placed, the player can redeploy excess tokens (only one is required to hold a tile once taken) to other friendly tiles, then end the turn.
A four player game runs for nine turns and the player at the end with the most victory points is the winner. Territory control is the obvious method of winning in Small World 2 and there are a number of ways to go about this. Other players’ tokens can be eliminated by placing a superior number of tokens onto their occupied tile. Only one token is lost during a hostile takeover, any excess tokens are returned to their player’s pool.
Some races and types have abilities that generate additional victory points for occupying certain tile types like forests, or for controlling certain locations like mines or mana nodes. This allows some races to gain a large number of victory points without being spread too thin. On the flip-side it is rare for such sites or locations to border each other, and tokens can only be placed an tiles adjacent to a tile that is already controlled by the same player.
The game board and available races and types don’t change over the course of games, but they don’t really need to. It’s the combination of races and types that keep Small World 2 new and interesting over each play-through. Different threats and options necessitate different strategies each game, yet through all the random shifting the moves and actions required of the player never really change and that is what makes Small World 2 a simple yet attractive distraction. Players can relax in front of the computer enjoying the art and shenanigans of the AI or their fellow players while trying out whatever strategy suits their whims.
Small World 2 features a single player mode against up to four AI opponents and a multiplayer mode against up to four human players. The AI can be predictable and easy to manipulate, but is quite random and very well served by the random assortment of races and types generated anew for each game. There are no teams in Small World 2, but depending on the races and types available players don’t necessarily need to fight each other to achieve victory, although such situations are rather rare.
As a stop motion board game with about eight different sounds the Small World 2 has very enjoyable, cartoonish visuals and practically no operating requirements. The games are turn-based and playable on the lowest level of internet connections. The animations of AI movement and tile scoring at the end of each turn can drag on, but the game does feature a skip-phase button speeding up the process. The average load time in Small World 2 is about 0.8 seconds and the game can be saved and closed with the push of a button at any time making it one of the most manageable distractions available.
Small World 2 doesn’t break new digital ground and doesn’t awe with graphics and design, but that isn’t the point. This simple adaptation exists merely to entertain the average gamer, or even just the average computer user, in a casual way. It might seem like a meaningless distraction given all of the impressive current and future titles in the modern market, but if a gamer ever desired a little simplicity in their day Small World 2 is the game to turn to.
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight
After Electronic Arts successfully continued the Command & Conquer saga with its releases of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and it’s expansion Kane’s Wrath in 2007 and 2008 respectively there was a great deal of hype and excitement when EA announced the fourth and final title of the current Tiberium saga: Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight. EA added to the hype by promising that Tiberian Twilight would introduce new mechanics and concepts never before tried in a Real-Time Strategy game. These would of course be appearing alongside such iconic C&C staples as live action movies, familiar faction units, and the desolate landscape of a tiberium-scarred earth.
One of the most important aspects about Tiberian Twilight is that it is a server based game requiring an active online connection to update the player’s profile. EA utilizes what they called an RPG style approach toward player profiles. As the player completed missions and won skirmish and multiplayer battles their profile gained experience which unlocked units and technologies of the faction that they played as. Once their profile reached enough experience for each faction they would be able to utilize all of the units, buildings, and technologies of those factions in any single player or multiplayer game. Each faction levels up separately, although the player need not create a different profile to play both factions. The game can be played without an internet connection and single player games are not interrupted if the connection is somehow lost, but the player’s profile will not gain experience in offline mode.
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight does away with the old C&C convention of a single unit providing a central building from which a static base grows to provide the player with a fully advanced and capable army. Instead at the start of a game the player receives the option to choose from three different crawler units. Each crawler represents offensive, defensive, and support classes and the player will have access to different types of units and abilities depending on which class is chosen. The chosen crawler appears in a deployment zone and serves as both a unit and factory for all of the player’s units.
Crawlers are heavily armored and as the player unlocks more technologies the crawlers gain weapons, armor, and other defensive abilities. Like their MCV predecessors from previous C&C games crawlers must deploy to produce units which are produced almost instantly. The support class emphasizes air units and their crawler appropriately is an air unit, but it must still deploy to produce or call down other aircraft. If a player’s crawler is destroyed, or if the player wants to switch classes, a new crawler can be chosen and will appear in the same manner as the first one.
Each map in single player or multiplayer has several small landing pads on which green and blue tiberium crystals will routinely spawn. These crystals can be collected by ground units and carried back to the player’s deployment zone to unlock technologies and are an important point of contention for players as the player who gathers more crystals more quickly will have the better army in the early game. Once a player unlocks all of their units and technologies, the crystals provide small boosts to their victory point track.
Single player missions still feature traditional objectives and follow the game’s storyline in terms of the enemies and maps encountered. In skirmish and multiplayer modes victory is determined by a point track. The principle way to gain points is to control a majority of tiberium nodes around the map. Nodes are structures that can be captured by stationing more units than an opponent near the node for a certain amount of time. Battles over these nodes take place on arena style maps with AI controlled structures defending each faction’s deployment zones while the nods themselves are situated in the map’s central no-man’s land.
EA finalizes its changes to the C&C formula by introducing rock-paper-scissors style interaction between units based on their type and weapon. For example, machine guns are effective against infantry and light vehicles while laser weapons are effective against heavy vehicles and structures. A heavy unit with machine guns will be effective against infantry, but vulnerable to lasers, and vice versa. Some units deal enough raw damage to be somewhat effective against any threat, but the formula holds true for the arsenals of each class and faction.
The many changes to the RTS and C&C formulas that appear in Tiberian Twilight practically make it its own game with unique style and strategies. Sadly, this is perhaps the single greatest failure of the game and EA. If Tiberian Twilight had been produced as its own game, distinct from the style associated with its predecessors, it may have been far more successful and well received. Unfortunately it turns out to be another attempt by EA to project their own creative designs onto a classical franchise in an attempt to sell their own ideas on the shoulders of someone else’s giant.
The profile leveling system ensures that players cannot experience the full game until they’ve played dozens of hours of meaningless grinding. The fact that profiles can’t be leveled in offline mode slaves the players to a continual internet connection and makes offline mode a pointless option. Poor or even moderate latency will result in continual disconnects forcing players to reload games to continue gaining experience. The single player missions do not restrict a player’s units and buildings and are thus not balanced for any level of technology, which can confuse and frustrate new players.
The crawler based combat is hectic and clumsy at best. Units are thrown into a mosh-pit style battles with little chance for strategic planning and no possibility for territory control. The rock-paper-scissors dynamic to weapons is also a disappointment. Units have been marginalized from their distinctive roles in previous C&C titles into generic types that have little use if their intended opponent type is not present. Combat also devolves into players trading unit types as endless counters are swapped. Units die quickly to their hard-counters but practically ignore attacks from any other weapon type. This leaves players who maxed out their limited population cap with the wrong types completely out of luck until they suffer enough casualties to allow rebuilding.
The faction’s distinctive styles have also disappeared. The fast and stealthy Nod no longer clashes with the slow and steady GDI; now each faction is essentially a mirror match. Resources are no longer present so the only limitation on a player’s production is the population cap. This cap is far too small to control a significant portion of the map and players can find themselves kitted around by small groups of fast units stealing tiberium nodes while avoiding direct conflict.
Finally the game itself, for all its nostalgic units and references to previous C&C titles, lacks theme and flair. It is a boring slug-fest where units without identity or history clash on generic and alien battlefields for objectives with no tangible accomplishments or definable impact on their opponents. There is no sense of accomplishment or ownership for the player profile, only a grind to unlock units, which should rightly be available from the start, until the full tech tree is unlocked. The fact that players have to work to experience and enjoy a game they paid for in full is itself an unforgivable sin.
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight had a lot of ideas that, taken by themselves, could have been very successful. Mashed together they ensure that yet another attempt by EA to match the MOBA and Starcraft environments has only succeeded in ruining another beloved gaming franchise. If Tiberian Twilight had at least been marketed as a different game instead of trying to usurp the C&C series it might have stood a chance; but many fans were left feeling cheated and frustrated by the alien style and disorienting focus of gameplay.
Fans who want to see the Tiberium saga played out need only invest about a dozen hours into completing the campaigns and will find that purchasing the game on sale is about equal to the value; but they should avoid buying the game at EA’s full retail price. Any other gamer hoping for a fulfilling RTS experience, or gaming experience in general, should not waste the money and time on Tiberian Twilight; a sad end that such a storied franchise did not deserve.
Total War: Attila
Creative Assembly’s Total War: Rome II was noted just after its release to be the worst Total War title to see the light of day. Its excessive bugs and poor performance disappointed many fans of the previous Rome: Total War as well as franchise fans in general. This was perhaps a greater loss for the game itself rather than Creative Assembly. Numerous patches and quick fixes improved Rome II to make it playable and ultimately even enjoyable; but its place in infamy had already been secured.
Creative Assembly did its utmost to avoid a repeat with its follow-up title, Total War: Attila, which was released in early 2015. Many of the systems introduced in Rome II, such as the Imperium levels, remain the same while other mechanics like the political system and provincial system have been modified slightly. Provincial towns can now be upgraded to have walls and all provinces are limited to two towns and a capital. The political system saw a revival of the traditional family tree within the wider context of faction politics and competing nobles.
Perhaps the largest change from Rome II that Attila brought was the change in setting. The grand campaign begins in 395 AD as the now divided Roman Empire enters a period of decline. The game models the catastrophic upheaval of the period with a return of the horde mechanic, first seen in Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasions, which allows a faction to abandon their home province and form several armies that supply their own food and can make temporary camps to gain special benefits and a relief from income loss. The Western and Eastern Roman empires suffer several penalties to add to their foreign woes such as historically inept faction leaders, a loss of traditional technologies, and unstable internal politics.
Attila brings an apocalyptic feel to the setting through various mechanics and faction themes. Climate change; inspired by the historic 6th century Little Ice Age, makes an appearance as periodic global events that lower the fertility of all provinces on the map. Another world altering mechanic is the ability for armies to raise settlements transforming the settlement into a ruin and blackening that section of the province, temporarily ruining its fertility. Razed settlements can only be restored by settling army units in the province, restoring the town which must then be rebuilt from scratch.
The thematic presentation of the turbulent 5th century is Attila’s central point, and tragically is probably also Attila’s greatest failure. The game succeeds so well in making the world a mess that it rapidly becomes frustrating and nearly unplayable. The climate change unrealistically affects the entire globe, turning even the most fertile provinces like the Nile Delta and Euphrates River Valley into barren desert. Cities suffer numerous wealth and public order penalties from effects such as food shortages, even when the empire has a food surplus, and immigration, an effect that the player has no control over.
Squalor now plays a proactive role in settlements and provinces; the higher the negative level of total squalor (derived from squalor minus sanitation) the more likely a plague will break out in that settlement. This mechanic is reasonable in its idea, but its implementation is again excessive and frustrating. Multiple build slots in the province must be devoted to sanitation buildings to keep the squalor down and even with a total squalor of zero plagues can still spread to and even break out in settlements.
Most factions start out in precarious positions. The Roman empires naturally suffer from rampant unrest, multiple enemies, and hard-pressed economies. Barbarian tribes start with strong militaries but are forced by approaching nomads and cooling climate to make for new homelands in Roman territory to the south and west. The Sassanid Empire, the predominant eastern faction and widely assumed to be the easiest to play, still has its own problems keeping its client states in line and fighting off the White Huns.
These troubles don’t make the game unplayable; but in the wrong circumstances they swiftly make it unwinnable. Attila is perhaps the first Total War game that will appeal far more to survival gamers than to strategy gamers. The gameplay experience for many factions, particularly the Roman empires, is more about seeing how long the player can survive rather than trying to win. The game’s buggy tutorial and abbreviated user interface add to the problem by giving Attila one of the sharpest learning curves in the series.
The graphics of Attila remain largely unchanged from Rome II and any computer that can handle Rome II will do just as well with Attila. Sadly frame rate difficulties remain during the AI phase even with high performance machines but actual gameplay, particularly battles, run smoothly. It’s worth noting that color and toning for battles has been subtlety altered to give a dark, gritty feel to the world to accompany the apocalyptic theme. This doesn’t bring any mechanical alterations aside from increased rain but the various weather effects can also cause frame rate drops on high graphics settings.
Fans of Empire: Total War will enjoy the updates Total War: Attila brings to the new mechanics that Empire introduced. Otherwise Attila has been love/hate with fans of the Total War series. Even veterans of Rome II will have to learn many new mechanics and forget some old habits to play Attila properly. Those that enjoy grand strategy will find Attila a very challenging addition to the grand strategy market. Strategy gamers in general however are best served avoiding Attila, or waiting until an 80% off sale, as the game is far too restrictive for a traditional military strategy experience.