Doom
Developed by id Software and published by Bethesda in 2016, Doom is a reboot of id Software’s iconic Doom series of first-person shooter games originally published in 1993.
Have you ever wanted to go guns blazing into a giant pit filled with demons, racking up gory kills and copious amounts of blood as you hack, slash, shoot, and beat your way through the hordes of the undead monstrosities that reside in the deepest bowels of Hell itself?
What do you mean “we already did that“?
No, I meant in 2016, not 1993.
Welcome back to DOOM, the game that gave the world its aggressive love for First-Person Shooters! You are a marine, Mars has been taken over by the denizens of Hell, here’s a gun, go stop them with all the blood, guts, smoke, and fire you can muster! That’s all the story you need to take on Hell. Seriously. Okay, there’s a little bit more, but it doesn’t matter. You’re here to kill demons, end of story; and boy do you kill demons with extreme prejudice.
Smooth, responsive, and above all else fun, DOOM shows that you don’t necessarily need a story filled with the horrors of war, or even a linear path (hallway) to make a fantastic game. You know you’ve found something special when it’s required to have a map of the surrounding area because it’s so easy to get lost in the level. Weapons are effective and have weight to them, and the demons look equally horrifying and target-like. Tearing them to shreds with one of the best soundtracks of the year behind you, parading through blood and guts whilst head banging to metal is easily one of the great pleasures in life.
DOOM has always been more about the single player experience than the multiplayer, so the multiplayer never grew on me. It isn’t deep or thoughtful by any stretch, and doesn’t have quite the gory thrill of single player, but it’s enjoyable enough to be added on as a bonus for those who are interested in that aspect of FPS.
DOOM, still to this day, is my favorite FPS franchise. Be it the weapons, the levels, the enemies, or the music, I wholeheartedly enjoy every moment I spend playing it. Any of it. All of it. Buy it. It’s worth it.
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.
Dead Space
Ever wonder what it would be like to be drifting alone in space with no escape plan, slowly watching the ship whose air you’re quickly burning through come apart at the seams, all the while being chased by unimaginable horrors that won’t die after shooting them in the head?
You…you haven’t wondered that? Just me? Really? Come on, guys, it’s not that much of a scary scenario, is it? It is? Oh…
Well, anyway, moving on…
Dead Space tells the story of Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent with a small crew to the U.S.G. Ishimura, a planet-cracking ship that they lost contact with recently. What they find is a horrific alien entity bent on killing or assimilating them, and what began as a possible rescue mission becomes a lone man’s fight for survival inside a quite-literal box of death. In space.
While I might be a little biased in my assessment (I first played Dead Space on a full-wall projector with surround sound, and wept as I cowered before a human-sized Isaac taking down vile Necromorphs taller than him), this game scared the crap out of me. Beautifully gruesome visuals, terrifying sound design, and a wonderfully creepy score elevate the tension on the Ishimura, sometimes past the breaking point in certain areas. Movement can be a little clunky, but it’s only to be expected of an engineer with no combat training trying to survive; in other words it’s a perfect emulation.
Enemy types can get repetitive after a while, with their zombie apocalypse vibe, but the level design makes up for those shortcomings, especially in the vacuum stages. Story’s a bit convoluted, which is probably a deliberate design since it highlights the alienation you feel all alone, seemingly without a purpose beyond survival, in the depths of the void. The story opens up more if you play through the sequels as well, which you should really do if you can get past the first game. What could be worse?
Is it perfect? No. Is it groundbreaking? Nope. Is it scary? Oh, hell yes. Do I love it all the same? Absolutely.
Hearts of Iron IV
Hearts of Iron IV was released in 2016 as the latest entry in Paradox Interactive’s long-running Hearts of Iron series of grand strategy games. Continuing the tradition of its predecessors, the fourth title brings players the full scope of the brewing world at war, with 1936 and 1939 scenario start dates. Players can take the roll of any existing nation on earth at the time, and must manage resources, industry, politics, the development of new technologies, and the organization and deployment of their armed forces as the globe erupts in war.
As with its more immediate predecessors, Hearts of Iron IV, or HOI IV as it is often abbreviated, continues to present Paradox’s traditional grand strategy model with many changes to the nuances of combat and diplomacy from previous titles. A new resource was added, political power, that enabled each nation to make changes to its government and laws, engage in direct and indirect political maneuvering, and research national focuses. Political power accrues at a base amount, with modifiers adding or subtracting to the daily gain as appropriate. There is no penalty for running out of political power, but if the player is reduced to a negative gain of power they will be unable to continue developing focuses.
The national focus tree is perhaps HOI IV’s biggest addition to the series. Instead of scripted events guiding the course of historic events and developments, each nation now has a focus tree that contains numerous political choices that initiate diplomatic actions, develop countries, and lead to war. Historical events such as the Anschluss of Austria appear as part of a chain of focuses that guide the historic development of the Third Reich, culminating in war with France and England. Most nations utilize a generic focus tree which provides industrial development, military research, and the option to make a nation communist, democratic, or fascist. The great powers come with unique, highly developed focus trees, and with expansions more of the minor nations such as Australia and Romania gain their own special focus trees as well.
In past titles, players were concerned primarily with the assembling of armies and navies, who led them, and how they were utilized in individual battles. For this latest release a slew of detailed mechanics now define the operating parameters for division performance in the field. Divisions are made using templates which automatically draw the appropriate equipment from the national stockpile during training. Combat width, which increases or decreases based on the number of battalions a template requires, determines the operational viability of a specific template. If a template’s width is too high it will be unable to participate in most battles; if it is too low it runs the risk of being overwhelmed by larger opposing divisions.
The division template and how it interacts with the numerous combat mechanics is perhaps the most confusing and arbitrary part of HOI IV, and a hallmark of the game’s overall style. While the template is easy to learn and use, the reasons for its performance on the field are cryptic and at times illogical. Numerous guides exist online regarding appropriate templates for various widths and purposes, but performance of these templates in game varies heavily and the player is often at a loss to understand why a supposedly advanced template design is failing to overpower inferior combat formations.
This complexity permeates most aspects of the game and is certainly prevalent in the military side. The use interface serves perfectly well at informing the player about their ships, planes, and combat formations. However it’s over-reliance on symbols and parlance leaves most new players confused as to what any of the unit commands actually do. This level of complexity is more subtle in the economic and diplomatic sections, where symbols are more easily decrypted and effects are more basic. Yet nuances remain, with most players finding certain political actions restricted or even inaccessible depending on a variety of factors relating to their own nation as well as the world in general.
Of course, in typical Paradox fashion, all this complexity doesn’t exist without a way to subtly manipulate it. The division template designer allows for almost any combination of units to be applied as long as the player has enough army experience to afford it. Factories can continue producing obsolete equipment, and even when going the historical focus route players don’t have to make alliances or enemies with the traditional targets. Admirals and generals can be swapped at will, with a short travel delay, and air wings can have any type or number of planes assigned to them.
The user interface features a level of customization as well. Players can assign specific symbols to division templates allowing them to be identified at a glance. Ships, air wings, and armies can be renamed and the color and symbol utilized by each army can be modified for distinctive recognition. Notifications also crowd the top of the screen, highlighting production, diplomacy, or other areas that might need to be addressed. Clicking on each notification brings up the relevant screen and, although not precisely perfect, allows for quick examination of any deficiencies.
HOI IV goes a long way in telling the player what they can and should do. Sadly, it is also quite adept at telling the player what they cannot do. The default settings for a standard game are designed to funnel the normally free-flowing mechanics into the more predictable historical setting of World War II. Diplomatic actions, economic and military laws, and even national leaders are all restricted by a complex web of ideology, world tension, and military parameters. These cannot be circumvented, and the passage of game time has been observed to be the only true cure. Most nations have at least three years of in-game time to adjust themselves, but ambitious players will find the limitations on their goals frustrating and sometimes completely obstructive. It is highly recommended that players familiar with the basic mechanics adjust their game’s diplomatic and ideological settings to ensure the maximum number of options are available.
At its heart, HOI IV is a WWII simulator to the core. Its alternate paths and options are numerous and extensively developed, but prospective players should approach the game with the foremost notion that they will be playing through historical WWII. With this mindset, the restrictions and difficulties that may arise will seem more flavorful and less belligerent, allowing gamers to gradually ease into the notion that events need not follow a set pattern. Coming to HOI IV with the idea of immediately turning history around may lead to substantial disappointment that can overshadow the elements of the game that are actually done well, such as the division template designer and the nature of focus trees as player-driven events.
Grand strategy is a niche genre for a reason, and players may surprise themselves by finding that they like, or dislike, this style of play when it may have a great deal of, or no, relation to their preferred genre. Anyone that enjoys nation building and logistical organization will fit right into HOI IV and shouldn’t hesitate to try the game out. The new content from the many DLCs might seem overwhelming, but it helps in the Hearts of Iron series to start at the end of development to avoid learning strategies that are rendered obsolete by later updates. Of course, the game is perfectly playable with any DLC combination and is overall reasonably priced. Most importantly, prospective gamers should remember that failure is part of the learning in this game, and quite often the thrill of a hard won victory in the greatest conflict in human history is worth the harsh learning experiences required to achieve it.
They Are Billions: WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?!
Numantian Games’ most recent publication, They Are Billions, has challenged, exhilarated, and frustrated thousands of gamers since its release with its careful blend of strategic management and maddening action.
If you asked me what one of my strengths was in strategy games when I was younger and dumber, I would have puffed out my chest, and proclaimed proudly, “Turtling!“, causing all of my gamer friends to grumble in well-deserved frustration at my “irritatingly cheap tactics”. I don’t blame them at all (it was an annoying play style), but turtling still works as a viable tactic, and it is one that I could proudly say was part of my arsenal and one of the best tools I had. I felt unstoppable
Then I played They Are Billions…there goes THAT hard-earned point of pride.
On paper, They Are Billions sounds like it should be easy: You upgrade your colony of human survivors with impressive steampunk technology to survive in the zombie apocalypse for a set number of days. Okay, maybe not easy, but still manageable and easily comprehended.
Then you notice that you have eight resources to worry about on a procedurally generated map with limited land resources, and of course a metric TON of zombies (up to 20,000 on screen at once, an impressive feat in and of itself) of different shapes, sizes, and health bar lengths all around you.
And then you cry. Because it’s hard…very hard.
I bought They Are Billions when it was early-access, so I cut my teeth on the Survival mode. Basic setup is: Command Center, four Rangers, and a Soldier, go. A fine start, excepting the fact that if you could see the entire map, you would just see a literal OCEAN of red with a tiny piece of green in the middle (A bit too daunting for me, I think).
It won’t take long to learn that balancing your resources is critical, and sadly there are a few moments of getting bad placements that can be frustrating to impatient players. However you can just start another round if you’re feeling cheated, so the random map generation is not as problematic as I thought it would be.
Numantian Games created something special. I really wish I was better at it. I still have no idea if the developers actually intended the game to be beatable, but the time-sink still feels worth it for an experience that few, if any, RTS games have ever delivered, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
Hearts of Iron II
First published in 2005, Hearts of Iron II, with its accompanying expansions, is considered one of the flagship titles of Paradox Interactive and the title that launched the Hearts of Iron series, which at the time of this writing is on its fourth iteration. Following a design formula that would become Paradox’s standard, Hearts of Iron II, abbreviated Hoi2 by the fanbase, is one of the largest scale grand strategy games about WWII that has ever been produced.
Hoi2 takes the setting of WWII and puts the player in an almost godlike position of control over a country. The player must manage national resources, production, politics, and the command logistics and organization of their nation’s military. Many mechanical liberties are taken to showcase the level of removal that the player has from the day to day business in their nation, and to simplify complex processes like weapons research and industrial production. The smallest controllable unit is a division, air squadron, or naval flotilla, with brigades appearing as dependent attachments to divisions and ships. Industrial production involves simply ordering a unit to be produced with parallel and/or serial runs, while ensuring there is enough Industrial Capacity, or IC, to complete the process on time.
Yet the simplification of most of the specific processes in Hoi2 has resulted in many general processes being included, such as the management of specific territorial infrastructure, the direct diplomacy between over fifty potential nations, and the hidden nature of combat modifiers such as weather, terrain, and division overcrowding. This has all resulted in one of Hoi2’s biggest noted flaws: abrupt complexity. Beginner players see the exact same user interface as advanced players do, and must manage all of the same systems. The tutorial covers the basics of gameplay, particularly the movement and organization of divisions, as well as the basic controls for diplomatic and political interaction, but fails to accurately inform and test the player on the nuances of combat or the potential optimizations of even basic systems like industrial modifiers and chains of command.
All of that is to say that Hoi2 is very hard to learn; it’s not to say that Hoi2 is a bad or poorly designed game. Once a player has broken through the wall of ignorance that effectively locks all but the easiest playable nations, they are able to explore and enjoy a wide range of options and possibilities. Although the game is primarily a WWII simulator, with historical events coded in and most national AIs programmed to follow historic courses, the player can take their nation in any direction they please. Radical changes like turning the United States communist or Japan allying with the Soviet Union take time and skill, but more subtle actions such as successfully defending France can be accomplished with only a modest level of familiarity with the game.
An introduction to Hoi2 cannot be made easier for new players, but is absolutely worth the effort for anyone looking to take on the roll of a major world power in one of the most significant periods in human history. Obviously the major powers of the period are the ones with the most capacity for flexibility and outright conquest, but any nation that was present at the period can be played. Most importantly, the game proceeds in a sort of real time, with each hour of each day from the start point (as early as 1936) to the game’s end (as late as 1964) proceeding at a rate between 1 hr every five real seconds to 4 hrs per real second. The player can adjust that rate at will, and even pause the game to issue detailed orders and react to events and notifications at their leisure.
If any gamer every looked at a map, illustration, or diagram of a WWII front or operation and imagined moving those unit markers and shifting vector arrows, than Hoi2 is their dream game. It’s primary learning method is failure, but the player loses nothing but time by exploring different nations and strategies that might end in defeat in order to acquire essential familiarity with the game’s mechanics and nuances. Hoi2’s simple graphics and well designed processes ensure that it runs smoothly on old and new machines with minimal software requirements. The grand strategy genre will not appeal to all strategy gamers, but for those that enjoy the complexity of large scale command, Hearts of Iron 2 is a title worth mastering.
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.
Total War: Warhammer II
Total War: Warhammer II, is the sequel to Creative Assembly’s landmark title Total War: Warhammer and is published by Sega. It is the second title in a trilogy of Total War: Warhammer games based off of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle tabletop game. Warhammer II was released in September of 2017 and brings with it an abundance of new features to add to CA’s developing Warhammer series including a new narrative campaign, four new races, and an overhaul to many of the campaign map mechanics.
One of Warhammer II’s primary features is its new single-player campaign called the Vortex Campaign. Unlike previous DLC mini-campaigns in the first Warhammer, the Vortex Campaign covers an entirely new campaign map featuring the fictional New World continents of Lustria and Naggarond as well as the paradise island of Ulthuan and the Old World Southlands. The campaign is also the primary delivery vehicle for Warhammer II’s new mechanics and campaign overhauls such as the introduction of settlement climates and treasure hunting.
Cossacks: European Wars
With the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation’s commencement fast approaching, it seemed appropriate to reminisce on the Renaissance period with a game that covers a large portion of that period. Cossacks: European Wars was developed by GSC Gameworld and published CDV Software Entertainment in 2000. Two expansions, The Art of War and Back to War, appeared in 2002 expanding game content with new nations, units, and missions.
European Wars is the first title in the Cossacks series and, like many of its contemporaries, features many of the standard mechanics and conventions that defined RTS titles of the era. Factions appear as different historical nations from the 17th and 18th centuries and each brings a few unique units and/or buildings to differentiate their approaches to the battlefield. Base building and resource collection are accomplished by peasant worker units that are trained from the central town hall.
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.