AOEO F2P!?

It happened: I've found a free to play game that I not only enjoy, but am constantly tempted to throw money at. This game is Age of Empires Online and I'm totally into it right now.

I played the original Age of Empires a ton as a kid. I wasn't very good at it, to be sure, but I liked the historical theme and the music. And I really liked hunting down and harvesting meat from elephants. Seriously, by the end of any game the elephants would be long gone. I think I even almost convinced my parents it was educational.

Fast forward to 2011, when Age of Empires Online first came out. It was free to try with two civilizations with many locked features and $20 for a license of the game, which included a premium civilization with those before-mentioned features unlocked. I heard it was pretty fun from a podcast but I didn't really get into it.

The gameplay is a mix between an RTS and an MMO. You have a capital city that is your central quest hub including inventory buildings, stores, crafting, and even dailies. After you accept a quest, you carry it out by going into an RTS game and playing as you would a normal Age of Empires game. But instead of just going from one game map to the next like the older games, you go back to your capital city for rewards and exp and such, and then choose what you want yo do next. Lots of these missions can also be done co-op with your friends! You also end up making alliances with other cities (you can travel to these for more quests/dailies) and there are neutral areas like Sparta (this is where you queue up for a game against another player) and another one who's name I can't remember which is where you can do skirmishes against the computer (also possible with a friend).

Now, it's truly Free to Play with a premium currency (Empire Points) that you can buy (charged through Steam) or earn very slowly in game to unlock things. More importantly, it's also on Steam now, which means awesome deals from time to time. That's what got me back into it. There is currently a 1st anniversary deal that includes a premium race (the Celts), the PvE skirmish "booster" (booster is their word for non-civilization specific content), expanded inventory space, and some other cosmetic stuff for only $10. Anyway, it was a good deal, and playing as a non-premium race isn't actually that fun because you can't equip any of the particularly good items. (Note, you can also get a Greek premium race on Amazon for like $4 right now.)

All told, it's a really fun new way to play an RTS and I'm having a great time with it. I really like the "level up" approach and the more social feeling of the game. There's also a new, cartoony, art style that is kind of fun (but not amazing...except for some of the animals, they have awesome animations) but will probably help it to not look so dated in coming years. Let me know if you play and we can do some co-op.

P.S. If they made a Starcraft game like this, I'm pretty sure it would be the last and only game I ever played.

HBA - Jamestown: Delayed

The gameplay video of Jamestown is complete! However, it's going to require a second take which I probably won't be able to do until Monday, as today is my wife's birthday and we have plans for tonight. I'd do it now, but I'm currently at work.

In the mean time, check out this video of people playing cabbage basketball in Skyrim. If you don't want to watch it, at least skip the 3-minute mark and watch from there.


A big thanks to my friend Evan for bringing it to my attention!

Anticipation: 2012

Okay, it looks like every website on the internet, including CNN, has a list of most-anticipated games for the coming year. Granted, CNN's kind of sucks, but I've decided to make one myself.

So, I present to you, in no particular order, Games Mike Wants to Play Next Year:

• Diablo III. This is the first game I've actually preordered. I'm super excited for this one.
• Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm. I love me some SC2. Granted, I'm skeptical that it'll come out in 2012, but I'm betting it'll be out by Christmas.
• World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. Yes, I'm excited for the Pandas. And the Pokemon thing. Cata has been kind of a flop, but that hasn't stopped me from having a good time. I'm hoping that the renewed focus on endgame content will perk things back up.

Hmm...those are definitely the big ones. What else is coming out in 2012? Again, I don't have any consoles, so my list will be somewhat restricted.

• Mass Effect 3. I do need a FPS fix every now and then. I admit I still need to finish ME2, but . Mass Effect 3 comes out in March, right in the middle of the semester, so I'll have time for ME2 before the Steam sale in July.
• DOTA 2/Blizzard Dota. I never really got into the first Dota because of the rumors about the community (i.e. everyone was rude and terrible). But I'm excited to give it another try. My take on the relationship between the two will have to wait for another post. 

• Whatever awesome indie games are coming out in the next year! Which of course leads me to...

• More Humble Bundles!

Bonus!

Games that came out this year that I want to get/finish.

• Batman: Arkham City (Steam sale in July).
• Trine 2 (hopefully this gets into a Humble Bundle).
• Bastion.
• Skyrim - I'm about 60 hours in, but there's still so much left!
• Mass Effect 2.

All in all, it looks like it'll be a great year gaming-wise. Here's hoping it's a great year all around!

I'll end this post with the opening cinematic for Diablo III. I dare you to watch it and not get excited.

Heroes 6: Part 2

My last post focused on my history with the Heroes of Might and Magic series and a short review of the newest iteration: "Might and Magic ® Heroes ® VI". That's right, two trademark icons.

Exciting

Anyway, after playing for a couple hours, I went to the internet to get some info about Ubisoft's UPoint system and found that when playing online, most games have a time limit of two-minutes per turn. This seemed like an awfully short amount a time, given the length of fights and city management and such. I then learned that most people use the "Quick Combat" feature (hereafter known as "QC"). This means that when you have to fight someone, instead of going into a battle scene the game just thinks for a second and gives you the results (i.e. who won, and how many guys were lost on each side) and the option to replay the encounter manually.

Less exciting

I was intrigued to learn this because I have conflicting feelings on the matter. This has always been a feature in this series, but this is the first time that I've ever been tempted to use it myself. I find myself tempted because it saves a ton of time and, in most cases, the computer gets better results than I would. However,I've thought about it and I think that using QC/not using QC effectively splits HoMM 6 into different two games. One of them is an exploring/strategy game with pictures of creatures that "fight" for you so you can accomplish a given task. The other is an exploring/strategy game wherein you gather armies with unique strengths and weaknesses and lead them into battle, making sure to use each in the most efficient way possible in order to accomplish a given task. Which one sounds more exciting to you?

Neat

That said, ever since I figured out QC was viable I've only fought two battles manually, and I lost one of them. Using QC is great in part because it really does save a ton of time so you can win the war instead of pouring yourself into each and every battle and taking hours to complete one map. On the other hand, the less time you spend on the ground in combat, the less you feel for your troops, which lowers your enjoyment of the game overall. I found this particularly true when using a faction I was unfamiliar with. If I don't see each unit in combat, not only do I not really know whether they are melee/ranged/casters, but I never actually see them in action. That makes me unable to appreciate their power or feel as proud of my own accomplishment in earning them. They really do just become little pictures with a number on them.

Awesome

One could argue that, even when taking part in combat, the units are just little models that wave their arms around. They are no more alive than a static picture. Despite that, the models certainly feel more real. Watching them go forth and beat the crap out of bad guys is much more engaging and emotional than just watching the numbers go up and down. Beyond that, there is an incredible amount of suspense and thrill that comes of out of a close match that simply doesn't occur on the QC aftermath panel.

In the end, it's a trade-off. Both are good choices in my opinion. My plan from here is to only use QC when I'm already familiar with the units/fights and do it manually when I've got new guys to try out or it's a special fight. And, as mentioned, there's always the choice to go back and do each fight yourself should you choose. Game on!

P.S. I bet Ubisoft's online forums have a huge discussion on this issue, but their forums are down for "maintenance" and have been for the past week.

Getting Back to My Roots

Once upon a magical time, in the fourth

Incredible bad guy-killing text!

grade, my friend Josh told me about this new game he'd got. It was called "Heroes." It had heroes in it! And...creatures...and you killed bad guys and took their castles and were able to make MORE creatures! He was really excited about it but I wasn't sold. He went on to say it was like Civilization 2 except with monsters and stuff. "Civ 2 with monsters" didn't sound very cool to me. However, it turns out the game, Heroes of Might and Magic 2, was freaking AWESOME. We played that game a lot. A whole lot. My favorite sides were the Warlocks (dragons = the best), but I liked most of them equally (except the humans, they were kind of meh). We even tried to play it online (back when you only needed one copy of the game in order to play each other of the modem), but it turns out two fourth graders 20 miles apart with only one phone line each were not very good can getting connection to work. (At one point, I called him to ask what was going on. It never rang, but just sounded blank like someone had picked up. I started talking, but he never responded. Turns out he could hear me over the computer speakers and kept trying to yell back to me through them.)

Oh city screen, I'll always miss you.

Once Heroes 3 came out and was even better, I was hooked. It's too bad they didn't really put counters on time played on games back then, I would love to know just how long I spent in sixth grade and beyond play it. I already know it's an unhealthy amount, but we'll never know just how unhealthy. Except then Heroes 4 was lame. And 5 had such annoying battle cameras and cut-scenes that I only put about an hour into it before calling it quits.

A few months ago, I starting seeing advertisements on Steam for "Might and Magic ® Heroes ® VI". That's right--two registered trademark symbols. (Sidenote: of the 65 games I have on Steam, this is the only game with those in the title. And there's two of them. In other news: Holy crap I have 65 games on Steam.) And why did they change the title? That made me a little nervous. However, I know better than to judge a book by its cover. Once it released, it got good but definitely not great reviews. I'd been burned in the past, so I decided I'd wait for it to go on sale and try it later.

Much less cartoony, that's for sure. 

That day came on December 31st. It was a perfect storm of contributing factors. It was 50% off on Steam for one day only. I had just won Chore Wars (more on that in another post) for the month of December. And then Aubrey's computer died, meaning in part that if we were going to play a game together, it would have to be on the same computer at the same time. (Hint: As the Heroes games are turn-based, you can play them in "Hotseat" mode, meaning more than one person can play in the same game on the same computer, you just switch out.) So I went ahead and pulled the trigger.

The Good so far:
Good graphics on the adventure map.
The creatures all appear to be very unique.
Solid Heroes of Might and Magic gameplay.
New mechanics on how to guard mines/other buildings on the adventure map.
The introduction of Dynasty Heroes and Weapons.
Using achievement points to buy items (I was worried about this at first, but they give you a ton of points).
The soundtrack.

The Less Good:
Runs pretty clunky. If I can run Skyrim on my laptop, Heroes 6 has no excuse.
Removal of the City Screen. What? Where did it go?
Objects are somewhat harder to identify on the adventure map. It all kind of runs together at first.
Other small interface changes.
The terrible-sauce DRM.

More on the Dynasty stuff and the DRM. Dynasty Heroes and Dynasty Weapons persist from map to map. So if you level up a hero in one custom game, they stay leveled for your next match. Dynasty Weapons are weapons you equip to your heroes that can also level up and persist beyond a single match. There's about 25 of them that you can find through the campaign and other sources. I'm totally digging both of these additions.

Ok, now, which things can I pick up and where can/can't I walk?

The DRM, on the other hand, is terrible. As I bought the game through Steam, I'm already about as DRM'd as I can be. However, Ubisoft decided that each player also needed to have a personal login for the game itself. All of your game progress is stored on Ubisoft servers. This is kind of cool, but if you don't have an internet connection or (much more likely) the service just goes down, you have no access to your saved games or Dynasty heroes/weapons and cannot unlock achievements. Sigh.

Either way, I'd definitely recommend picking it up. It's not Heroes 3, but it is very good. I think the only real reason not to get it would be if you're a stickler about DRM, as most of my other complaints were either personal preference or things that I just need to get used to. I've even got Aubrey hooked on it after only one game. Thank goodness for Hotseat mode.

Pick up Heroes 2 or Heroes 3 on Good Old Games! (Link to GoG front page here)
Heroes 6 on Steam or Amazon or, you know, whatever.

Back into Skyrim

Remember when Skyrim was released and everyone that bought it for PC went "Huh...well this interface is terrible."? Then people realized if they plugged in an XBox controller it would work like a dream. But then the "purists" said that they shouldn't have to use a controller. I recall reading one forum poster say "If you're not using a mouse and keyboard for a first-person game on a PC, you're doing it wrong." Well ladies and gentleman, I'm proud to announce that as of Christmas, I'm now doing it wrong. It was simple, seamless, and awesome.

My ladyfriend bought me a wired XBox Controller for Christmas and suddenly Skyrim (and a lot of other Steam games) are much easier to play. All the little icons changed automatically from keyboard keys to game pad buttons. As wonderful as Skyrim is, you really had to be committed to play it with the mouse and keyboard.  I'm right with you in saying that Bethesda should have made a more PC-appropriate interface, but they didn't. So now I will just do it wrong until the modders take care of it. It just feels right.

There's been a lot of awesome Skyrim music covers. I'll wrap up this post with my current favorite.

Yup, I lied. I couldn't help but include this video too. I want to shake the hand of the guy who did this. Make sure to stay at least for the second scene.

LMFAO Skyrim Dance Party - Watch more Game Trailers

The Humble Bundle

If you don't know about The Humble Bundle you are missing out.

There are five things to know about a Humble Bundle. (1) You get awesome independently-made games that you can play on any computer (PC, Mac, or Lenix). (2) You get to name the price. (3) Part (or all, you decide)  of the money you pay is split between two charities, the American Red Cross and Child's Play. (4) The games are all DRM free, meaning you can install them as much as you want without ever having to worry about copyright issues. (5) They make very silly trailers that are always fun to watch. Sample:

As stated, you can pay as much or as little as you like. Some people (buttheads) will just pay 1 cent. However, they're offset by some of the higher donors. The highest donation in the last bundle was $16,000! Plus, there's always an incentive to pay above the average like soundtracks or extra games. As a result of this, I have about 20 in my Steam library that deserve a lot more attention than I've given them. I have decided to start a regular feature highlighting games I've received from these bundles. I'll kick it off today with VVVVVV.

VVVVVV is a side-scrolling puzzle game about scientists who get lost in another dimension...! It's also the only game I've gotten from a Humble Bundle that I've managed to get all the way through. It's fun, easy to pick up and put down in short intervals, and very challenging. It also boasts a fantastic retro soundtrack. The soundtrack is so awesome, it costs twice as much as the game (seriously). The soundtrack is so awesome, it actually made my one-year-old nephew stop crying bloody murder and burst into dance. Gameplay trailer here:

Feel free to pick it up on Steam (currently on sale for only $1.24 until January 2nd) or the author's website. Soundtrack here.