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.

Thank Goodness

It's finally over.

Few things excite and scare me as much as the Summer and Winter Steam Sales. It was a relief to power up my laptop this morning and see that the old gray format was back. I made a solemn oath to my wife Aubrey that I might go a little crazy during the sale but that I wouldn't buy any more games until Christmas (WoW Pandas excepted). Also, I would plan a fancy date. She thought this was a pretty good deal.

To preface, some of these are premium purchases for free to play or other games that try to nickle and dime you. I figured if I was going to try them out, I might as well do it while I can get some cheap bonuses.

So, I present to you the list of games that I got this past week:

Portal 2 - $11.50 for two copies plus a copy of the original Portal. Gotta do that co-op!

Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb expansion - $0.75. I've already talked about how I like BoI. Expansion for less thank a buck? Yes, please!

Dragon Age 2 - $6. Six dollars. Seriously. I've been dancing around getting this game for a really long time but was kind of waiting around for the right deal. DONE. Also, this was through Impulse since EA pulled it from Steam. That's right, EA, I still bought this from a third party.

Stacking - $3.75. This is a game about Russian nesting dolls that was featured in Game Developer Magazine before it game out. Never really wanted to drop $15 for something I'd never heard of outside a magazine...and I didn't have to!

Trine 2 - $3.75. I've written about Trine as well. This is one of the games I had my eye on specifically for this sale. Looks even better than the first and still a lot of fun. Haven't had a chance to try out the co-op yet.

Dungeon Defenders - $3.75. I've seen a lot of hype for this game so I figured I ought to pick it up while it was cheap. I might should have done for the complete set. But whatever. Let me know if you want to play!

Age of Empires Online - $3.50 for bonus swags. I played a ton of the first AoE back in the day. Seems like a cool direction of an RTS.

Tribes: Ascend - $10. I missed the flash sale where this was only $5, but it was still totally worth it. This is a fun shooter. I shouldn't have waited so long to try it out.

Lord of the Rings Online - $25 for two promotional deals, one of Steam and one on Impulse. Okay, sue me this doesn't sound very cheap. A friend of mine is really into this game and while it is free to play, they really, really try to get money out of you in game. Anyway, he assured me these were good deals when I asked, so I figured what the heck? An MMO for $25 and no subscription isn't bad at all.

Fallout New Vegas w/ all the DLC - $10. I haven't played any of the games in this series, so this seemed like it was a great place to start.

Torchlight - $3.75. Lots of people were talking about this one while they were waiting for Diablo 3 to come out. Now that I've already been kind of tired of D3 for a while now, I thought I might try out a different take.

Bioshock & Bioshock 2 - $10. I probably could have skipped this one, but it's one of those games that I never really got around to that people talk about a lot. I'm so glad I got it though! I got a little way into the first Bioshock and it's creepy and awesome! Worth it.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell "Elite Echelon Edition" (What a name!) - $12.50. This consists of four Splinter Cell games: the original, Chaos Theory, Double Agent, and Conviction. I was pretty into the first two when they came out, so this seemed like a great way to get back into the series. Plus I'm pretty sure Aubrey will like them because you spend so much time sneaking up on and ganking people.

Last, but not least, Plants Vs. Zombies - $2.50. We got this for my Mother-in-Law. She freaking loves it. 

So there you have it, 19 games and one expansion for $106.75. Yeesh, that's more than I thought I had spent. Still, they were awesome deals and that really should last me for quite some time. The worst part is I had just decided to stick with one race in Starcraft 2 and get out of Silver league. So much for that. I've got a date to plan.

What you get?

P.S. Impulse is still doing a big sale on RPGs including Mass Effect 3 until the beginning of August. Might want to check that out.

P.P.S. The normal cost for all those games would be $346.

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.

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.