Gone Digital–Kids, a Wacom and Going For Broke

Dear reader, today’s art class in one of my kindergartens was magnificent.  Simply magnificent.  We’ve been quite creative of late – experimenting with lamination, puppet articulation, going to town on polystyrene and a host of other arty avenues – but today was quite removed from what we usually get up to.

Today, it was all digital.

Utilising my aging Wacom Graphire 4 (if it were any more entry-level, I’d be standing outside) and the incredible ArtRage program, the kids learned all about digital medium manipulation.  ArtRage is ostensibly a back-to-basics application that, for my money, does a lot with very little.  You’ve a nice array of simulated mediums – loaded brushes, crayons, pencils, tube paint, trowels, airbrushes etc. – and a simple yet elegant UI.  And a dirty great canvas.  You do have the usual options found within Photoshop or a Corel Painter, but the focus really is about getting as close to the tactile feeling of real world art implements as possible. 

After we ran through the medium lists and I demonstrated their variants, I hooked my laptop up to the big Aquos flatscreen in the classroom via HDMI and the kids took turns to become accustomed to using a tablet and stylus on the big screen.  Perhaps not surprisingly, in this age of Nintendo DS handhelds and motion controls, the disconnect between looking away from where nib touches surface was overcome in record time.  Soon, they were driving thick ropes of paint from a virtual tube across the digital canvas, smearing it and blending it with trowels and charcoal.  They had a great time, especially considering – in my experience – it’s sometimes tough to get Japanese kindergarten kids to go wild with freeform in abstract without a theme or guidance.  The aim of the game today was to experiment, an aim I think they found challenging at first, but became visibly comfortable with. 

My favourite piece came from one of my more unruly students, who just seemed to revel in the undirected activity. 

Dear reader, some folks don’t think too highly of modern art, particularly the abstract expressionism movement and its thematic descendants.  The catchcry of “this isn’t art!” isn’t particularly legitimate and speaks more a deficit in audience ability to holistically interpret their own feelings.  But I don’t want to segue into something else.  This piece right here – the colours and the implements – completed by a five year old.  It doesn’t matter that the student had no great intent or forethought outside of which colour they wanted to use next or the implement of application; the incidental details in their cumulative effort make for a delicious piece of artwork.

The colour combination is objectively magnificent.  I love it.  Watching the student linger over the digital toolbox before selecting something with the stylus, choosing a colour, then going to town was energising. 

It’s easy to write off certain types and forms of art, but while cynics may repeat their “looks like a child did it!” claim, I defiantly ask where is it written that a child’s art cannot be good?! 

The evidence speaks for itself. 

More Scribbles – the LRW02-Jabberwocky

Dear reader, another scribble – sitting presently at around 90% completion – can be set free in the pastures.  Or concrete jungle.  Or just about anywhere where the thought of such elevated bipedal war machines isn’t met with derision at simply being an easier target.  But we come here not to mourn sci-fi, but to celebrate it.

This particular piece started as a pencil rough around a month ago.  Slowly, ever so very slowly, it sat next to my laptop and got various bits and pieces added, until I finally bit the bullet and took it with me to the inlaws.  There, it was cleaned up, inked with the usual suspects (Staedtler 0.05 Fineliner, Uni Prockey 0.3/0.8 double-nib) and scanned. 

Once loaded into Photoshop, this beastly thing had its colour flats done.  The legs were independent – as I’d not really worked out the height of the damn thing before scanning – and were assembled under the chassis and sideskirts and given a slightly lighter shade of green for perspective. 

I still need to do a lot of work on the colour – scrappy as hell, dear reader – and add a few extra bits and pieces, but as it stands (oh YOU!), I’m unnervingly bordering on being somewhat satisfied with this scribble.  I trust this illness will pass and I’ll be back to picking out its flaws and hating the thing into the ground in no time.  Only time will tell if it’s worth posting the final picture.

I’ve been neglecting my other artsy-fartsy project HU for a while, feeling something akin to it having served its purpose as a colour training ground.  We’ll see, though, because I do like the silly ultra-violence that goes on over there.  But, dear reader, I hope you enjoy the product of my inner manchild and his unabashed love for unpretentious machinery of the distant future. 

What is scribbled here…it just might be the style I’d use for that oft-romanced notion of a graphic novel/illustrated book. 

Larger version HERE

Eat Your Greens–Jagged Alliance: Back in Action

Oh, dear reader.  There is no greater sense of entitlement than that found coursing through the bulging veins of gamers.  Particularly gamers who pride themselves on being just that.  Stuffy, haughty and truculent in a peculiar position that shucks geek naff and invokes the inflexibilities of rural right-wingers and the citizens of the Kennedy electorate. 

Especially when it comes to change. 

It must be stated, though, that when it comes to established franchises, a lot is at stake and fans have…well…’right’ is perhaps too strong a word.  Fans have a vested interest (there we go) in seeing the next iteration of their beloved IP treated with some semblance of understanding.  Not a new issue, despite great hoo-haa surrounding the infamous XCOM FPS reboot, and to a lesser extent, the Starbreeze Syndicate affair, but I must say I’m a little tired of withered old peanuts, or worse, pretend peanuts (flavoured Carbopol binder shell surrounding a tasteless glucose core), braying on the audacity that their relatively antiquated franchises are being treated with utter disrespect in their reinterpretations for today.

I do empathise with these miserable old goats, though.  Who am I to tell them their love and nostalgia is misplaced?!  I hold my own clutch of names and experiences from years prior; Cryo’s Dune (yes, yes, I know.  Any opportunity, dear reader) will forever live on as top-shelf gaming nirvana, despite now probably playing rather stodgily.  I don’t need to dabble in GoG.com’s reissue of M.A.X.2 to know it’d feel like a touch of rigor mortis had set in, despite being heartily wonky back in the day – but love blossomed regardless.

So now, dear reader, it is the Jagged Alliance fanbase to predictably turn rabid about how “this abortion has no right to use such a hallowed name” and “why bother making this part of the Jagged Alliance franchise!?” etc., etc.  If you look out your window at a ridgeline on the outskirts of town, you just might hear a Jagged Alliance fan, howling banefully at the injustice. 

If you go into bitComposer Games’ Jagged Alliance: Back in Action thinking it will be simply a 3D reskin of the admittedly excellent Jagged Alliance 2, there runs the risk of either being surprised or dismayed.  No longer is the game turn-based.  Imagine Frozen Synapse weaved into Commandos and you’ve a good idea of what Back in Action feels like.  Everything is real-time until the spacebar is tapped and everything pauses, thereupon individual plans for each mercenary can be plotted.  It isn’t quite as detailed as Frozen Synapse in regards to movement finesse, but there’s a lot of interesting options at the player’s disposal. 

As orders can be stacked, a character can be directed to change stances, move to a particular location, change firing modes, reload, switch to secondary equipment or weapons, heal, repair or use an item, as well as having a smart targeting system where mercenaries can be made to synchronise firing.  As a quick example, if you have a roadside checkpoint surrounded with the posted soldiers unawares, you can use the plan-and-go system to manoeuvre your men to particular positions and take aim at their respective targets.  Once that’s planned, dragging one mercenary’s targeting order icon in the order interface onto the targeting order of another mercenary means they will wait for each other to get in position before making a shot.  However, as much as one plans for the best, less than perfect results usually occur – at least with low-level mercenaries and their relative inexperience in the early game.  The good thing is, if these setups go wrong, reworking a Plan B is only a spacebar tap away.

It’s a fresh take that, for my money, befits the Jagged Alliance experience.  It’s a nebulous concept.  Some might have found an FPS reboot of Jagged Alliance easier to swallow because it would fall so very far from the progenitor tree and thus be considered an outlier and forgettable oddball (XCOM: Enforcer, anyone?).  With Back in Action, the developers have retained most of the forebears’ qualities but have mixed it up with a plan-and-go system that many may find a little unwieldy when set against the more measured pace of a traditional turn-based strategy. 

For me, though, I damn well love it.  I know I throw admiration about and you rarely see much written here in disgust or hate, but the fool writing this blog is a QA’s worst nightmare.  For some reason, I understood the nuance and flow of this iteration immediately.  I don’t care that they’ve dropped the climb-anything-climb-anywhere aspect of Jagged Alliance 2.  Not fussed free-for-all triggered-explosive destruction is gone.  In fact, the most contentious module – no fog of war – is not really part of the equation.  Every single enemy not hidden within buildings or structures is visible on the map from the beginning!  I take this not as a hateful jab in the eye to fans, but of reposition the emphasis of stalking across the mythical failed central American state of Arulco.  Back in Action is snappy.  Brisk.  Is there some tired standby inferring gamers today lack the patience and strategic chops of yesteryear tucked away within this fresh method?  Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

Or, alternatively, you could say this game helps in part to do what Full Spectrum Warrior and SOCOM: Tactical Strike did whilst Close Combat: Modern Tactics just played it safe.

As an aside, there is nothing more refreshing that seeing what a franchise CAN become.  Even something as simple as changing perspective.  Turning an FPS into an isometric shooter worked out brilliantly for Killzone: Liberation.  The same cannot be said for SWAT: Target Liberty, though a failure as a game, it was a magnificent concept and had some very admirable attributes.  It’s a horrifying thought that inadvertent stagnation via the sausage machine is a viable outcome for many, fuelled in part by comfort and association.

To balance this ramble out, the demo isn’t perfect.  Unit pathing in real-time can be a little problematic at times, particularly in close quarters involving doorways or ladders.  The UI would benefit from a slight scaling back in size and perhaps offering a little more in the way of tactical information.  Cover is hard to gauge on account of the camera not allowing for player-determined Y-axis access outside of a zoom that just doesn’t dip down quite low enough, and by the same token, high enough.  Mods and configs should help once Back in Action is launched, but it would be nice with just a little more zoom.  Oh, and the character portraits could do with a few more passes by the art department. 

That said, Back in Action does far more right by the the franchise than many would make out.  Slinking through the undergrowth, skirting around paramilitary patrols for vantage points, scavenging items and weaponry, positioning multiple mercenaries for a swift and hopefully quiet takedown; everything feels good.  It’s a little spotty here and there, but for something out of Kalypso – that loveable B-tier publisher that, for my money, seems to rather expertly fill the void left by JoWood – Back in Action is a fine effort.  I really should use the disclaimer of DEMO, but we’re a week out and while the non-tutorial mission within the game is savage, the baptism of fire only reinforces this is still very Jagged Alliance. Jagged Alliance with a new pair of combat boots.

To summarise with all the dainty finger work of a vasectomy specialist, I say to the haters of this and the haters in general: Fibre.  Devour it.  While sentimentality and remembering those hazy days of yore is fine and dandy, you risk splitting your colon with starched, immalleable stubbornness.  A bearded, plaid-shirted man will not be scooping up all the old copies of Jagged Alliance 2 and Wildfire, only to bury them on a ranch.  They will remain. 

Have your classics and eat this fresh slice too, you spoiled dolts.

Handheld Horsepower & Horseplay–The PS Vita

Dear reader, once again I am very lucky to be at the front of the pack – of which this is a very rare occurrence – as an owner or, more aptly, a recipient of Sony’s brand new multi-faceted handheld machine, the Vita.  So, what does this mean?  What are my throwaway thoughts?  What is one to look out for and why oh why, in the age of Apple, would you want one?

Well, I cannot claim to know answers to all those questions, or offer sound advice, so I’ll do what I do best – or worst – and wax on, wax off about the machine, what I’ve played and what I’m keen for. 

Hardware

I’m a huge fan of the original Playstation Portable.  Goddamn, did I love that machine.  Not only was it a treasure trove of obscurity in terms of titles (Rengoku I and II, you are my dark cybernetic dungeon-crawler mistresses; Bounty Hounds, my offworld Dynasty Warriors, etc. etc.), my fondest multiplayer memories were forged on the PSP.  Endless rounds of Killzone: Liberation deathmatches/team deathmatches (Airfield.  Seriously.  There has not been a greater multiplayer map on any system in any generation greater than Airfield), zen-like head-to-head races of quite possibly the greatest launch title of all time in Ridge Racers, as well as getting my tungsten creations torn to smouldering, sparking pieces over the tundra in Armored Core: Formula Front via the linear guns of DM Scheer…I simply cannot emphasis enough the wellspring of fun I had and shared with my close friends and associates from 2005 to 2007 and beyond.  

So, while the gaming press at large seems to have flip-flopped from the hysterically predictable “Sony will win this handheld round!” to “You won’t finder a bigger case of DOA consumer electronics than the Vita!”, I’m thrilled at the prospect of another Sony effort.  And here we are, no more than a month and a half away from the North American, European and Oceania release of the machine and the launch day is already looking utterly stunning.  But what are games without a system?!

The Vita is a lot lighter than expected – ditching the heavier components and screen of its forebear for curves and a finish that in no way feels cheap or tacky.  There’s a gorgeous 5 inch OLED touch screen that seems almost gratuitous, but features a very respectable brightness and does quite well in comparison to the PSP when taken into glare.  The vaunted touchpad on the back has a nice non-slip surface bookended by two elliptical grip pads.  Of course, it would be facetious to not mention the two analogue sticks, replacing the single nub of the original.  These feel much more ergonomic than many might suspect – due to their adjusted positions on the face of the machine and despite being slightly convex, offer a very comfortable experience.  The face and d-pad buttons are slightly smaller on the Vita than the PSP, but this does not seem to detract from playing in any way.  The shoulder buttons are much more refined this time around, with less of a clacky give under pressure. 

I would, dear reader, go over the incidentals – such as cartridge ports, rear and forward cameras, inputs etc. – but I’ll cut it simply by saying everything is in its right place.  Thanks Thom Yorke. 

Firmware and UI

Being a fan of Sony’s sometimes esoteric, but always slick, user interface, I was intrigued to see what was in store after their admirable portable XMB on the PSP.  The Vita trades the PS3-esque bar and vertical selection with a screen of bubbles.  Yes, circular icons that – at this stage – can be accessed with the tap of a finger.  I was unprepared for the touch interface at first, wondering why nothing was responding to increasingly frantic button presses.  Thankfully, the touch interface and response rivals Apple’s efforts in the tech sphere – which is a godsend.  Lord knows how janky Android can feel – at least, in my limited exposure at electronics emporiums, fiddling with Android-powered phones and tablets – so to have an ultra-responsive touch experience is reassuring.

Multitasking has come to the handheld, and while not quite as initially intuitive as that found upon iOS, hitting the PS button and returning to the home screen for whatever reason is a breeze.  Suspended programs or applications remain shortcut along a visual bar at the top of the screen and can accessed once again via hitting the appropriate bubble.  To kill an open app whilst back on the menu, you need only to diagonally swipe the application’s home menu screen, which digitally peels the application away and voila, it’s killed. 

Other than that, you can now take screenshots at any time with a press of the PS button + START, although – like the iOS equivalent – pressing the PS button first is the optimal way, instead of jamming them both and hoping for the best. 

For a much more capable run-down of the machine, check out this fine Youtube channel.

Now, dear reader, let us get to the meat and potatoes, or the soy sausages and salad.  Games.

Software

So, after my wonderful wife surprised me with this piece of hot tech, I picked up Uncharted: Golden Abyss.  This is Sony Bend’s portable take on Naughty Dog’s renowned action-adventure franchise, of which they do a very good job on transcribing the PS3 juggernaut to the Vita and also, thankfully, putting their own spin on it. 

First of all, Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a fine-looking game.  It’s not immediately mindblowing, mind you, but that’s merely where graphics whores will stubbornly take off their shoes, slip a pacifier in their pouting gobs and decry “substandard!  Substandard!”.  However, it is delightfully detailed.  The animation is great, the environments dense and intricate.  Taking cues from the original Uncharted, there’s a lot more emphasis on environmental traversal; clambering along crumbling rock-faces or decrepit ruins, scaling subterranean caverns and swinging on vines.  This can be done via touch and tilt, which might sound heinous to all the stone-faced “core gamers” out there, but it’s a nice OPTIONAL alternative and, for my money, feels far less gimmicky than waving remotes about. 

In fact, one of the strongest impressions of the tilt and touch components in Uncharted: Golden Abyss involved a thrilling sequence in a mountainside waterfall/stream; players will know that scene when they get to it…and for my money, is one of the best chunks of launch title entertainment to showcase such mechanics.  My hot tip, dear reader, is to watch out for those glints on the boulders.  You’ll have to be quick, though. 

The shooting is classic Bend.  In fact, dare I say it, I think Sony Bend have a better understanding of firefights in this intimate and more restrained iteration than Naughty Dog ended up doing in Uncharted 3, especially.  While some again might frown upon tilt-augmented control for the shooting, it doesn’t take long before tiny tweaks made by the player to shunt the reticule a few millimetres about feels second nature.  Of course, you can turn all of this off, but it’s there.  And it works. 

The touch interface is also used for puzzles and item interaction.  Taking charcoal rubbings is a breeze; scrubbing a forefinger across the screen to reveal glyphs and engravings is fun, though never overstays its welcome.  Reconstructing old, torn maps and manuscripts is done via smart rotation and placement of individual pieces.  Even the larger puzzles like arranging arcane combinations and statues is easy and definitely goes a long way to make Uncharted: Golden Abyss more…oh, I don’t know…more Indiana Jones than the console experiences.  If anything, it shines a bright light towards the future of the Vita as an adventure game platform (one may dream, dear reader). 

And finally, the story and characters are great.  It’s a side-story, or a prequel to the events of its console cousin, but Golden Abyss trades globe-trotting largess for a nice, grounded tale.  I actually liked the story within this portable version more than Uncharted 2, on the basis of Golden Abyss never feeling like the events or machinations were outside the abilities or grasps of the adventuring coterie of treasure-chasing rapscallions.  My personal favourite character was Marisa Chase, the grand daughter of an archaeologist on the brink of discovering what could conceivably be the mystery of El Dorado.  Chase is voiced wonderfully, has terrific chemistry with Nathan Drake and injects a boisterous, determined innocence that prior female leads in the series haven’t sported – fan-favourite Elena included. 

Oh, and without saying anything more – the sound in Uncharted: Golden Abyss is incredible.  Acoustics are one reason to play this game, especially in the subterranean cavern levels.  Thumbs up.

Upcoming Software

Let us, dear reader, examine the glorious horizon.  The light of dawn that will soon become the heat of day.  Wonderfully, Sony are pushing day-and-date digital releases on PSN to coincide with physical retail versions, so this means instant access and a lessening of mail order and associated costs.  On with it, they cry.  And so, here are my choicest of future cuts. 

WipEout 2048

I thoroughly enjoy WipEout.  As a racing game, as a visual experience, as artistic inspiration and as an important artefact in the maturation and cultural incursion of games.  A series borne of the rapidly accelerating ecstasy-fuelled club scene in the mid Nineties, headlining a system that felt at home under the watchful gaze of tech-savvy, tech-cool Gen-X and Y’ers, their then-still relevant copies of touchstone cyberpunk and VHS anime imports irrepressibly compatible with Psygnosis’ anti-grav racer.  And while not being an expert by any means – WipEout is very much a dedicated fan’s game at higher levels – I’ve been on board with all but two of the series. 

With WipEout 2048, we’re being taken to the earliest days of the anti-grav racing league.  The Vita outing will have wider tracks, unsealed track sections, the usual accoutrements of killer electronica and custom soundtracks, the ability to play with up to seven other players online – players on both Vita and PS3 – and a multiplayer campaign. 

In short, it will be a thrilling return to jumping into the cockpit of my faithful Sino-Finn EG-X machine – the handling oh-so-sweet, with just the right amount of lateral bomb on the airbrakes – and chock full of ocular-rending, pulse-raising content. 

Unit 13

So this, dear reader, is Zipper Interactive of SOCOM fame’s interesting little shooter set to be released in the “launch window” of February/March 2012.  Featuring a group of class-differentiated soldiers, players are given the task of besting the 38-odd missions within a single or co-op campaign.  Now, it sounds fairly pedestrian at this point, however Unit 13 is all about score.  Each mission grades you on various categories – speed, stealth, takedown combo etc. – which feeds into an online leaderboard, both globally and against your friends.  Think of it like Need For Speed’s new Autolog system.  This creates a nice little competitive edge to what would otherwise be a competent Zipper outing. 

However, it doesn’t stop there, dear reader.  There are High Value Target missions which are unlocked through attaining stars in the normal campaign.  These are highly-specialised missions and, from what I read, offer quite a challenge to entrants.  This also feeds back into your leaderboard standings, whereby friends are automatically given a twenty-four hour time window where they can access the level, even if they have not unlocked that particular level, and have a chance to beat your score.  It’s a highly integrated system that should do for this shooter what Need For Speed and Blur did for the racing genre. 

There is no actual competitive multiplayer, which some much frown at, but I’m actually quite pleased at what I’m reading.  Unit 13 sounds like a fresh approach to the often underwhelming military shooter circuit, and taking a few scoring methods gleaned from Bizarre Creations’ The Club will never go astray in my book.

Ruin

Another game showing alarmingly creative use of online integration is Ruin.  An action-RPG hack and slash not unlike the Champions of Norrath/Dark Alliance games of yore, this one sounds positively fascinating. 

Every player has a lair, a customisable haunt of infinite possibilities.  This is key to the shaking up of traditional PvP, whereby players don’t attack one another directly (or at least, this is not the most efficient way of dealing damage and salvaging loot), rather they venture into another player’s carefully constructed lair (as well, of course, into levels within the single player campaign).  The lair itself, depending on the items stored within, offers a vast array of buffs and capabilities that accompany the player when they are off marauding levels or in other players’ lairs.  This seems to encourage players to equip or fine-tune their lairs as they would their own character, which is also a facet looking as deep as any of the finest hack and slash/Diablo-esque action-RPGs. 

The defensive aspect, however, is where it seems a lot of fun can be had.  As Idol Minds, the developers behind Ruin, are placing a lot of emphasis on cloud saving and the ability to switch from playing on the Vita to the PS3 (and vice versa) at any moment without breaking progression, the serverside storage of a player’s lair means it is free to be invaded by another player (presumably one from a player’s friends list, but who knows!?) as they quest for items and experience. 

Dear reader, this is fantastic and, as far as I’m concerned, the greatest console-based use of user-created content we’ve seen yet.  Unlike Little Big Planet or Modnation Racers, players are crafting user-generated content within a single player campaign, not for the sake of an online showcase of skill, but in an effort to stave off intruders and to protect their precious items.  I’m sure there will be toggles to disallow invasion of a lair during offline hours, but I must admit, forging a devious keep, infesting it with monsters, traps and bosses, then going offline is a giddy proposition.  I look forward more to the defensive aspects of Ruin than I do of its traditional action-RPG aspects, but if they get the balance right and players finding themselves gingerly stalking the subterranean halls of a random stranger and facing their diabolic creation and minions for all-important loot and lair upgrades, then it’ll be an utter riot and perhaps – like Diablo for many – an addictive experience.

—

And there you have it, dear reader, a bit of a gushy-gush for the Vita, a warm indictment of Uncharted: Golden Abyss and three very awesome titles in the works.  I have not the patience nor the inclination to sell this piece of hardware to those umming and ah’ing, though I do hope Sony do the right thing and court the tablet crowd and the ones bemoaning a lack of proper controls in the age of touch by encouraging a good and constant swathe of apps. 

But hey, I’m here for the geekery, so whatever happens, I’m intrigued.

As the children do say, dear reader, bring it on.

Weekend Scribble-down – Cretaceous Carpet Vendor

Dear reader, it has been a weekend of turning the tail of a crappy week into something a little positive and productive.  My wife has had, of all things, mumps for the last five or so days, and it has been rather horrid for her.  Young Lottie has been staying with the grandparents during this time, to avoid any further complications despite being inoculated – something the Missus seemed to have missed out on in the early days.  In any case, this has led me to tending to an oft bed-ridden lass, making clinic trips and doing what I can to keep things running smoothly. 

In the downtime and while the Missus has been snoozing, I’ve been making an effort to scribble.  The therapy and catharsis of a nib upon paper, it is undeniable.  So, in an effort to continue to do art for others whilst working on honing skills further, I once more created the above piece for Mike Loth, a.k.a. Lord Chan, of Tales from the Deuteronilus to do with what he sees fit.

The creative method was similar to the last piece; HB clutch, a near-death 0.05 Sakura Micron Pigma fineliner and a ZiG Mangaka 0.5 fineliner.  Once pencilled and inked, it was scanned at a humble 300dpi, opened in Photoshop and stripped of all colour bar the inklines. 

Now, there’s a much more professional way to flat and colour linework, but for me, I do it a very rough and ready way.  Nothing more than a Magic Wand > Select Background > Right Click > Similar > A Dirty Great Tap on the Delete Key.  I like it because it can eat a few pixels from the linework and, at least in my eyes, massage a bit of anti-aliasing in on the ground floor.  Of course, when scanning at three times the size, none of this matters terribly much in my opinion and thus is more a psychological accoutrement to a lazy man’s process.  Once the linework is separated from any other colour, a new layer is added beneath it and the digital paint is slathered on.

I’m going to really see how far I can push myself this year.  Some big projects are coming up, and moreover, being part of other people’s projects in varying capacities is a humbling catalyst to strive for greater artistic heights.  You never know, dear reader, I may just try and move out of my comfort zone a little. 

How utterly frightening. 

But here’s to a relatively speedy recovery for my wife.  May the combined power of the Tyrant Lizard Gods expedite the healing process. 

A larger version can be found HERE.

Heroic Absurdities – Rekindling the Hatching

Yes, dear reader, more scribbles and waffle.  This particular picture here is part of an occasional artistic collaboration with the esteem Lord Chan of Tales from The Deuteronilus, a splendid and ever-growing compendium of Old Testament-meets-Terry Pratchett historical retellings from a mysterious land forever just beyond the horizon.  What specific odyssey will stem from this particular scribble, we will just have to wait and see. 

In any case, a quick run-down of the creation.

The background is a collection of old manuscript stamps and a few custom textures I’d put together a year or so ago, spliced from various sources and degraded embossing.  A light selection of transparencies and glows were applied to give the appearance of wear, tear and age.  The edging glow worked relatively satisfactorily. 

The actual armoured and airborne rhinoceros and its Conquistador rider were sketched with an HB mechanical clutch pencil, 0.5 gauge for those following at home, then inked with a combination of 0.05 Staedtler Pigment Liner and 0.5 ZiG Fineliner.  After clean-up, a scan at a relatively modest 300dpi and import into Photoshop for a very subtle colouring session and fiddling with colour overlays and opacities to get the linework at an acceptable tone. 

I’m making steps, dear reader, to – as the title suggests – rekindle my association and use of hatching and crosshatching.  It has been far too long, and while there are flaws in the piece above, it feels good to get the ball rolling and blow dust from a crackled old mode of rendering long since left to founder. 

It was a good experiment in terms of pace; the pencil work took around an hour of musing and scratching, then around thirty minutes to ink.  Discounting the nocturnal hours and daily routine, the colour addition and background creation took another hour.  All in all, a quick and relatively successful effort.  I still find myself balking at any sort of composition, but 2012 is not a year to hold personal pity parties – as easy as it is to denigrate one’s own work.  One pigeon-toed foot after the other.  In fact, there’s a future post in store on the topic of 2012 being the self-imposed year of creative overdrive.

After all, Roland Emmerich did warn us that this year, this VERY year, could be our last.  And no amount of outrunning continent-swallowing tidal waves in a Buick can save anybody. 

So, dear reader, we best get busy. 

Floating Boats In 2011– The NGAAT List of Fine Wares

Dear reader, the gala event no one asked for, no one showed up to and no one will remember.  Yes, another hat in the ring, another peanut in the gallery, another monkey at the typewriter to bring you his meagre thoughts on what was damn fine in the realm of gaming this year.  Don’t come expecting the big names or an echo chamber of every other big site offering names extruded from the sausage machine of en masse critical acclaim, but by the same token, don’t expect much in the way of cork sniffing. 

If pressed, dear reader, this is the home of enthusiastic celebration of rickety old retired greyhounds.  Ponies with leg fractures not fit even for glue.  However, let it not be only a spotlight for the proverbial raggie dolls of 2011.  There have been some genuinely amazing titles this year that I’m thrilled to throw into the mix.  So, without further ado and sidestepping the waffle of special guests and inane hosts, let us begin.

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We’ll get the awkward one out of the way first.  This award goes to the greatest of botches, the most calamitous of releases and the pinnacle of cock-ups upon a game’s debut.  And that goes, sadly, to Kerberos’s Sword of the Stars 2: Lords of Winter. 

Everything looked to be on track for Sword of the Stars 2 to be a crown jewel in the year’s relatively sparse strategy selection.  A hugely upgraded realtime combat component that made Nexus: The Jupiter Incident look like Farmville in comparison.  Expanded research tree.  A new graphical overhaul that boasted some of the finest ship designs in the business.  Not to mention, outside of indie curiosities, 4X space empire builders are not exactly drowning in new games of their particular predilection.  The anticipation was palpable, dear reader.

But what was uploaded to Steam that fateful release date was, at first, alleged to be an early beta build.  The news of this “mistake”, and I use quotations with a vengeance, spread across parts of the internet that cared.  Hideously broken, missing vital parts of the game – including diplomacy – as well as been an absolute system hog (if you managed to get it running), Sword of the Stars 2 was a car wreck that, amazingly, happened twice. 

A second build was uploaded amidst a barrage of vicious twittering to Kerberos and the game’s publisher, Paradox – to the point where Paradox Interactive’s CEO Fredrik Wester publically apologised for the state of the game.  Then, the mea culpa from Kerberos came…

Kerberos had indeed bitten off more than they could chew.  A new engine to build, an ambitious game to create, a tiny number of staff and perhaps having undertaken the wrong business model to achieve their goals.  It was stated that they simply had to get the game in the state that it was out the door to make ends meet.  Preorder numbers seemed to be the light at the end of the tunnel for this small Canadian studio, but as outrage spread – and despite Sword of the Stars 2 launching at a lower price than other PC titles, money is money and developer trust is indeed what it says – they offered refunds to those not willing to stick around, free DLC for those who would.  They promised that the updates and fixes would come thick and fast now that some semblance of revenue was filtering in, a promise they have kept to this day.

There is indeed a great game within the hullabaloo of the Sword of the Stars 2 release.  Not initially, but the developers have been working incredibly hard since the launch and I’m not bitter.  Disappointed, yes, but this truly is a labour of love for Kerberos and I’ve read some really heartfelt things about the development cycle straight from the horse’s mouth.  Things happen, messes are made, the consequences of choices made months – even years – prior are the proverbial keel-splitting sunfish that lurks unseen below the waves of creative projects such as this one. 

I will play Sword of the Stars 2: Lords of Winter, without a doubt.  But, for the moment, I’m content with leaving it in the orbital dry dock and awaiting the all-clear signal from the developers.

This particular award, dear reader, is one that goes to a very special game.  I love this title, I think it was a game-changer in a relatively stagnant genre.  A glorious meshing of fresh design, interesting mechanics and a slant on the established notion of teamwork.  However, my admiration was – perhaps trademark at this juncture – in the minority. 

I’m talking of Brink, the stylised team-based shooter from Splash Damage.  The game had been in the works for a while and I’d been looking on ever since the first gameplay video showcased the parkour/free-running mechanics built into a rather sumptuous multiplayer FPS.  There was certainly no shortage of coverage nor advertising of the game.  Pundits gathered, enthused not only by the terrific character models and customisation, but also on the ground that this was Splash Damage – the fellows who created Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and, to a lesser extent, those behind Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.  In short, some serious multiplayer chops. 

However, upon release, Brink had some technical issues with some users.  Some remarked of graphical glitches, others stated performance issues.  Lag was also a problem for certain folk.  The unrepentant carnivorousness of the shooter market means launch issues are, more often than not, an omen of boomstickmen backlash.  FPS fans on the whole will not suffer even the most temporary of hitches and glitches when the field has contemporaries offering smooth and comparatively faultless avenues for guntime.  They’re a hideous lot, are the folk of multiplayer FPS fandom.

So, it took little time at all for the ranks to thin and the herd on a whole moved on to seemingly greener (read: more boring) pastures.  But a loyal ragtag crew remained, and we revelled in the nuanced – though not perfect – goodness Splash Damage had ushered upon us.

To borrow two thirds of the esteemed Unbearable Dutchman Tristan Damen’s review scoring method, let me lay down the towering highlights and the honest lowlights:

The Good:  Brink is a delightful thing to look at.  While some peanuts prefer the Modern Warfare/Battlefield look of aiming for realism in their aesthetic, Brink is a celebration of offbeat character rendering, intriguing world visuals and the best weapon designs of the generation.  It is an incredible achievement via a heavily-modified idTech4/Doom 3 engine. 

The teamplay in Brink is something not many people appreciated, but certainly an iteration of the usual Battlefield “toss a medic and I’ll give you ammo” mechanic.  Players can manually buff certain statistics of team members – think Fatshark’s Lead & Gold proximity-triggered auto-buffing, but player chosen and targeted – as well as amp the damage of another’s weapon.  There’s a lock-on system that allows buffers to auto-follow prospective buffees, as it were, so the sliding and dashing of a target will not phase or interrupt the deployment of a stat buff.

Mission design is a big sticking-point for some.  Brink is not about team deathmatch; the entire premise is objective-based.  What puts it head and shoulders above its peers – and we saw this in Timegate’s Section 8 titles – is that independent sub-objectives must be completed to progress through the mission.  A lift generator might need to be repaired, requiring an engineer class to make their way to the area and do what’s required.  At the same time, control points are being captured.  Bombs are being defused or, alternatively, set.  Computers are being hacked.  Delegation is streamlined with an intuitive radial menu system within the player’s HUD.  Contentious!  Many say this is a hideous way to select sub-missions and aid players, but perhaps that’s more an indictment of gaming today.  Some need blinking signs, dear reader.  Huge arrows.  Flashing neon and a voice in the ear saying “follow that man!  Follow that man.  DO IT.  That man, YES!  Him.  The MAN!”  The onscreen UI and overlay has all the positional information a fellow needs: downed players for medics to attend, objective locations etc. etc.  Players can, mid-battle, open their radial menu, select a mission and BAM, they’re on their way.  Missions currently being undertaken by players are signalled by a slightly change of colour on the radial menu, to list one aspect of this cleverly-designed facet.  It’s intricate and informative. 

The movement of Brink is another love-or-hate aspect.  The smugly-titled SMART system – Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain – means players can hold down whatever button is assigned to the SMART system and enjoy a freedom of movement not seen since Mirror’s Edge.  Hold down SMART, run towards barricade, player will automatically vault over barricade.  Run at wall, look up at ledge, player will jump and shimmy up to higher elevation.  Run parallel to wall, manually strafe-jump towards the wall, SMART key held, player will wall-run.  My personal favourite is the slide.  As a medic, dear reader, I must be there to help the fallen – even under a thick and heavy hail of bullets.  The slide makes this possible.  It makes deploying the life-saving syringe even more heroic.  Not to mention, aim at an enemy’s feet and you’ve just slide-tackled someone. 

The Bad:  Brink simply didn’t have the content.  I’m not particularly fond of DLC and stringing the consumer along when, at least on the PC, the arena shooters of yore had a massive cache of maps in the retail releases on Day One.  Brink, on launch, had six maps.  Six maps, and subsequently an additional two have been delivered to us in the form of DLC.  This wouldn’t be so bad if the maps offered different modes, but players must contend with the same mission-based matches over and over again.  Variation would have done something to save Brink from the tumbleweeds now blowing across servers. 

The level design did not do any favours to promote SMART in the eyes of many.  Giving players a heightened sense of freedom of movement was moot when, more often than not, firefights happened in corridors and skinny chokepoints.  Verticality simply wasn’t vertical enough.  There was, pitiably, little room to move or take this new SMART movement notion to any great lengths.  Or, perhaps it was more a case of it not being folded into the combat as much as people might have hoped, prior to release.  There’s still a great amount of fun to be had as teams scramble over detritus, leap up onto catwalks and over balconies.

I really should have written a proper review back in the first half of the year when Brink dropped, saving you, dear reader, from reading a waffling treatise when you should be getting this damn thing over and done with!  Safe to say, I love Brink on many levels in its flawed gloriousness, but it gets far too much unwarranted hate from the peanut gallery. 

Onwards!

Would you be surprised, dear reader, that this next award goes to a title from possibly the tiniest niche served outside of Japan’s recent pigeon-human love simulator, Hatoful Boyfriend?  Less of a surprise would be the fact that this one is straight out of the Eastern Bloc. 

Behold, Off-Road Drive by 1C Avalon is the slowest racing game you are likely to find.  It is remarkably slow.  At times, you could walk faster than the vehicles within.  Off-Road Drive is, as inferred by its title, an off-road mudding and traversal near-sim.  Using a variety of real-life mechanics, such as adjustment of tire pressure, locking and unlocking differentials as well as adjusting gear ratios, I never thought I would enjoy the sheer nitty-gritty of Off-Road Drive as much as I did.  Races, in the conventional sense of start line/checkpoint/finish line, involve a globe-trotting selection of championships, each boasting a nice selection of tracks with a distinct personality.  Some have a distinct undulation of intensity; racers claw through deep mud and flooded paddies before winching up over near vertical embankments and down into thick, snag-ridden gullies.  Just as there’s an art to the real off-road traversal, this game demands you find and foster within yourself a certain level of patience not often associated with the racing genre.

Off-Road Drive is perhaps best described as a puzzle racer.  Not so much a Gripshift, more a Trials HD or TerRover.  The approach to, say, a swamp has as great an impact as driving out of the mire.  Acceleration needs feathering, lest wheels spin and you dig yourself a sloppy hole.  Oh yes, there is permanent track deformation, so a heavily traversed mud track leaves deep and potentially dangerous channels for drivers.  Vehicles slough and slip laterally, given the condition of the path.  Roaring streams hide submerged boulders that require unlocked front and rear differentials to cope with the uneven ground and still maintain a decent speed.  Tire pressure requires adjusting to find just the right tire-to-ground ratio for maximum grip.  It is this array of options going beyond gear changes and pedal work that make each race a very rewarding experience.

I’ve always loved the triumph of the overland; explorers, traders on the silk road, colonial expansion and cartographic endeavours…so, somehow – however tenuously – that fed into my immediate appreciation for this curious digital rendition of a very niche motor sport.  Nothing more than extreme time trials, Off-Road Drive takes the cake as best “who woulda thunk it?!” title for 2011.  Oh, and in case, dear reader, you were wondering about the title, all is explained in looking at Ben Affleck’s movie career and then his directorial debut and follow-up in Gone, Baby, Gone and The Town respectively.

A very contentious award-winner, dear reader.  Possibly the most polarising game we’ve had ushered upon us since…well…since the rest of the world thinking Submarine Titans was average and I thought it was better than Starcraft.  Hideous example, but let it be known that the peanut gallery is, for the most part, yawping foul.  Exclusions of course, especially for Tristan ‘Unbearable Dutch’ Damen, as our discussions upon this trash or treasure have been deep and perspectives justified to more than a reasonable extent. 

John Carmack, Tim Willits and the rest of the lads and lasses at id Software cooked up one hell of a game in RAGE.  You can read the letters between Dutch and myself at the above link, but to sum up why RAGE has taken the cake as action game of the year for me, read on!

Like Brink, there’s definitely a few chinks in the RAGE armour.  The new mega texture technology within the debut of id’s new engine, idtech 5, had a temperamental launch – it worked flawlessly for some (read: me, even with the usually issue-ridden ATI card), had graphical issues and stuttering for others.  The basic idea behind mega texturing gives environmental artists huge texture maps to work with, painting directly on polygonal surfaces without the need to have individual textures for incidental architecture and assets.  For me, on a humble mid-range laptop, it looks amazing – a real window into next-gen – but in other cases, sluggish texture loading and pop plagued those rocking even the most impressive of gaming rigs.  There was an initial week or two of ATI card driver issues, signalling a breakdown in communication between developer and card manufacturer.  It was, like Brink, a bit of a sloppy start for some. 

However, despite all this, RAGE is an uncomplicated and straightforward shooter in the classical sense.  As Tristan and I considered, maybe this simply isn’t enough for gamers these days, but for me there simply has not been enough of games that don’t trade gunplay for spectacle.  And RAGE’s strongest suite is a very defined sense of self. 

Outside of an overworld traversal aspect with terrific vehicle handling and relatively good car combat,   RAGE’s meat and potatoes is delving into a variety of dungeon-esque levels and shooting the hell out of everything within.  And discounting outliers like STALKER, RAGE features weapon interplay of the generation. 

From the pistol to the assault rifle, from the variety of ammunition to the incredible wingstick, RAGE meshes a very finely-honed arsenal in a smooth sixty frames per second-assisted movement and physics model.  There’s a great sense of speed, impact and response to every encounter, the firearms and ballistics. 

While many have suggested the post-apocalyptic wasteland has worn thin through various interpretations in gaming, RAGE has impeccable visual design.  Perhaps to its detriment, given the response the world simply wasn’t utilised further.  From dank and twisting sewer complexes to desiccated, empty metropolises, high tech fortresses to bizarre television studio murder arenas, the physicality to the environments in all their forms is one of RAGE’s finest examples. 

At the end of the day, and if you’re not in the market for Serious Sam or Hard Reset – the closest examples of old-school, no holds-barred FPS action – RAGE is id Software underlining exactly why they still matter in a genre dominated by developers specialising in nothing but stale contemporary warfare snorefests. 

This one, dear reader, is short and sharp – which is, ironically, the antithesis of the award-winner.  Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition is deep and long.  Hideously deep and long does not begin to cover it. 

Stardock have finally released Galactic Civilizations II with all its expansions on Steam.  Previously only available on Impulse, this 2006 classic – the pinnacle of 4x space empire builders for many – dropped onto the market leader’s service for a ridiculous sale price of fifteen dollars US.  The retail bundle for the Ultimate Edition on Amazon is in excess of eighty.  For such a price, dear reader, you get untold value for shekels.  A tech tree over one hundred and fifty research projects deep, within five disciplines.  A ship creator the best in genre.  A diplomatic model that shames most other titles of its ilk.  Highly customisable game settings.  A slew of user-made mods to try out, including the universes of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5 and various other franchises to make a fanboy froth like an ill hound.  I could go on and on.

This isn’t even one of those HD remakes, simply the vanilla game and the two expansions.  Like the Mona Lisa, you don’t paint over a masterpiece simply due to age.  And Galactic Civilizations II is a masterpiece.

This award could have very easily gone to Saints Row The Third, but when carefully (or half-heartedly, as the case is) considered, a gamer worth his salt simply cannot go past the poetic coalescing of ballistics and pyrotechnics found within Men of War: Assault Squad.  I’ve already given a thorough exposition on why it’s so damn good, but special mention of the carnage is warranted.

And let it be known, dear reader, that this is not simply some cheap award toss.  The physics engine supporting the devastation within Assault Squad is, simply put, the greatest tactical asset. 

A pristine urban map in Assault Squad can be turned into rubble in under half an hour.  Tanks can engage each other through masonry.  Mortars rip holes in rooves and hedgerows.  The turret of an exploded vehicle can spin through the side of a house.  Lines of sight and fields of fire can be made with a few AT rounds against a wall.  If you want those camouflage-friendly shrubs gone, burn them.  Or explode them.  Or drive a tank over them. 

However, the uncontrolled chaos is where the fun truly begins.  Watching a freshly-requested medium tank roll onto the field explode from a long-range enemy AT shot within the radius of a friendly half-track, engulfing the soldiers within, is a thing of engrossing horror.  When the player manages to get a lucky shot into the engine block of an enemy panzer and see it erupt with much collateral, the satisfying retribution triples. 

Things never go according to plan in Men of War: Assault Squad, which is exactly what you want in a game offering the situational variations and adverse conditions of combat of a squad-level real-time tactical title.  Watching one of your men fumble with a grenade and see it detonate within his squad is not necessarily a ‘good thing’, quite the opposite, but it’s a ‘different thing’ and continually and consistently ratchets up the stakes and outcomes.  The carnage, the one-in-a-million shot and the tactical possibilities are Men of War: Assault Squad’s trademarks and therefore, get an award for being just so damn insane. 

We cannot forget, dear reader, that a very special thing happened this year.  Yes, hardcore strategy was brought to the masses by a tiny English mob known as Mode 7 Games.  Their effort in colliding the intensity of a shooter into the heart of turn-based strategic musing is one of valiant triumph.  Frozen Synapse, after a decent life as a work-in-progress beta, got an official release in 2011 and has done gang-busters ever since. 

What is most pleasing about Frozen Synapse is the way it dispels the usual stodginess surrounding turn-based strategy.  Not that there’s anything wrong with hexes or the usual trappings of wargaming, but if Frozen Synapse does anything, it showcases just how damn cool strategy games can be.  Featuring a stunning soundtrack and icy-cold minimalist visuals, Mode 7 Games put together not only a crucially well-written single player module with one of the best examples of how to deftly fold a tutorial into a campaign, but also one of the year’s best multiplayer packages. 

The only downside of Frozen Synapse’s immense success is the developers no longer have the time to record their terrific little gaming podcast, Visiting The Village.  I do miss that one. 

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And with that, dear reader, the gala shall conclude.  Every bloke and his chimpanzee make lists, so I much prefer to throw a few crazy categories into the peanut gallery mix for kicks.  2011 was a fine year for gaming.  Not THE BEST, as some are saying, as each year has a different flavour and offers a very different batch of experiences when the big picture is viewed, but a fine year nonetheless. 

Including the games listed above, here are my shortlist picks for 2011:

• Steel Armor: Blaze of War – on account of vehicular warfare requiring such love and attention.
• Anno 2070 – on account of an Anno game + near future = bliss.
• Sanctum – on account of colour, co-op and creativity within a tired genre.
• Real Warfare 2: Northern Crusades – on account of conveying human tendencies for cowardice and heroism on the battlefield. 
• Warhammer 40K: Space Marine – on account of being awesome, though on few folks’ radars.
• Dead Island – on account of being a gregarious and violent Polish take on a stagnant theme.
• Capsized – on account of being one of the finest platformers that people somehow missed.

iOS gaming deserved a separate post – which might feed into that outdated notion of mobile titles not being legitimate gaming experiences – within which I’ve shone and reshined spotlights on 2011’s finest appstore offerings – strategy titles, to be exact. 

With that, take all belongings with you and hastily make your way to the exit.  The Australian Concrete Suppliers Association has a seminar booked next and they’re not the kind of folk to have their conferences postponed or waylaid.

Touching Special Places–2011’s Best iOS Strategy Titles

Dear reader, in the borrowed structure of Rampaging Roy Slaven, do you think iOS gaming is a waste of time and lacks the ego-stroking, self-determined legitimacy of ‘proper games’?  If the answer is ‘yes’, don’t bother reading further (or calling in to our talkback line). 

2011 was a very, VERY strong year for Apple’s touch devices.  Going against those famous words of Steve Jobs – who millions mourned at his sad passing – the strategy genre on iOS has been anything but ‘foolish’ and we’ve not been hungry for such games in the year’s duration. 

Let’s get straight into it, because if one thing is perennial in touch-gaming, it’s all about getting in as quickly as possible.  Chow those fibre pills, snack on a bag of prunes and park the beef on the Royal Dalton.  It is on. 

Starbase Orion

I’ve covered this gem prior, but it damn well deserves the praise heaped upon it and more.  Few things can beat a 4X space empire builder in your pocket, especially one packing asynchronous multiplayer.  It certainly makes for a more legitimate game than all of those internet browser affairs, revelling in the notion that it is indeed the direct portable descendent of Masters of Orion 2. 

Without reinviting verbosity, Starbase Orion is all about stellar conquest and developing a robust empire to feed an increasingly ravenous economic and military machine.  There is no great diplomatic facet, no differing paths to victory.  Starbase Orion is about subjugation, about annexation and obliteration, it is solely about annihilation.  Orbitally bombard an enemy base.  Deploy troop transports for a planetary invasion.  Research shipyards, greater naval weaponry, enhance your espionage and sabotage capacities, buttress border worlds with planetary defences and the exciting list goes on. 

The interface is slick; flicking between and arranging an empire and assigned planetary projects is one of triumph.  As the lifeblood of Starbase Orion is population, distributed between the three main disciplines of food production, manufacturing and research, shifting workforce ratios is as easy as moving population abstractions between discipline slots with a single swipe, either within a planetary worker pool or between planets or even between systems. 

The fact that players now have the opportunity to take what traditionally was a predominantly solitary experience into the realm of portable asynchronous multiplayer is the biggest feather in the cap of Starbase Orion.  What’s more, it features an intelligent turn-based system that measures empire projects and milestones against each other, so players with short-term development, manufacturing or explorative goals set might find they receive two or three sequential turns before their opposition receives theirs on account of finishing a project.  It might sound complicated and even slightly unbalanced, but it keeps things fast in the early game and becomes less of an observable facet after player expansion.

All in all, Starbase Orion is one hell of a game.  With a clutch of differing races and the ability to create custom ones, it should cure what ails any space strategy freak. 

Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion

Along with Starbase Orion, this is what I offer up as a shining example of iOS gaming depth.  Ravenmark is an army-centric fantasy turn-based strategy gem worthy of a much higher price tag – and on any other system, it would certainly be the case.  What makes Ravenmark special is the sheer degree of love a plucky studio out of Singapore put into this debut effort.  Not content with simply offering up a tactically-sound detachment-level TBS that can rival the best of Koei’s efforts (as Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the closest cousin to Ravenmark’s combat mechanics), but there’s an incredibly deep backstory not only to the world itself, but to each unit, religion and factions. 

The campaign itself is a tough but enjoyable one, with an ensemble of interesting characters and surprisingly fine writing and a great soundtrack.  I don’t want to say much more, dear reader, outside of fans of Japanese SRPGs and tabletop wargames owe it to themselves to pick it up.  From the intuitive UI to the crisp graphics and snappy movement and combat, Ravenmark is peerless and stands toe-to-toe with contemporaries of far greater budgets and manpower.

Legion of the Damned

Dear reader, love stalks me once more.  This time in the form of a hex-based sci-fi wargame based on the military science fiction novel series by acclaimed author William C. Dietz, and by Jupiter’s many moons, it is a winner! 

If you’re familiar with the names Missionforce: Cyberstorm or Panzer General, you should already be acquainted with what lineage Legion of the Damned stems from.  It might look perhaps a little basic to those thinking science fiction strategy gaming starts and stops with Starcraft, but this is a very different beast and, to use  a snippet of phraseology from George Stobbart, if you know your onions you will know there is some serious tactical firepower within Legion of the Damned. 

William C. Dietz also wrote the campaign story, so there’s some great military sci-fi trappings throughout in this tale of a reanimated rogue’s gallery of cyborgs given a second chance to serve the Empire as a bio-augmented frontier force against an encroaching alien threat. 

The meat and potatoes, naturally, is the combat.  After a raft of in-depth boot camp tutorials, the challenge ramps up quickly, testing a player’s ability to enact lessons learned prior.  The use of recon, artillery spotting and use of terrain is paramount – as well it should be – but each of the three factions brings a different experience to the wargaming table.  Punctuating each mission are fully-voiced slideshow animations that do a great job of adding flair to an already interesting title – something Legion of the Damned and Ravenmark share. 

However, dear reader, Legion of the Damned has, like Starbase Orion, a planet-splitting weapon in its feature arsenal.  Outside of the map creation and sharing component, you have an asynchronous multiplayer battleground to dig into.  When setting up a game, players can select a free-for-all or a team-based 2v2 match.  The option to choose a faction is also offset by the fact there are three ‘loadouts’ or compositional army types – Recon, Assault and Resistance – and feature differing unit numbers and classes upon deployment to the field. 

Legion of the Damned is a game of territory or flag capture, so even the early game of a match is speedy and directed.  Add to this the fact that each match is constrained to eight turns and you’ve got a savagely mobile game, if you’ll pardon the pun.  The multiplayer server allows you to set up a game, give it a lofty title (thus far, my pitiful, withered porridge has added to the pantheon of great battles like Thermopylae, Rorke’s Drift and River Plate with ‘Firefight’, ‘Left Offworld’ and the miserable ‘Frontier Alliances’), and it will sit on the server until the requisite number of players has been met.  The glory of push notifications means you’ll be sent a message when the dropships have landed and troops are in position. 

Also, like all good asynchronous games, it supports dead drop messaging both globally and between team members, so players can leave eloquent appraisals between turns or denigrating notes that would leave Xbox Live teen gun-heads shamefaced and red-cheeked.  As expected, the community I’ve dealt with so far, dear reader, is a fine and upstanding one. 

In summary, Legion of the Damned should be on any discerning iOS strategy gamer’s machine. 

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And there you have it, dear reader, another list you never asked for.  You can continue to believe iOS gaming is nothing but Canabalt and Angry Birds clones, weak tilt-based non-events, busy work disguised as quaint pixel gems…OR, you can sink your canines into the rich red meat supplied above.  Granted, these aren’t your 99c specials – Starbase Orion, Ravenmark and Legion of the Damned hover around the five dollar mark – but on any other platform, a pundit would be paying in excess of fifteen dollars for such software.

iOS gaming just keeps getting better for strategy games.  You’re now acquainted with the best of 2011 on the platform. 

Armoured Warfare 101: How Not To Assault A Position

Dear reader, allow me to sneak this lazy post in before bed.  Due to the gravity-defying excellence of my good friend and fifty percent of a very strong Pan Pacific Trade Mercantile, Simon Dimant, I am humbly and thankfully in possession of Steel Armor: Blaze of War.  Now, I do hope to elucidate upon this magnificent piece of Russian tank sim after I spend a few nights in the belly of either a T-62 or an M60A1, but for the time being and in the spirit of the season, behold my resplendent failure at commanding a pack of MBTs. 

Welcome to Susangerd, where I was supposed to engage the enemy as part of a border contact. 

So I shuffle my exhausted – as historically correct, one might assume – units under my control up to the line and contact is made.

Indeed, nothing like an armoured engagement in the evening.  In Cold War tanks.  Which means a luxurious ride in a steel beast, with crewman positions no bigger than a portable lavatory.

And great visibility, too.  The whine from the V-55 12-cylinder 4-stroke diesel powerplant actually does wonders to enhance the cosiness of the vehicle.  Like being in a big metal sleeping bag propped against an industrial metal compactor. 

Switching to the Commander, I open the hatch and have a further look when flares – enemy flares – ignite in the sky.  This is, one can safely deduct, a bad thing.  Especially for someone with as flimsy a grasp on the hotkeys at this point as the idiot writing this AAR.

I switch to the Gunner and try to make out any movement in the night optics, which proves to very helpful for the enemy to then do this:

And the other MBTs under my command?  Well, one is up ahead, disabled, with half the crew dead.  The other…?

Track blown to hell, crew retreated and I’m left with the romantic twinkle of flares, tracers and sabot rounds.  Much like Real Warfare 2: Northern Crusades, I am in love. 

And Now We Present: The Mayan End Time

Dear reader, 2011 is almost at an end.  I do hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and indulged in the glory of modernity and excess despite Emperor Palpatine Pope Benedict warning us of neglecting the true meaning of the holiday.  The meaning, for those not in the know, is one of joy.  Of celebration.  It means the Boxing Day Cricket Test is a day after the 25th, as well as the start of the illustrious and dangerous Sydney to Hobart yacht race. 

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say cheers for reading this piffle.  I’ve been a little pressed to devote time to blogging as the year’s curtain call is made, but will have a few days at the inlaws over the run-up to New Year that’ll – fingers and various other appendages crossed – allow for a slew of posts to be created.  Upon my return, dear reader, to where the rump usually rests, the upload button will be mashed and for those with utterly nothing but time to kill, it should tide you over for at least two coffees.  Lukewarm ones, so either easy to gulp down or walk away from.

I hope you’ve all had a grand year.