On hold!

Due to various things that will be keeping me busy over the coming months, I've put writing this blog on hold until further notice.

Civilization 5, Brave New World: Review

Big expansions come with equally large expectations, and Brave New World is Civ 5’s second major piece of DLC. Now expansions and strategy games are old bed fellows, you can find one for just about any strategy game you care to name and the majority of them followed a familiar trend. Lots of new toys to play with no attention paid to balance issues.

You spend hours investigation all the new options, but once you’d finished that exploration, the cracks would be laid bare and you interest would be gone again. And this is what makes Brave New World so interesting. It bucks the trend completely, instead being a carefully crafted expansion to fix the problems Civ 5 already has.

And Civ 5’s biggest problem by far was a lack of mid to late game action. It was all too easy to build empires that would be entirely introverted; completely focused on their path to victory which involved no one else. You’d just be clicking next turn to see if you could complete your science victory before someone else filled the culture bar. Only a warring nation could throw a spanner in the works, provided they had the technology to do it.

So what does Brave New World do to get players round a table and interact? Well it introduces a very important table in the form of the World Congress and makes you pull up a seat. Once an early game technology is completed and the simple matter of meeting everyone is achieved, the World Congress begins. Every thirty turns, new proposals are put forward for approval by all nations. These range from putting trade embargos on your enemies to trying to decide the world religion and ultimately, voting for the world leader as a diplomatic victory.

It elevates the importance of diplomatic relations and makes them relevant again. You can use spies you gain to instead act as diplomats, allowing you to haggle over back room deals with the other leaders. A large sum of gold and a few resources may well secure you those crucial votes to enact the policies you need. Each vote can be quite a tense moment as you never know exactly who will be in favour and who might see your proposals as being one step closer to war.

Other changes see a revamped cultural policy tree as well as the introduction of ideologies. Each of the three ideologies is an extra tech tree of cultural policies with some powerful late game bonuses. These also have a great impact on international relations by affecting your empire’s happiness. If your populations think it looks more fun over the border, your happiness can take a serious hit. Riots can spring up, and you may be forced into towing the line and switching to the more popular ideology.

Cultural victory has had a complete re-work which it definitely needed. Before it was simply a case of building culture producing buildings and filling up a progress bar to win, hardly engaging.  Now a cultural victory sees you doing battle with tourism as your offence and your own cultural progress as a defence. You utilise great writers, artists and musicians to produce works that you can put on display giving you tourism points. This will slowly build up through the game and if you focus on it, your tourism begins to eclipse the culture of your opponents. If your tourism score is greater than every other’s nation’s culture, the game is yours as the world marvels at your artistic output.

The UI does a good job of tracking and displaying you tourism progress, with clear indicators to show if you’re making progress or if you’re falling behind. You can also swap great works with other nations to achieve theming bonuses that can give you a little extra boost. It also adds another late game element with archaeological digs. These appear as a bonus tile improvement with the right technology and with a little effort, will let you find artefacts to display in museums (where they belong), further boosting your tourism output.

All these new elements are also nicely accommodated by the previous expansion, Gods and Kings. There’s clearly been a lot of effort put in to make these expansions feel like a cohesive whole, as all the new elements can interact with the religious choices you make. If you get other leaders to agree that your religion is the world religion, you gain further votes in the world congress. Other choices can give your tourism a boost, so there’s a nice link to the new mechanics.

Crucially the AI is capable of playing a competent game with all the new additions. It’s able to sensibly assess the proposals made at the World Congress and knows where its votes will benefit it the most, as well as how much it should demand if you want to buy its votes. War is also a lot more predictable, if leaders start denouncing each other, you know war is only a few turns away unless you make efforts to smooth things over. Not that a war focused AI will care much for your offerings, but I felt that war didn’t suddenly arrive on my doorstep as a surprise like it used too.

So the real question is, do the additions give you enough to consider in the late game, or are you still doomed to click next turn? Playing a standard pace game against the AI, there were moments where that did happen, yet it was never long before something required my attention. A quick paced game or one with friends will likely give you plenty to do for most of your turns. So on this point Brave New World is a real success. It may need a few balance tweaks, but considering the complexity of Civ 5 with all its DLC, it’s likely that any imbalance is perceived rather than it being a real underlying problem.

It does however fall down at my second question. Is it worth the money? Not really. If you buy it full price, it’s nearly as expensive as the original game and it’s only an expansion. This probably won’t be a problem for long though as Civ 5 and its DLC is regularly on sale. So as soon as that happens, Brave New World jumps triumphantly into the must buy category for anyone who already owns Civ 5.

Antichamber: Review

Ever wondered what it would be like to explore one of those impossible pictures? The type where the staircase always goes up, where doors are on every surface? Well Antichamber answers those questions whilst delivering a truly unique puzzle experience.

Right from the start, Antichamber throws out the traditional rules of level design. As you explore down each corridor, you’re never quite sure what you’ll find next. You could end looping back on yourself, finding a secret path or witness the level changing before your eyes. The game pushes the boundaries of what is possible with geometry; completely breaking traditional linear level design. An early example you encounter is a room full of cubes. Looking into the cube from each side shows you something different, which should be impossible, but isn’t in this world: and with a bit of searching you find one side of a cube turns out to be a path into an entirely different part of the game.

It may sound mind bending and it certainly looks it, yet its complex design is delivered in a simple way we all understand. You learn the game through play. Exploring areas teaches you the game mechanics, you learn how to overcome each obstacle and then use that knowledge to progress further when faced with more complex challenges.

The controls are kept simple. You can run, walk and interact with pictures found on the walls. The pictures often compliment the puzzles you just solved, showing how they can be a metaphor for an aspect of life. These moments can be quite thought provoking and left me wondering why the designer didn’t keep the original working title, “Hazard: The Journey of Life”.

Some complexity is added to the game as you progress; giving you more tools to approach problems that previously seemed unsolvable. As you travel, you come across some gun like objects. These allow you to manipulate coloured blocks if different ways and each adds new controls on top of the previous one. And with one simple instruction on the wall, the game has given you everything you need to get past the puzzle in front of you and carry on.

For me, playing Antichamber swung between a few emotions. I’d start off intrigued, discovering the crazy areas ahead of me, understanding where and how far I could progress. Then I’d switch to frustration as I’d fail to solve anything and get stuck. Finally, a few minutes later I’d have a moment of inspiration and break through the barriers in front of me with a real sense of triumph, and start the cycle all over again. In many ways, that’s a familiar description of any puzzle game. But I’d say Antichamber can often linger too long in frustration as it’s not an easy game and it doesn’t offer much in the way of hints.

Due to the game’s non-linear design; you will have to remember how the various paths you can travel connect to each other in weird ways. There is a map in the hub area that highlights where you currently are and the path you just travelled. Both useful pieces of information, but it doesn’t clearly show which bit connects to what, which means you’ll end up mousing over a lot of it to display the more detailed information. It does helpfully show branches off areas you’ve been through, so a glance at the map will show if you haven’t fully investigated an area or remind you that you may need to come back later.

Occasionally you will see some arrows appear in the game to give you a hint in what direction you’re meant to be travelling. You will need good peripheral vision to spot them though as they’re quite subtle. These helped me out on a couple occasions as I got lost on more than once, often finding bonus rooms that revealed how some of the game design worked, which was a nice touch, yet a little disappointing when I thought I was making real progress. A possible improvement would have been an easy mode that gave a more prominent guiding hand to steer you in the right direction.

Of course as a puzzle game, the difficulty is subjective. If your logic is in synch with the game, you could find it to be an easy game. I did end up having to consult a guide towards the end as I had decided the path I was meant to be following was a dead end. In fact it was the same puzzle twice in a row, I just had to repeat the solution as I didn’t realise the location I was in changed.

The clear positive of Antichamber is its design. There are all sorts of nice touches that make it such an interesting title. You can quick travel between any areas you’ve accessed simply by hitting the escape key. This takes you back to the hub room and you simply click on the chamber you want to go to. The hub room also contains all the game’s options on the wall. It seems a bit trivial; yet interacting with an options menu in a first-person view is a little novel.

The aesthetic choice is stimulating throwing a lot of vibrant and varied colour at you to break up the clinical white corridors. It’s used to highlight various puzzle elements adding consistency into the world. This is complimented by an ambient music soundtrack that includes various intriguing sound effects to emphasise certain puzzle elements.

This is definitely a game that was difficult to make a decision on. A big part of its appeal is the experience playing it, exploring and understanding the curiosities around you. But if you get stuck, then that’s taken away from you, leaving you looking for a solution. For myself, I got a lot of enjoyment from Antichamber and if you’re looking for a puzzle game, this should top your list after Portal and Portal 2. It’s incredible to think that this title was developed by one person, Alexander Bruce. He’s created what can be honestly described as a truly unique experience.

The Walking Dead, Episodes One to Five: Review

Fed up with the oversaturation of zombies in popular media? Then this is the game for you! Honest! I was bored of all the TV shows, films and games that were all cashing in the zombie phenomenon. I had even watched some of the TV series adaptation of The Walking Dead graphic novel. Yet this title stands out head and shoulders above the crowd. So how did a game based on the same graphic novel covered in zombies capture my interest?

Easy, the game is all about the characters; the human interaction in the desperate situation of a zombie apocalypse and how it pushes everyone to their limits. You play the role of Lee, an African American who starts his story in the back of a police patrol car. You’re on your way to jail, but slightly bizarrely, the game initially hides the reason behind it.

It makes you first few interactions with other survivors slightly dicey, as you have to decide whether you reveal or hide where you were heading at the start of the outbreak. And they’re not easy decisions to make. The game makes it clear that your decisions will affect the outcome of the story. But you never know who will become a long-time companion that you have to rely on, or someone you just meet in passing. Lying to a friend could have severe consequences further down the line and impact the choices you have to make. Thankfully, you’re not left in the dark for too long. Lee’s past is revealed part way into the first episode and becomes a really interesting issue to handle.

The gameplay is predominately point and click adventure with a dash of quick time events (QTEs). Now QTEs have definitely received their fair share of flak for being annoying and unexpected, requiring you to memorise button presses just to progress. So The Walking Dead sensibly side steps a lot of the problems with some simple design choices. All QTEs in the game rely on the same button presses and are used consistently for action sequences. They’re also short lasting only a few seconds at a time, so if you fail and get reset to the start of the event, you don’t feel unfairly punished.

That shortness also adds to the tension, whether it’s fending off Walkers in a frantic attempt to escape, or having to deal with some of the hostile survivors. It’s by far the best implementation of QTEs I’ve seen, although there were still a couple that didn’t immediately make sense. In one instance, I had to fail the first QTE, to then save Lee in a second. But that wasn’t explained at all. So I spent a minute madly mashing the button before I gave up out of boredom because I thought it might be a bug.

The action sequences are sensibly dotted throughout the story, yet they are definitely not the focus of the game. It’s all about the choices you make in conversations, how you steer the group and what you think is the best option for survival. It’s also about who you care for, which characters you like and those you hate. The first survivor you meet is Clementine, a little girl who’s lost her parents. Lee realises that he’s going to have to take care of her, and so you become her guardian.

I’ve never cared so much for another character in a game. Even though Lee isn’t her dad, I felt that I had to take care of her, no matter what. And that’s a testament to the quality of the writing. She’s not some annoying tag along escort quest character. She actually acts like eight year old, with her own personality and capabilities. There’s often moments where you’ll rely on her to get through a tough spot, rather that constantly having to protect her. It forms a natural team between her and Lee.

Then there are your enemies. Your other group members have their own clear opinions on the best way to survive, and you’ll be caught in the middle of it. You won’t be able to keep everyone happy, so you’ll have to choose your conversation options carefully. Some of the best story moments are when you’re presented with the tough choices. You will be in situations where you have to choose who lives and who dies; and if someone has been working against you, can you take the high road and save them?

You don’t always get a lengthy amount of time to weigh up your options. Sometimes you’ll be forced to react to events in conversation, adding to the pressure of the situation; fearful of what happens if you take no action, which is often a valid option. Silence can speak louder than words on many occasions. The only problem is it can be a bit harsh on slow readers.

There are two options for the point and click element of the game. You can play with all the intractable elements highlighted or revealed by mousing over them. There’s never a large amount of objects to interact with at any one time, but I would recommend playing with highlights on. The points you can click on are often fairly small and there’s no point in handicapping yourself. The point and click portions are fairly linear and only use a few objects at any one time, so there’s never a complicated puzzle to solve, though this lack of complexity may be a bit of a disappointment to point and click fans. I only had one moment where I had to walk around and click on everything to progress, which was satisfying for me as I hate getting stuck when the design logic isn’t clear.

Currently, a complete story is told over the five available episodes. Telltale Games are becoming masters of episodic content, as each episode provides a complete chapter of the story that concludes, but also leaving a cliff hanger teasing upcoming events. There’s a new DLC episode ‘400 Days’ in development which will allow you to play other characters and see their perspectives of the apocalypse. The events of the first five episodes will then continue in season two, with a current release date scheduled for later this year. As an excellent story driven game, it’s good to hear that more content is on the way, but it does raise the issue of when will the story conclude?

All in all, I can definitely recommend season one, even with a further problem discussed within the spoiler alert below. It will provide an excellent story driven experience that runs for around ten hours total for the first season. It’s left me looking forward to both the upcoming DLC and season two.

So the final problem of the story that can only be discussed with spoilers:

Spoiler Alert!

You would expect The Walking Dead to have multiple diverging paths with plenty of endings, given the amount of serious decisions you have to make; but that’s not the case. Really there’s only one ending at the end of the first season of five episodes. How you get there can be quite different and the journey is definitely the heart of the game. Yet it robs the game of replay-ability and it’s exactly the same issue suffered by the Mass Effect trilogy. Telltale Games have stated that your decisions will carry over into season two, so it may only be a catch for now. 

Cities in Motion 2: Review

It’s a city transport sim! Now, before you run off back to the grey-brown shooters, stop for a second and consider what Cities in Motion 2 has to offer you.

You take control of a brand new transport company who’s tasked with developing transport networks across a number of cities through a campaign mode, multiplayer or sandbox game. To do this, you build new infrastructure and construct routes to get all the busy sims from A to B, whilst extorting as much money as you can from their pockets.

The cities themselves are all pre-constructed playgrounds for you to start building your empire in. They do slowly expand outwards which you can encourage by building new roads, but for the most part, everything is ready for you to build on from the get-go.

Taking the first scenario as an example, you’re presented with a sprawling city that has big hubs in the middle surrounded by smaller island blocks. The objective is to increase your network coverage up to a certain percentage. This is represented by circular catchment areas around each stop you place, showing how far the sims are willing to walk to get on public transport.

I leapt straight in and brought up the cities information window to see where there were large concentrations of blue-collar worker houses, and their workplaces. This colour coded every building to give a clear picture of where there were hotspots and straight away, I noticed a big clump of houses next to some workplaces. Great I thought, setting up a quick bus route here will guarantee a nice bit of starting income.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. No one gave a damn about my buses and I was immediately losing money.

And this was after I had played through the tutorial, which takes you through how to do everything in a nice and concise manner. Three restarts later as I kept making bad routes, I decided to try something different. I went to the centre of the city a built a giant trolleybus route up and down the main avenue. To my surprise, every stop immediately had people queuing. I had to immediately buy extra vehicles and amend the timetable to reducing waiting times between services. With my business saved, I experimented with other long routes between nearby hubs. All turned out to be successes; and then I realised one thing the tutorial neglected.

Sims are more than happy to walk short journeys and don’t focus your routes on one demographic. With those mysteries solved, I took out loans to increase my network and meet the objective. Building new routes is simple enough and you can pause the game to build; which is a good job because one way streets are a pain in the backside. Just as you think you have your route sorted, you realise that the loop you planned on using to turn around is a one way street in the wrong direction! To be fair, the road markings are clear and with proper planning, one way streets aren’t a big problem.

Construction is quick. For a bus route, all you need is a few stops and a bus depot. With that sorted, you jump into the route editor and simply create the route you want between them. The game is smart enough to work out the shortest route between any two stops, but you can tweak the route is you prefer by adding some free waypoints. Other transport options include trams, metros, waterbuses and the aforementioned trolleybuses. These are slightly more complex whilst providing faster and higher capacity services.

Beyond setting up the transport infrastructure, you’ll have to manage both your staff and ticket prices. The game is kind enough to inform you when tickets are becoming either to cheap or expensive, so you don’t have to keep constantly checking them. Your staff are also simple to manage. You can set the wages of your drivers, mechanics and ticket inspectors which affects how good they are at their jobs, which is clearly displayed in the same window. You only have to decide the amount of ticket inspectors you hire, and this a straightforward choice of; does hiring another increase how much I earn in penalty fares? The economy of the city does vary up and down, so these values do have to be managed throughout the game.

You do get thrown a few extra side objectives to pursue over time. These usually involve building specific routes or building more lines. There’s not a great variety, and worse, the feedback on your progress is incredibly unresponsive; to the point where you begin to wonder if it is actually bugged.

The main problem of the game is caused by the depth of the sim. As it’s tracking and updating so many different variables like the population, traffic density, energy prices and so on. It means the game begins to chug after a few hours of play. I set the game speed to maximum at all times I wasn’t building and it still ran slow on my modest quad-core. I ended up leaving the game running in the background at several points, simply because it didn’t need my attention until I had earned some more money.

You can increase the game speed with your own custom rule-set, or play in one of the smaller cities. Both notably increased the speed when I tried, but it feels like having to use a work around and custom rule-sets can’t be used in the main campaign. However, you can share your rule-sets and player built cities via the Steam Workshop. So there’s plenty of additional content that you can easily tap into.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Cities in Motion 2 for the first few hours, but after that I found the game became handicapped by a lack of variety. There are only a handful of vehicles to choose from and once I had the game figured out, it was too easy to turn a large profit. I can’t recommend it unless you are very specifically looking for a Sim that fills the niche between Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe (OpenTTD) and SimCity (four or below, five is horrible).  Alternatively, if you’re looking for a very relaxed game, Cities in Motion 2 does provide satisfying laid back experience. Just remember to put on something to listen too like a podcast because the music is bland and repetitive. 

Hotline Miami: Review

From the second I started playing Hotline Miami, I was wondering if this was the most violent game I had ever played? Forgot your photo realism 3D graphics of modern consoles, this game portrays an incredible visceral experience with just some excellently animated 2D sprites.

But importantly it is violence with context; that being the story arc that takes you through various seedy locations in eighties Miami, searching for answers to questions. Who keeps calling you to carry out horrendous contract killings? Why are all the targets Russian mob hideouts? And even more importantly, is any of this real?

The gameplay is viewed from a top down perspective as you run round the enemy bases. Your goal on each level is simple, kill everyone. How you go about it is your business, but there’s plenty of points on offer for doing it with some style and flair. Reckless behaviour, slamming doors into people, weapon variety and kill streaks are all rewarded. These points go towards your rank at the end of each level and unlock new weapons and masks to use.

The combat happens at a blistering pace, making it very much a game of skill and reactions. If you burst into a room, you might only have half a second to act before the nearest guard has painted you entrails across the wall with his shotgun. You end up planning routes through the building, deciding how you’ll take down each enemy and when. And when it all goes wrong, you’re only a button press away from restarting and getting straight back into the action.

In the frantic combat, anything can become a weapon. Your fists will knock foes to the ground as well as anything you throw at them, leaving them open to brutal melee finishers. There are plenty of close combat weapons which will make short work off enemies, although if you’re spotted, you enter a deadly dance as you jostle for position before going for a lethal strike.

On top of that is an arsenal of guns, mostly pointed in your direction as you walk through the door. You can pick up any weapon you want, but the downside is guns are very noisy. A single shot will attract most of the goons hanging around on that floor, so you better have a plan ready for when your clip runs dry.

I ended up using doors as handy choke points, letting bullets fly and the first few who entered the room before throwing the empty gun at the next to knock him out. Then I’d charge at the door to send another flying, grab any spare weapon I could to deal with any more unwanted attention before rounding on those scrambling back to their feet. And all that would take about five seconds, so it’s a good job the controls are responsive.

The biggest problem I often ran into was several weapons lying on top of each other. On more than one occasion I thought I’d picked up a shotgun, only to find that I had baseball bat in my hands and was swatting at thin air before being riddled with bullet holes.

There a couple of tough enemies and boss battles which could do with a bit more on screen prompting from the game to make them less frustrating. Not far into the game, I started encountering some fast moving bouncers, it took me a couple of deaths to realise I needed a weapon to take them out as you can never hit them with your fists.

The masks and weapons you unlock add to the replay value, and it will take you more than one play-through to get everything. New weapons just add variety whereas the masks give you a perk. Each mask is a different animal, some of which are used in story sequences to represent different sides of the protagonist’s personality. I regularly used Don Juan, the horse mask as it made door strikes to opponents deadly; very handy for bursting into a room.

One of the stand-out features of Hotline Miami is its soundtrack. It’s an eclectic mix of synth music inspired by the eighties which sets the high tempo for the action, with a couple of slow tunes thrown in for the down time between missions.

Completing the main story will take around three hours, which is a good length for this budget indie title. There are some hidden secrets to find as well, so completionists will likely find an extra hour or so of entertainment. Hotline Miami is definitely a game that can be described as an experience. It’s high pace and content can be a bit draining, even for short periods of play. I’d still recommend it though, as it’s a game you can pick and up and put down easily thanks to its short missions. 

Mirror’s Edge 2: A Sequel of Hopes

There was a lot of interest surrounding Mirror’s Edge in the build up to its release in 2008. It was an intriguing idea for a game, mixing Parkour with a first person view point to run through a near-futuristic city. For Dice, it was an experiment with gameplay and unfortunately it didn’t quite work. Thankfully it wasn’t a complete flop. The game-world was a stimulating scene of perfect whites and bright primary colours. It stood out as a visual feast in a time of grey-brown shooters.  

Both EA and Dice had been very coy about the prospect of a sequel. It seemed that another original IP had been doomed to a single instalment for not being blockbuster success. So it was a pleasant surprise to see a teaser trailer for Mirror’s Edge 2 at this year’s E3.

Being a teaser trailer, it didn’t really give away much. In particular, the direction Dice will be taking the gameplay in. Mirror’s Edge was a bit of an unfocused mess, as it veered between exciting Parkour chase sequences and clunky combat that would break the flow; usually as a hail of bullets blocked your progress.

And as shown in the trailer, the combat is here for another round. Dice only need to achieve two things to make melee fights a welcome part of the game rather than a frustrating roadblock. Learn from games such as the fantastic recent Batman titles, which demonstrate how to perfectly have big flowing melee brawls; and clearly sign post which enemies you have to fight and which you’re supposed to evade. There were points in Mirror’s Edge where you were never really sure if you had to stop and fight, or keep running. The action often devolved into a horrible trial and error routine, as you frantically scrabbled for the path to follow.

A revamped control system would also add a lot to the sequel. Faith had an extensive move set, but it was difficult to time your actions. The minimalist HUD wouldn’t give you any hints as to how long you could wall-walk for, or when you needed to time your melee moves to disarm opponents. It gave the game an unnecessary high skill requirement, which a couple of interface hints could go a long way to fixing.

My biggest hope, is that the world becomes a lot more fleshed out. The opening cinematic set up the events of the story for Mirror’s Edge, but you never really got to find out more about the city. It looked gorgeous and was fun to run around, except you never got really explore it. There were some opportunities to take different routes, yet the majority of the game was a linear path. It would be interesting to see some real branching paths that give you a choice in how to approach the level. Most of all, it would be great if the story for the sequel is longer than five hours. The length of the story really hamstringed Mirror’s edge as it was hard to justify paying full price for such a short experience. So here’s hoping that Dice use the time they have (as the trailer simply gives a release date of ‘when it’s ready) to perfect the sequel, and deliver a game that matches the hopes we had for Mirror’s Edge.

Scrolls: Review

Technically, Scrolls is still in a paid- for beta, however just like Path of Exile, the in-game store is already open and ready to take you money; to me, that makes it fair game for an early review.

Scrolls is the new title from Mojang, already well known for the ridiculous legal battle over the choice of name. It’s a paid for collectable card game (CCG) with some micro-transaction elements thrown in. That makes it quite an interesting choice for a second title as there are few, well known CCGs out there.

The game is played on a hex-grid, with each player trying to use their five rows to place units that can attack and defend idols, with victory being achieved by destroying three of your opponent’s idols whilst defending your own.

To do this, you unleash your scrolls which are essentially a hand of cards. You start with a hand of five a draw one at the start of each turn. You’re immediately presented with tricky choices as you have decide which scrolls to sacrifice for resources, and those you want to play. Each turn, one card can be sacrificed to immediately gain one resource, and increase your total resource pool that refreshes every turn. Alternatively you can discard a scroll to draw the next two.

It’s a nice and simple resource system that avoids the problems faced by other CCGs. Anyone who has played Magic will have had games where you drew no mana cards, and ended up losing through no fault of your own. However Scrolls still has a similar problem. Despite having a deck full of creatures to summon, I’ve played games where none of them where in my starting hand. It could do with a re-draw mechanic at the start of match to help get your game going.

Games are usually brief, lasting only a few minutes. This is partly down to how the game escalates, with more and more powerful scrolls being played each turn. But also due to the fact that it can be tricky make a comeback if your opponent gets the upper-hand. Your summoned creatures do the hard work of killing off your opponents units as well as taking out idols. So if you lose yours, it becomes an up-hill struggle to get back in the game without your units being taken out before they get to act.

Each creature’s power is represented by how much damage it will do, how many turns it waits between each attack and how much damage it can take. There are only a few scrolls that can heal units, so whittling down enemies is a possibility. As well as creatures, there’s the expected range of utility spells that can affect the game board and a selection of structures such as walls and catapults.

Your deck is made up of at least fifty scrolls, with a maximum limit of three copies of any single scroll. The maximum limit may seem a bit low, but it suits the minimum deck size and also means you don’t need to be incredibly lucky when opening scroll booster packs to get three copies of something you want.

When you first start the game, you get to pick from one of three pre-constructed decks. Each represents one of the resource types in the game and a different style of play. I enjoyed the first few games I played against the computer to learn the basics, but it quickly became clear that the deck I picked was incredibly weak. I was struggling to beat a medium difficulty AI and the deck was full of utility spells that I had almost no use for. Having checked out the other starter choices as well, they really do need a redesign before the game’s release to make them a bit more competitive; as new scrolls are still being added and the starter decks already feel out of date.

It didn’t take me long to add to my deck though. Having learned a few tricks, I jumped into the game’s challenge mode. These are duels with a slight twist, such as starting with units on the board or having a different victory objective to complete. Beating the first few earned me a hefty amount of gold that I quickly took to the shop and picked up several booster packs. There’s plenty of choice in the shop, as you can pick from buying just a single scroll, or a pack of ten that will guarantee giving you a rare drop.

The real money options are quite limited and this is definitely a welcome design choice considering you have to pay up-front for the game. Spending more cash will allow you to pick up some new avatar customisation options or another of the pre-constructed decks cheaply. But at the moment, there’s nothing to really spend your cash on. Everything in the shop can be earned by playing games and you earn gold at a good rate. Although I would say that the looser doesn’t really get enough gold from a match considering the time invested. You’re rewarded slightly for completing a game, but it’s not enough and you can clearly earn more by quitting and starting a new match if you’re losing.

It certainly doesn’t take long to find matches against other players. The user base is already large enough to mean that selecting quick match will almost immediately find your opponent. If you’re feeling more competitive, there’s also a ranked match option with player ratings so you can compare yourself against other players. Playing a human opponent is rewarded with almost double the gold of an AI player, so you’re definitely encouraged to duel other players. That being said, if you want a quick game, the AI will take almost instant turns. This is a lot better than some human opponents that enjoy using their full ninety seconds they have for every turn.

The deck builder has a good set of features and filters that let you quickly customise the scrolls you take into a match. You can easily mix scrolls of different types as well, as there are plenty of scrolls that are designed for mixed resource decks which adds to the variety.

So is Scrolls worth it? Well, when compared to its rivals it holds up well, but there is clear room for improvement. The game design is good and allows you to make some impressive strategic plays. Collecting new scrolls and building decks is as compelling and satisfying as any other CCG. Where it falls down is the poor design of the starting decks, and how difficult it can be to make a fighting comeback. You have to be prepared to invest a couple of hours to become competitive and that will put off a lot of new players. It also lacks any other game modes or types, whereas a title such as Magic: Duels ofthe Planeswalkers offers a lot more for around half the price. The trade-off being that the Magic titles never offer full deck customisation. As long as Mojang keeps working on the balance, it will be a fun and worthwhile title.

Planetside 2: Second Wind

What a difference a player population boost can make to a server. I had been barely logging into Planetside 2 over the past couple of months due to new releases until last weekend. Suddenly the population on the Miller server has shot up, no doubt thanks to the game being promoted at Rezzed recently and Rock Paper Shotgun frequently running some big community events.

The difference the population boost has made is drastic. The game feels almost new again with constant large scale battles that haven’t been seen since release. And now is a great time for new players to jump in.

SOE have been very busy getting in the key features scheduled on the Roadmap. In one of the most recent game updates, the tutorial was finally implemented. I took a quick tour just to see what it covered and as expected, it covered the full range of basics. It’s voice acted and takes you through a little facility with various training objectives complete, explaining each element along the way. A help option has also been added to all the menu windows to clarify all the individual elements. Planetside 2 isn’t the most complex game, but there’s no doubt that these features will help new players get going in the game a lot quicker.

Another great addition for all players has been the introduction of the virtual reality training area. It’s a simple little box area with some static targets and firing ranges where you can try out any options and set-ups you want before purchase. I’ve found it really helpful on more than one occasion, and it’s certainly allowed me to make much more informed buying decisions for my hard earned certifications. It’s also had a recent update to allow players to try out the aesthetic customisations as well. It was really a feature the game should have launched with, but I’m glad it has made it in after only a few months.

The largest change to game mechanics has been the revamp of Indar. Indar was the first continent created for the game and is currently the only one of the three to be using the new lattice system. Before, you could assault any adjacent territory and begin capping it for your faction; even if the territory you left was under attack itself. Now, the lattice system links adjacent territories in a rigid system where you must have complete control of an area before moving on. At certain points the system branches out, usually around main bases which will have multiple routes in and out, adding to their strategic importance on the map.

At first it may seem like a very restrictive system that denies you tactical options, but that freedom of choice was often used by large outfits to avoid bulky groups of enemies; simply doing large unopposed land grabs by taking undefended outposts behind the front line. It became farcical at points as some outfits would just manoeuvre around each other. Now, the lattice focus players into set attack and defend avenues which helps to naturally create the large scale battles the game is meant to be about. There’s still plenty of scope for flanking attacks and covert operations, whilst allowing players to better predict the flow of battle across the continent.

Other gameplay updates have included the class revamp of the Max suit, although this turned out to be more of a tweak with weapon balances and the addition of faction abilities. The new abilities add a little extra flavour to the class, with Vanu getting the most interesting option. Their max suits with the right certifications can now gain a temporary damage and speed boost, at the cost of also increase the damage they receive. It’s an excellent risk-reward option that’s caught me ought on more than one occasion, as your health is obliterated when you’re caught on the receiving end of angry Vanu Max’s bullets.

New weapons have also started to make an appearance, although many deride the pump action shotguns for their ability to one-hit-kill opponents in close quarters. SMGs added some extra choice for all classes, with Infiltrators in particular benefitting.  They’ve allowed players such as me that aren’t so keen on sniping to have some fun causing havoc behind enemy lines.

There’s been plenty of smaller quality of life tweaks over the past couple of months as well. The UI has gone through a couple of iterations. Players can now customise the colour coding for all enemy and friendly indictors individually. The map for each continent highlights where battles are currently occurring, as well as the status of generators in facilities and how long it will take any point under attack to be capped. Customising your appearance is now a lot easier with quick camouflage selections available. It’s also a lot easier to restock your consumables such as grenades, as they now have a prominent place on the menu rather than been buried under other layers. Weapons stats are now also clearly displayed, showing all the details such as accuracy values and damage dealt over range. This replaced the absolutely useless bar graph system which obscured all the really helpful information.

It’s good to see that SOE have continued to be committed to developing and updating the game at the pace they have. It’s surprising how much the game has evolved over the past six months. Annoyingly they still haven’t delivered any major performance update with many players still suffering from low frame rates in busy areas. The game is still a monster for any CPU that is slightly old.

But if I had one wish for the game, it wouldn’t be performance improvements. It would be for SOE to make sure that new players are attracted to the game and to keep them playing. As I said at the beginning, the difference new players have made is very noticeable. Yet any new player will still have contended with an experienced player base that is much better equipped than them. Overcoming the experience gap will always require time; however SOE can tackle the equipment problem. I think new characters should start out with a least a few suit upgrades for each class. They would no doubt help a new player to be more durable on the battlefield. Hopefully SOE will take some action on this sooner rather than later.

If you’re interested in giving Planetside 2 a go, you can make an account and download the game here. If you want to know more than what has been updated, you can read my first impressions and follow up where I discuss the gameplay in more detail.

Grid 2: Review

It’s been a long time since Grid’s release; it was a quirky arcade racer with some obvious flaws. So it’s good to see Codemasters returning for another go as arcade racers are really few and far between.

This time round Codemasters have taken a new approach to the single player story progression. You start out as an upcoming driver hired by Patrick Callaghan, an entrepreneur with the grand vision of creating a new racing league; the World Series of Racing. You set off a journey to race against the best drivers and clubs in the world in a bid to get them to join the WSR.

This is broken down into a series of different racing modes and challenges, with your progress being tracked by the number of fans that begin to follow you. You earn new fans with top three finishes and by completing sponsor objectives, which add extra objectives to achieve in races. Sponsor objectives do tend to be incredibly specific such as beating a particular opponent on a certain track. I ended up ignoring them entirely as it became too much trouble, only to then find that I would constantly get hassled by Patrick to complete them. It wasn’t long before I muted the voices in the sound options.

You start off with just a single car, but as you complete various races, you’re given the choice of a new vehicle to add to your garage. Your ‘fans’ effectively represent your experience bar, the more you earn, the more events you unlock until eventually you can race in the season finale.  Do well and you can jump up to the next tier of vehicles and a new set of events. There was only one season in which I had to complete a drift event that I really wasn’t interested in to progress, and that was thankfully short. Otherwise there was enough variety for me to always pick a race type I wanted to take part in.

You can unlock all of the cars by taking part in extra events as you progress so that you have a complete garage, but often races are limited to which cars you can use, so it’s only really necessary for the sense of completion.

The other noteworthy element of the single player is the effort they’ve put in to make the WSR convincing. Between seasons you’re treated to cut scenes showing how the WSR progressing as word spreads via social networks and even makes appearances on the sports network ESPN. I expected the acted scenes for ESPN to be completely cringe-worthy, but I was pleasantly surprised. The ESPN anchor did a good job and made the discussion around the WSR sound believable, though I can’t say the same for the pundit who was a bit silly.

Mechanically Grid 2 plays exactly as you would expect. There’s a whole selection of vehicles from hatchbacks, muscle cars, track cars and super cars spread throughout the game. To keep things simple, each has a clear set of stats and a description of its handling type. So if you fancy having some fun with a bit over-steer, there are plenty of cars with a drift set up. Oddly, only a few cars have a focus on grip for a more traditional driving experience. You do spend a lot of time going round corners sideways with tyres screeching for a road and track based racing game.

Instant replays are present again to help undo your mistakes. You get five for each race, but with less control than in previous Codemaster’s titles. When you hit the replay button now, the game simply rewinds and you have to be ready to start racing again when you want. In multiplayer, using a replay acts as a quick reset to track, so consuming them to avoid an impending crash can be a real time saver.

And saving time is something I really wish had been the focus of the multiplayer. Instead everything about it seems overly long and laborious. Loading screens, waiting times and a slow levelling curve all made a negative impact here. The time between races can become quite ridiculous. I decided to put the game to the test. Having just finished a race, I decided to see if I could make a cup of tea between all the loading screens. Sadly the answer is yes, although the tea was a small plus. And this was using the quick match option. There’s some serious room for streamlining here as spending time waiting for experience bars to tick up, tracks to be vetoed and new players to join takes just as long as the race itself!

The other major problem with the quick multiplayer is that its collision enabled. Almost every race can be won in the first few corners if you manage to escape the guaranteed pile-ups. Cornering can also be a highly risky business with a player behind you. Often in this situation you quickly find that you become a ramming target and there’s little you can do about it. If you don’t escape the main pack, you often find yourself being clawed back into an abyss of crashes. The only way round it is to join custom games with no collisions, but this only adds to the waiting problem as the host messes about with settings.

I stuck with the multiplayer for a few hours as I was drawn in by the levelling and customisation options. As you progress, you can buy new cars and upgrades with money earned in races. However it didn’t take long for it to become clear how incredibly steep the curve was. I noticed a few players had opted to buy the DLC to get access to a greater choice of higher tier cars. By default you have a car for each tier without upgrades, so it’s hardly a level playing when veteran players are in the same lobby as you.

A small plus for the multiplayer in the inclusion of a split screen option which is very welcome. Far too many games snub this feature. To get the most out the multiplayer, you need a lot of patience and to focus on custom games. Another handy feature is that all players in a lobby can be easily muted, although you have to do this every time you enter a new lobby.

Graphically the game looks stunning for the current generation. Even running the game on my modest machine let me turn the graphics up to high settings and get an average frame rate over forty. The city back drops and landscapes have a great level of detail. The car models all look excellent and the colour scheme options are quite extensive. The models and textures for the track side fans are still at a fairly low level of detail by comparison, but as they are a blur for the majority of the time that’s fine.

Overall the single player provides a solid experience. It could have made more use of the ‘live routes’ feature where the track changes mid-race. It only makes a couple of appearances and it’s the really distinctive game mode Grid 2 offers. The multiplayer feels like a grind that has been set up around the DLC content. Fun for a few goes until you begin to notice it flaws and get fed up with reckless drivers. I couldn’t recommend this as a full price title as the single player will only last a couple of hours. However if it appears at a bargain price and you’re looking for a new arcade racer, this will be a good option.