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.