Escort Missions

So, I take gaming pretty seriously, and as such, I don't mind when games take me seriously. That is to say, I don't mind when games are insanely difficult. I take it as a challenge. I take it as the developers saying, "here, we have faith in you, try your hand at this!" The harder the game, the greater the sense of accomplishment. I go to advanced difficulty settings whenever I start a game. All in all, I dig the tough levels and modes.

However, games can cheat.

The cheapest, easiest way for a game to add a challenge is by throwing in an escort mission, where you need to guard some AI, or ally, or whatever. This is cheating. It's cheating because they don't give you control of whatever it is you need to guard - the game controls it. Let's think about that a second: the game is saying 'to pass this level, you must ensure no harm comes to this ally. Also, I control the ally." The game then goes on to make your character act like a complete and utter idiot, chasing after hostile bullets and explosions like some cracked-out danger junkie. Then, the game blames you for the consequences.

Case in point?



Here we have Natalya, from Goldeneye 64. There were several missions where you had to escort her through the crossfire of raging battlegrounds, while she literally runs around and remarks "Aren't these flowers pretty???"



Sorry, games, but this kind of challenge is not satisfying or interesting. Holding the gamer responsible for inconceivably bad AI is just dirty pool. I'm playing, here, let me control things on my end. Don't shackle me to a ridiculous liability whose behaviour I can't affect.

Now, you might just say that the concept is sound, it's the AI that's bad. And for Goldeneye 64, that may be true. But I was just playing the post-apocalyptic Advance Wars on my DS, and they give me an escort mission. And it goes a little something like this:

Chess Games

I take chess way too seriously. I'm not even really that good at it, but I enjoy it thoroughly. Though it can get a little stale - it's a pretty slow, stuffy game. That's why I absolutely love PC chess games. My all time favourite was Battle Chess. It was a game where you could play against your friends or the PC (various difficulty levels) and the game was animated in 3D, with each piece being a character with unique battle animations versus the other pieces. It was really violent, and really funny. For example, Rook takes Queen...

Another great thing about the game was that it had fantastic music. The background music would change depending on how you were doing, and each piece had its own theme music whenever it moved - PLUS the music would be different per team, so your Knight would have different music than an enemy knight. Basically it was solid all around.

It even had a fully voice-acted tutorial feature, where each piece would come forward and teach you how to play the game.

Anyway, the reason for this post is that THERE'S a NEW battle chess coming out! I read about it on Joystiq. There wasn't too much info, just a few screens and the fact that it's apparently coming out this summer. So, I'm damn excited. I need to get back into form, so I can start taking Chess way too seriously. It's game time!

Ants update

Thanks for the support re: the ant battle, all. Just a quick update... we won!
Combination of raid liquid bait and strategically placed bait traps seems to have done the trick. No sign of ants in a while.
Victory!

The most important issue of all...

Following an earlier post I made when things were first heating up in Egypt a couple of months ago, I thought it might be consistent of me to make a post about the killing of Bin Laden and my thoughts on that. But honestly, I think we've all heard enough about that, so I won't.

Then I decided, well, Canada is wrapping up a federal election which saw some big changes, so maybe that's worth a post? But no, that's not really that interesting or important either.

Instead, I will write on an issue that far eclipses these two: there are ants in my fucking apartment. Now normally, I find ants totally unobjectionable. I don't think they're gross to look at, like other bugs, and there's really no risk that you're going to be surprised by an ant in bed or anything, since they usually stick to their colonies or if not, they're on a mission for food and not dicking around in your bedroom. But these guys were making an anthill in my bathroom, using bits of cement and mortar they scraped up from in between the floor tiles. And that is just not cool.

So, the battle is on. Step one was to flush hot water down the cracks that I see them in. That'll kill a whole bunch - maybe even halt their progress - but I don't think it'll kill the whole colony. I should also mention that I'm in a clean, sixth floor apartment, so the mere fact that they're here is totally shocking. Anyone have experience with this sort of thing? Any good pest control brands or products I should know about?

4X Games

I just wanted to make this blog to shoutout one of my favourite genres of all time, the Four X genre.

For those of you who don't know, 4X stands for Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate. Basically, macro-level turn based empire building games. I suppose the most popular of this genre would be the Civilization franchise - and for a good reason, they're amazing.

4X games are great. Infinite replay, always with new empires/races to choose, new maps, new ways to win. The games are a good length, you can play in the background while you do something else or devote your full attention. They're just really enjoyable, really versatile games.

Personally, I've always had a soft spot for 4X games with a sci-fi twist. Master of Orion (2, too be specific) is probably my perfect example of this. The game is very dated now, and sadly, Master of Orion 3 was a disaster, but with MOO2 you just feel like an all powerful overseer, with the information and understanding of an entire galactic empire. I find it really satisfying.