 Michael and Rebecca Wong |
 |
Michael and Rebecca Wong |
|
Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour
FPS games get boring after a while, but there's something magical about seeing a wall of steel crushing the enemy at your command. C&C Generals has many detractors for many reasons, but I still love this game anyway, warts and all. Be warned, it's fairly hungry for CPU power, particularly when it's trying to do pathfinding for large numbers of units.
1nsane
1nsane (yes, that's a "1" at the beginning of the word) is an off-road racing game from the UK. It's an awesome multiplayer game, particularly if you have a home LAN. Matthew and I have played a lot of games head to head, and he's actually quite good! It has a lot of multiplayer game modes such as jamboree, destruction zone (a cross between king of the hill and demolition derby), capture the flag, return the flag, and simple racing). More importantly, the vehicles vary by a great deal, from hot-rodded VW bugs to lumbering tractor trailers, and the models aren't just for show. The performance characteristics match the vehicle type, so if you're driving a Hummer and you hit a VW bug at full speed, you're going to smash it all to hell.
The damage modelling is good, and goes far beyond mere "damage skins". The vehicle can become seriously deformed, and you'll find that if your frame has been bent to the right, your car will pull to the right. If your frame has been twisted, you'll find that some of your wheels don't touch the ground and they become useless. That alone is the coolest feature of the game, particularly for the sheer amusement aspect of smashing your car into an unrecognizable mass of twisted metal and watching it struggle along, trying to move. Note: get the latest patches from the Codemasters website, particularly if you have an ATI Radeon card.
X-Wing Alliance
The graphics are a bit dated, but it's a Star Wars combat flight sim, and at the end of the game, you get to fly the Millenium Falcon on Lando Calrissian's mission to destroy the Death Star! What more needs to be said? After slogging your way through all of the buildup missions, when when I finally got to the end of the game, I found myself coming out of hyperspace to the same music, same dialogue, and same approach that I heard in a darkened theatre watching "Return of the Jedi" all those years ago.
That experience alone is worth the price of admission; at that moment, you achieve complete gameplay immersion into the world of Star Wars. When you fly the Falcon toward the Death Star, you hear the order to "Pull up! All craft pull up!", and you whip your ship around to see Admiral Piett's Imperial fleet bearing down on you, you have entered Star Wars gameplayers' Nirvana.
Master of Orion 2
It's an oldie, but as far as I'm concerned, it's still a goodie. It's a turn-based space conquest strategy game, and it uses an original universe, rather than being based on Star Wars or Star Trek. It required more micromanagement than the original Master of Orion, but it was also a richer environment, with more options. Opinions are mixed on which one's better, but I like the extra depth.
In case you're curious, the answer is yes, and yes. Yes, I did poach these screenshots from other websites, because I was too lazy to generate my own screenshots from the games. And yes, I did pay money to buy all of these games legally, and I still have the original CDs and manuals to prove it. I paid for a lot of other games too, as well as roughly 300 audio CDs and a shelf full of DVDs. I'm not a pirate, but the entertainment industry is doing its damndest to make me feel like one, by criminalizing my simple desire for an open-source DVD player that I can legally use on Linux.
And now for my current #1 favourite game:
Rome: Total War
Rome: Total War is the coolest strategy game ever. In fact, I've found it to be more addictive than caffeine. I've grown weary of the "gather, build, fight" model of so-called "real-time strategy" games like Command and Conquer or Warcraft, and Rome: Total War offers a combination of turn-based colony and army management (much like Master of Orion 2) and real-time tactical battles. Besides, there's just something special about seeing your vast legions crush the enemy for the glory of Rome.
And how vast your legions will be! The screenshot above is not a publicity shot; I screen-grabbed that picture myself, from an actual battle fought with playable performance settings on my lowly Celeron 2.4GHz machine (although I did reduce the resolution to fit it into this webpage). It was grabbed just after my legions took the walls of an enemy city and marshaled at the city's edge to prepare for their final push on the city centre (if you look carefully you can see the corpse of an armoured elephant in the distance). In this battle, each opposing army had roughly 1500 men. The sheer scale is one of the best things about the game; after years of putting up with strategy games like "Rise of Nations" where a "major offensive" consisted of a few pathetic groups adding up to some 30 or 40 men, we finally get to see thousands of men clash in bloody battle. Someday, as CPU and graphics power continues to grow, there will no doubt be a game which features realistically large armies of thirty to fifty thousand men on each side.
It is possible to play the game as any of a number of teams, including 3 different Roman factions and a host of other factions such as the Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Egyptians, etc. However, while I've played and beaten the game as many different factions, I still find that I prefer to play as the House of Julii. They have the toughest starting position and weakest attributes of the 3 playable Roman factions, but if you're going to be Caesar you have to crush the Gauls first, right?
Anyway, there are plenty of RTW strategy guides out there so I won't bother trying to give you general tips, particularly on the tactics of open-field battles: a subject which is beaten to death in on-line strategy guides. Instead, I'll give a list of 10 tips that are not found in most strategy guides or which are specific to playing the campaign game as the House of Julii (and yes, I've played on the Very Hard difficulty setting for both campaign and battles, so these tips are not specific to some chickenshit difficulty level):
Tip #1: Use "large" unit settings. In the Multiplayer setup screen you can select the unit size, which can be "small", "normal", "large", or "huge". The "normal" unit size setting is too small to give you the desired sense of scale while the "huge" unit size setting tends to bring the average computer to its knees. This unit size setting affects any new single-player campaign game that you start after changing it. Also turn off the "Battle Time Limit" when you start your campaign; the time limit is a huge pain in the ass. It's cheap to win a defensive battle by running out the clock, and infuriating to lose an offensive battle when the time runs out.
Tip #2: Try to only take settlements when they are Minor Cities or above (as opposed to Small or Large Towns). The reason for this is that it is very difficult to hold a small town against determined enemy attacks, because the population growth per turn will often fail to keep up with your losses from continually defending your new settlement. There are 4 structures you need in order to make a city reasonably secure from attack: Stone Walls, Archery Range, Legion Barracks, and Cavalry Stables. Of those, 3 of 4 are only available for Minor Cities. If you must take a Large Town, try to wait until its population is at least 5000, so it won't take too long to hit Minor City status. Note: once a settlement has already been upgraded to a Minor City, you can knock its population down below 6000 and it will still be a Minor City with all of the attendant abilities.
Tip #3: When campaigning in barbarian-held territory, don't bother using elite units. Elite units (of the sort which can only be built at Large Cities or Huge Cities) may be superior soldiers but you will find it extremely difficult to keep your unit strengths up because barbarians can't build large or huge cities, so you won't be able to retrain your men. And if you can't retrain your men, you can't replenish battlefield losses so your armies will get smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Before the Marius Reforms, you should stick to Principes, Equites, Velites, and Roman Archers (as well as Ballistae for support). After the Marius Reforms, this means that you should use Early Legionary Cohort, Roman Cavalry, Auxilia spearmen, and Archer Auxilia (again with Ballistae for support).
Tip #4: When attacking a barbarian city (which will have wooden walls since they can't build stone walls), besiege for 1 turn and build 3 battering rams. When you attack during the next turn, use your Ballistae to destroy any guard towers that are near the gate. Then, bring up your archers and have them arc arrows over the walls and into the city. This will cause heavy casualties among the defenders and force them to retreat away from the walls. While your archers rain death upon the defenders, bring up your battering rams to knock down the gates as well as two extra holes in the city walls. The reason for having three openings in the walls is to speed up the entry of your forces into the city when you make your big offensive push. Now, form up your infantry outside the walls, wait until your archers have exhausted around most of their ammo, and then order your men to rush inside. With any luck, most of them will be able to make it inside the city walls and form up before the surviving defenders charge them, and your archers will have enough ammo left to severely harass the defenders as they attempt to stop your invaders at the walls. Once you have your infantry inside the walls, it's a simple matter of butchering the remaining defenders through brute force.
Tip #5: When attacking a civilized city (which will have stone walls), bring a few elite infantry units and use siege towers or ladders to scale the enemy walls rather than trying to knock holes in them with artillery or sappers. Nobody in the game (I repeat: nobody) has infantry which can defeat Romans on the walls. Look at the following example:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Of course, one should not be stupid when assaulting enemy walls; try to scale the walls at a point where you will only have enemies on one side of you. Even Urban Cohort will swiftly die if a single unit is attacked from both sides the instant it hits the walls. In the example above, I moved my ladders well off to one side before attacking, so that my men would not be flanked once they were on the walls. And remember that if there are men waiting at the walls in front of you, you can use the ballistae or archers built into a siege tower to open fire on them and clear the walls for your men by hitting the "Auto-Fire" button on whichever infantry unit is controlling the tower. Note that this auto-firing stops when the tower reaches the wall and the men begin climbing it, so you might want to stop the tower just short of the wall and let the archers inside blast away until they run out of ammo. And of course, be mindful of the locations of defensive towers, as they can destroy your siege towers and kill your men as they push it along. Once you have the walls, you can move your men around to capture a lot of the defense towers. This will make them fire inwards at the defenders rather than firing outwards at your men. And you can move your archers onto the walls once you've wiped them clean of enemies so that they can force defenders out of range and give you time to bring the rest of your army inside the city.
Tip #6: When garrisoning a city, try to use the minimum that will allow you to maintain order, or your economy and your ability to maintain large field armies will suffer because legions cost money. Use inexpensive Town Watch for infantry, and make sure you have at least 2 units of archers and 2 units of cavalry. With the right tactics you can turn away almost any besieging army with that type of garrison, particularly since it is often trivially easy to goad the enemy into rushing toward your walls despite the defensive fire coming from your towers. Mind you, when the balance of forces is roughly equal the enemy will often refuse to take the bait, so don't expect to effortlessly wipe out every attacking army by simply getting them to park themselves next to your walls.
Tip #7: It seems to take forever to get the Marius Reforms (which unlock the more deadly post-Marius units such as the Legionary Cohort and Archer Auxilia), but you can win the game without them. However, if you really feel a hankering for high-powered elite infantry units and can't wait for the Marius Reforms, remember that you can build Praetorian Cohort at any Huge City. Unlike most pre-Marius units, Praetorian Cohort can still be retrained after the Marius Reforms kick in, so they don't have planned obsolescence built in. Just remember tip #3 and don't try to campaign deep into barbarian-held territory with them.
Tip #8: To occupy, enslave, or exterminate? That is the question. The following rules generally work fairly well for me: if you have a large army in a minor city with population of less than 12000, occupy it (particularly if your general has good Management points). A full-stack army should be able to maintain order under those conditions by lowering the tax rate and quickly building a spy and some peasant units, and this way you will be able to quickly grow the settlement into a Large City. However, if it's a Large City, a Huge City, or a Minor City with a population well over 12000, exterminate. You'll never be able to maintain order even with a full-stack army, and you could use the looting money anyway.
Tip #9: When fighting elephants or chariots, try to recruit some Mercenary Hoplites. Hoplites are by far the most effective defense against elephant and chariot charges. Failing that, use spearmen or loose formations of skirmishers.
Tip #10: In general, don't be afraid to hire mercenaries. It's nice to have units you can hurl at the enemy with no particular regard for their survival, and in the case of Hoplites, they offer certain capabilities that none of your standard-issue units have. Also, when campaigning in Africa, you may also be able to hire Mercenary War Elephants.
Tip #11: When facing two large armies at once, one of them will always be the reinforcing army. Deploy your troops so that they are arrayed along the edge of the map closest to the reinforcing army, and then pound the reinforcements as soon as they enter the field. They will be unable to properly maneuver, as they are trapped along the edge of the field of battle and their units arrive in irregular fashion. You should (hopefully) be able to utterly crush the reinforcing army and rout it entirely, before turning to face the main army which will no doubt be rushing to attack you. The most common scenario for this type of battle is when you are besieging an enemy city and they bring up an army to attack you, at which point the city garrison will sally forth to reinforce the attackers. You can usually get a "Famous Battle" monument on the campaign map if you win this type of battle.
Of all the games I've played in the last few years, this is the only one which I've found truly addictive. I can't stop playing this game, and I can't wait for the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack to come out.
Unreal Tournament
Just like the Windows version. 'Nuff said.
Chromium
Remember those old 1980s arcade games like Galaxian? I know they're simplistic, but they're still fun!
Lbreakout
If you don't know what Breakout is, you've led a sheltered life.
ArmageTron
Remember that 1980s movie called "Tron"? Remember the bikes?
Ltris
It may not be a graphical feast, but I still like Tetris.
Penguin Command
Remember Missile Command?
Well, there you have it; my list of favourite software. Some of them are hokey, some of them aren't. Some of them are free, some of them aren't. Some of them are old and dated, some of them are brand new. You can't win 'em all.
Last updated: 2005-07-05
Return to main Geek Talk page
Jump to:
This site was written using KWrite and OpenOffice, running on Mandriva Linux.
