The Scientific Gamer | Page 41 of 90 | Science, gaming, and all things in between.

Oct 28 2013

gaming

Thoughts: War Thunder.

I cannot figure War Thunder out for the life of me. It’s a pseudo-arcadey free-to-play game in the vein of World of Tanks, except in this one you fly a variety of WW2-era aeroplanes around maps that are unfailingly gorgeous trying to shoot down the opposition and bomb enemy ground targets. It’s also a grognardy¹ dogfighting simulator where you have to worry about altitude and air speed and the actual combat part is limited to split-second high velocity diving gun runs at enemy aircraft. Each is accessed through a different game mode, and how they’ve ended up being so wildly different despite using exactly the same engine and the same assets is worth taking a closer look at.

Continue reading →

If you’ve never come across this term before, it’s usually used to refer to the sort of wargame player who values historical verisimilitude more than they do simplicity or ease of play and inevitably ends up buried under a mountain of unit counters festooned with NATO symbols. ↩

Tagged free to play, thoughts, war thunder

Oct 14 2013

11 Comments

gaming

Thoughts: Bionic Dues.

I’M WORKING ON IT

combat

A couple of things before we start:

Bionic Dues is an immensely stupid name. I can’t even figure out what it’s supposed to mean and it’s absolutely non-descriptive of what the game is about.
For the love of god, Arcen Games, please start outsourcing your art to somebody who can draw. Your art style was strikingly ugly when you released AI War four years ago, and time has not improved your rendering skills. I didn’t buy Valley Without Wind, and do you know why? It’s because it looked utterly bloody horrible. I’m hardly a graphics snob but I still value clarity of visual design as a gameplay feature, and Arcen’s games looking like a confused mess of photoshopped sprites actively puts me off buying them. I only bought Bionic Dues because a) it had giant robots and b) it said “roguelike” on the tin, a genre that is more tolerant of bad graphical talent than most.

Continue reading →

Tagged arcen games, bionic dues, thoughts

Oct 07 2013

19 Comments

gaming

Thoughts: Ironclad Tactics.

Ironclad Tactics suffers from something of an expectations problem. It’s the next original game from Zachtronics Industries, whose previous game you should have heard of if you care about puzzle games at all: SpaceChem. I loved SpaceChem; it was an immensely clever piece of work and the only game I’ve ever played that’s made me think so hard I’ve given myself a headache. Moreover, its presentation and soundtrack managed to evoke an omnipresent feeling of “Science is awesome!” despite SpaceChem itself having very little to do with actual science, and that’s always going to score bonus points on a site called The Scientific Gamer. Following up one of the few games I would actually genuinely describe as inspired was always going to be tricky, and Ironclad Tactics falls intro the trap I half-suspected it would: it commits the (forgivable) sin of merely being okay. For most games, this would be enough. For something which is inevitably going to be compared to SpaceChem, however, “okay” falls some way short of the lofty standard set by its predecessor.

Continue reading →

Tagged ironclad tactics, thoughts, zachtronics industries

Sep 30 2013

9 Comments

gaming

Thoughts: Spelunky HD.

I have to say I wasn’t 100% convinced about this HD remake of Spelunky. Yes, they updated the graphics, but that wasn’t an unambiguously good thing; the old (free) version was a rare example of pixel art done right and I was afraid that while going HD would bring a lot more detail the game would lose a lot of its charm. Similarly I had my doubts about the XBLA-first release, since this meant a focus on controllers over keyboard and I didn’t think the excellent keyboard controls would translate that well to an analogue control system. This is why it’s taken me a month or two to pick Spelunky HD up after its Steam release; despite the pedigree and proven talent of its designer, Derek Yu, I was a bit nervous that it’d just turn out to be the latest overhyped indie darling game that gets all but forgotten within a month of release.

Continue reading →

Tagged mossmouth, spelunky hd, thoughts

Sep 16 2013

22 Comments

gaming

Thoughts: Splinter Cell Blacklist.

I’m on holiday this week, so do not be surprised if there is no post on the 23rd September. Because I’m ON HOLIDAY.

stealth

Splinter Cell Blacklist can be viewed in one of two ways. On the one hand it’s a surprising return to form after the series nadir that was Conviction, remembering its roots as a stealth-based game and fusing it with Conviction’s movement tweaks to produce what might be the best stealth experience I’ve played in many years. On the other hand Conviction was so terrible that Splinter Cell could only go up from there, and I found myself constantly questioning my judgement while playing it: was Blacklist genuinely a good game, or was I simply so starved for a game that did stealth properly that I was prepared to accept what is, past those stealth-based elements, a very unpleasant game in terms of both tone and story?

Continue reading →

Tagged blacklist, splinter cell, thoughts

Sep 09 2013

47 Comments

gaming

Thoughts: Rome 2.

There’s a man sitting on a mountaintop just to the north of Pulpudeva. His name is Commios, and he’s one of the last dozen survivors of the Getae tribe. The war that destroyed his homeland was bloody and violent. Thousands died as the relentless march of the Athenian hoplites brought them closer and closer to the Getae capital, the near-limitless hordes of Thracian warriors charging heedlessly forward only to be threshed like so much wheat by the bristling spears of the impenetrable Greek phalanx. The three Getae cities were besieged and occupied; battle captives were either executed or pressed into slavery; and the encamped army brought plague with them that added to the death toll. It was a war of extermination in all but name, and what survivors remained were all too happy to accept the yoke of Athens knowing the alternative. That is, all except for Commios and his friends, who fled the destruction of Malva to his remote and forbidding mountaintop where he could gaze down at what had once been the prize jewel of the Getae nation.

Continue reading →

Tagged Creative Assembly, rome 2, thoughts, Total War

Sep 02 2013

14 Comments

gaming