Jul 01 2013
23 Comments
gaming

Thoughts: Sins Of A Solar Empire — Rebellion.

starbase

Rebellion is a bit of an anomaly. It’s a real-time space-based 4X game where you gradually spread the tendrils of your empire out from your home planet into the galaxy at large. It features battles with first dozens and then hundreds of ships all blasting the titanium out of each other with mass drivers and lasers, while swarms of fighters and bombers flit in and out of the fray. It has a staggeringly comprehensive research tree, with no chance that a player will be able to complete all of it in a single game. It even has vestigial trade, diplomacy and culture elements. It should be right up my alley.

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Jun 24 2013
9 Comments
gaming

Thoughts: Syndicate.

BOSS

If you’re a long-time reader of this blog you’re probably aware that I quite like Syndicate. The two Bullfrog games are classics, and while it’s a shame Bullfrog never really made a successful transition to full 3D environments it did mean that that it was impossible for the series to be diluted with a series of creatively braindead me-too sequels hoping to cash in on the Syndicate “franchise”, which I have no doubt would have happened if they’d continued to make games under the thumb of EA before their eventual assimilation into the collective. Still, the words “creatively bankrupt” do not even begin to describe the modern entertainment industry, which will never take a chance on a new IP when it can jam an older, popular one on top of whatever new thing they’re working on, no matter how badly it fits. Last year it was Syndicate’s turn to be disinterred from its peaceful and dignified place of last repose and resurrected as an FPS. This year I finally got around to playing it.

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Jun 18 2013
15 Comments
science

With This Ringworld I… Do What, Exactly?

halo

Taz asks

 Can you do a rundown of Halo from a scientific perspective? I’ve really enjoyed your writing about Armageddon and would like to hear your thoughts on the game that has (since its début in 2002) become a phenomenon. Tanks in advance!

My answer to this one isn’t particularly scientific in any rigorous sense of the word, nor does it have much to do with the Halo universe itself, but I’m going to do it anyway because it’s still kind of fun. Or at least I think so, anyway.

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Jun 11 2013
14 Comments
gaming

Thoughts: Halo ODST.

Update 18/06/2013 — New post coming today, but like a moron I forgot to email myself the stuff so that I could finish and upload it at work so it’ll have to wait till the evening. 

odst

If you asked me a question via the Ask Hentzau box in, oh, the last month or so, I just found out that Gmail had been helpfully rerouting them to my Spam folder. I will hopefully get around to tackling the backlog soon.

This is terrible.

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Jun 08 2013
1 Comment
gaming

Sunday Soundtracks

Has AirLand Battle been released yet? I have no idea; as of writing this I’m still back at the start of May playing the multiplayer beta. Hopefully if I reviewed it I did end up mentioning the excellent work that’s been done on the game’s sound, including its music. Listening to it while watching a pair of A-10s desperately strafing a tank column that’s threatening to break through your lines is one of the better experiences I’ve had in recent years.

What can I say, I’m sucker for anything that has heavy amounts of percussion in it.

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Jun 03 2013
4 Comments
gaming

Thoughts: AirLand Battle.

stunned

First, there was Wargame: European Escalation. Now, almost exactly a year later, there is another one of it. Since I loved the first Wargame I’m more receptive than I might otherwise be to a sequel that’s been turned out in such a short period of time, but if it were another developer and another series I’d probably be inclined to assume that AirLand Battle was a low-effort attempt to cash in on the original game with another made using the same assets. AirLand Battle asks for the full £30 on Steam (although it was 25% off if you already owned the first Wargame and you can pick up a disk copy on Amazon for just £20) and so it was going to have to do more than be a slightly shinier iteration on the Wargame concept in order to justify its asking price. Fortunately – and actually somewhat surprisingly – it delivers in spades.

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May 28 2013
13 Comments
gaming

In Praise Of: Halo.

halo

A little over a year ago I wrote a two-part history of Bungie Software. It took in their early games – Pathways into Darkness, Marathon and Myth — which were nearly all superb in one way or another, and then abruptly stopped with only the barest mention of the series that’s eclipsed all Bungie’s other achievements: Halo. There were several very good reasons for this, first and foremost of which is that Halo is Microsoft’s flagship game series and it’s already had countless column inches written about it. There’d be little if anything new that I could add to the discussion, even if that discussion is one so corrupted by PR and marketing that it’s now reaching the point of parody, and so that was where that particular pair of posts ended.

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