July 2009

The family and I have been playing Wii Sports Resort all week and so far I am very happy with it. It’s less like the original Wii Sports and more like Wii Play, but it’s an absolute blast. The games were made for WiiMotion Plus and do a great job of showcasing the capabilities of that little device. READ MORE

Bill Harris did a great job of analyzing last month’s NPD numbers and it’s really looking quite grim for the gaming industry as a whole. Nintendo looks to be doing the worst, in terms of sales as a year over year %, and Microsoft the best.

The verdict? Sales are in the toilet and console makers better be looking at price cuts if they hope to make any type of rebound by the end of the year.

Race for the Galaxy & RftG: The Gathering Storm

Until late 2008, the #1 ranked game on boardgamegeek.com (BGG) for some time was Puerto Rico. A couple of years after Puerto Rico‘s release, a spin-off called San Juan was put forth, containing themes similar to Puerto Rico‘s with exclusively card-based mechanics. While it was the original designer of Puerto Rico, Andreas Seyfarth, who would ultimately come up with San Juan‘s design, he collaborated with another game designer working on his own San Juan prototype, Thomas Lehmann. Lehmann took his design and shifted the concept from colonial Puerto Rico to a Star Wars-like sci-fi setting, ultimately giving birth to Race for the Galaxy (RftG).

During each round of RftG, each player secretly selects one of his seven phase cards and then all are revealed simultaneously. All players will execute only the phases chosen by the group, with the player who chose each specific phase receiving a bonus for doing so. These phases and their bonuses are: Explore (look at additional cards and/or keep additional cards); Develop (receive a one-card discount on your Development); Settle (draw a card after placing a World in your tableau); Consume (either trade a good for a number of drawn cards based on its type or receive twice the point chips for consumed goods); and Produce (produce a good on any one windfall World, which normally do not replace their consumed goods). Costs for playing Developments and settling non-military Worlds are paid by discarding other cards from your hand; military Worlds are simply conquered if your combined strength is equal to or greater than their defense. At the end of the round, anyone with more than ten cards in their hand discards down to that number and then phases are selected anew until one of the end conditions has been met. In a two-player variant each player selects two phases, and it is possible to select the same phase twice in most situations.

The goal of RtfG is to amass the most victory points (VPs) when the game ends; this occurs either when one player has placed his twelfth card in his tableau or when the pre-set pool of point chips (12 per player) has been exhausted. Cards in your tableau are worth the number of VPs indicated on them (with some being variable based on other cards in your possession), and each chip is worth one point as well; ties are broken by produced goods and cards in hand, so the entire last round is finished even if someone meets an end condition before all of the phases are selected.

RftG utilizes a kind of passive/parasitic interaction between players that gives it a “confrontation-less” feel. Cards you have in your tableau usually provide additional bonuses and/or abilities during one or more phases, whether or not you were the one who selected the phase. For example, if you have cards in play that give you additional benefits during Explore phases, each time an opponent chooses to Explore for his own reasons you essentially leech off their choice to your advantage while still getting your own choice in the round. This interaction is so subtle, however, that many players have branded the game as “multiplayer solitaire”, which is true of most races when you think about it but also sort of missing the point. Successfully guessing what phases your opponents will select allows you to make a different choice and maximize your turn; conversely, you can sometimes hamstring a rival by choosing a phase other than the one he expects you to select. Then again, you could just ignore your opponents completely and just try to plow through to an end condition, hoping that your blitz has caught them in the middle of their potentially powerful yet inherently slower strategies.

While a group of experienced players can blast through a session of RftG in under half an hour, the tricky part is becoming an experienced player. RftG uses a seemingly-baffling array of symbols as shortcuts for the various cards’ costs and powers that can and will overwhelm first-time players. The symbology does follow an internal logic, however, and once you “learn the language” you won’t even need the reference cards included with the base game. This also provides the unintentional reward of no longer needing to tote around the game’s ridiculously oversized box; a game that is comprised of less than 150 cards and a few dozen cardboard chips comes in a box approximately the dimensions of a thick textbook due to the width of the reference cards and rule book. Once you’ve passed the need for those things, everything can be contained in a much smaller box, such as the one containing the first expansion, The Gathering Storm (TGS).

Expanding the playability of RftG up to five players, TGS shores up some intentional balance issues with the core game. In order to teach players all of the various strategies involved in the game, a few tactics in RftG were a bit lacking to prevent them from dominating play; mostly this consisted of the blitzing military strategy I alluded to earlier. These “restrictor plates” are removed with the addition of TGS, although the slower production strategies also have some powerful new tools at their disposal. Additional scoring opportunities are also introduced, offering bonuses for both the first player to meet a specific goal (e.g., settle three Alien worlds) and for whoever has the most of a specific type of card (e.g., four or more Development cards) at the end of the game. Finally, TGS also comes with rules (and specialized dice…) for a solitaire variant; while not quite a perfect recreation of human opponents, the “cardboard AI” is still quite challenging and worth checking out if you have the down time. A second expansion, Rebels vs. Imperium, is due later this year and is rumored to feature more direct interaction between players.

With or without its expansion(s), RftG is a fun, fast-playing game suitable for most ages (suggested 12+ due to the intense learning curve) that will probably see repeated play, often in the same gaming session. Scaling effortlessly from 2-4 players (or more with expansions), it should pay for its cost in sheer volume of play time within a month.

 

Images by GamerChris

Since its unveiling as a student project, we at Snackbar had been very excited by De Blob and its Dutch developers. The Wii release of the title, developed instead by Blue Tongue Entertainment but based on the team’s ideas, was one of the most enjoyable titles of 2008. Needless to say, we were excited to see what Ronimo (short for Robot Ninja Monkey) did on their own with their freshman professional effort, Swords & Soldiers.

We weren’t disappointed. The 1000-point title is a tight package that takes the real-time strategy genre and streamlines it into a fun, humorous and intense title for one or two players.

Players get to use three armies: the Vikings, Aztecs and ancient Chinese. Each group has its own 10-mission campaign, and there are also some minigames to enjoy. Deploying units and using magic is made very easy; pointing and clicking large round buttons is all that’s necessary. Units are deployed from your side of the two-dimensional battlefield and begin the march to the front lines. There’s a lot of scrolling to do at times, but mostly all the controls you need are on the portion of the screen you’re focusing on.

The goals on each level are fairly simple.  Most are simply to destroy the enemy’s base on the other side of the stage, but some levels have specific targets to eliminate or time limits.  These aren’t really the compelling elements of the game.  The stages themselves have branching pathways and choices of strategy that are made obvious to the player, but the underlying tactical considerations are complex.

The theme is very tongue-in-cheek. The visuals are bright and cartoony, and the hilarious clash of off-the-wall units ends up looking a little like The Behemoth’s Castle Crashers. The audio is a bit repetitive, but that seems so far to be unavoidable with downloadable titles.

What shouldn’t be missed is the game’s split-screen multiplayer. The game doesn’t use much vertical real estate anyway, so splitting the screen into top and bottom doesn’t hurt the game in any way.

If you like real-time games, get this. If you’re like me and don’t like them so much…also get this. Seriously. It’s not Game of the Year, but it’s certainly a contender for the year’s best downloadable, and originality like this deserves to be rewarded with a few bucks.

ESRB: E10+– Stereotypes fighting other stereotypes. Not much else if you can get over it.
Pros: Original gameplay from the team that created De Blob.
Cons: A bit tough to get a handle on.

Fallout 3 is one of the few Xbox 360 games to receive a substantial amount of downloadable content. With a rocky start (Operation: Anchorage), a great second outing (The Pitt), and a third outing that I can’t comment on short of loving that my experience past level 20 is no longer wasted (Broken Steel), Fallout 3 is ready for its definitive expansion pack – Point Lookout.

Point Lookout, like Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt before it, leans heavily on its setting. However, Point Lookout is a part of the Capital Wasteland (accessible by a short ferry ride instead of a simulator pod or complex series of train tunnels) which makes it feel more like the Fallout 3 you’ve been playing since October of 2008. And that is a good thing. I like Fallout 3 enough that I have over 90 hours on my first save, and I still haven’t seen the conclusion of the main story line. Exploring the wasteland, finding side quests, and blasting raiders from 100 yards is just too engrossing for me to let go. Point Lookout is more of the same with a hillbilly coat of paint, and an interesting quest line.

I won’t spoil much of the story for you, but if other Fallout 3 side quests and The Pitt’s storyline were entertaining to you then you won’t be disappointed with Point Lookout’s narrative. You’ll first be prompted to check out a mansion that is under siege by the local whack-job cultists. After you fend them off you’ll need to convince them to accept you as one of their own by taking part in a very visceral initiation sequence. Then you’ll start to see the sides for what they truly are and be forced to make one of Fallout 3’s stock “both of you guys are jerks, but you seem less jerky / will give me more caps” choices. Oh, and the whole time you’ll be traipsing through the swamp and getting more and more irradiated while avoiding hillbilly hunting parties, mirelurks, swamplurks (reskinned mirelurk kings), and swamp ghouls.

Main quest aside, atmosphere is where Point Lookout really shines. Modeled after Point Lookout State Park, there is a run-down boardwalk area, a dilapidated mansion, washed-up and crashed boats, and plenty of swamp to explore. The element of exploration is new, too. Regardless of how you felt about Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt there is no denying that each DLC pack was a linear run through the story (except, of course, for the optional ingot collecting in The Pitt’s Steel Yard) – Point Lookout takes that philosophy and reverses it. As soon as you step off of the ferry you are free to explore the entire map (which seems to me to be about 20% as large as the main game’s), and you should. Exploration will yield you some decent loot (which even if you can’t use it can be traded away for caps at the local shop), a perk that isn’t part of the main quest, and some challenging firefights (I will never underestimate the power of mutated hillbillies with shotguns and lever-action rifles in large groups again) which, when combined with Broken Steel, will get you that much closer to level 30.

Where Point Lookout disappoints a little bit, though, is in new weapons and gear. If you enter the area with power armor and a unique Laser Rifle (The Pitt’s Metal Blaster) like I did then none of the equipment found will really interest you. It is novel that the locals use lever action rifles and double-barreled shotguns, but I won’t be dropping my Gatling Laser anytime soon to take one home with me.

This is what all of the DLC packs should have been – large explorable area, new enemies, new weapons, great atmosphere, and a narrative that is at least interesting enough to keep me going through the quest line. If you enjoyed the base game then picking up Point Lookout is a no brainer.

Pros: large area, new enemy types, interesting quest line

Cons: new weapons are useless to high level characters

ESRB: M for blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs – if you let your child play the base game then this expansion is also appropriate.

Plays Like: Fallout 3 base game