PC News and Game Reviews

While chatting to a few friends of mine some very interesting observations where made regarding PC Gaming in general. This blog is born out of an email sent by a friend having played the recent BETA of Dawn of War 2.

The review given by my friend was mostly negative. Most of the elements we enjoyed from the first game seem to have been stripped from this new sleek version of DOW?! The onus now seems to be on controlling smaller groups of men, in an attempt to push the DOW franchise more towards Company of Heroes (Which in our opinion is now a glowing symbol for Real Time Strategy). Now this move alone is not cause for concern, and indeed with the new Tales of Valor their are hints about controlling just one Tiger tank in some of the missions.

There is nothing wrong with trying to drive a genre forward, but I’m afraid all of the above can be viewed from a more cynical point of view. Stripping out base building will annoy people who like base building….like me. I enjoy being able to build defenses and indeed using base building as a game winning tactic (least we forget the Eldar teleport and cloak, build a webway and “appear” in your enemies base). I know I am not alone in my base building fetish. In COH it was great fun to build a structured front line of barbed wire, sandbags….tank traps etc…etc….

Now all this is leading me to this….they are dumbing down PC gaming. It’s blatantly obvious the console market is now bigger than the PC market, so PC gaming and indeed PC game developers are facing “The Console Effect”:

“Can you build a base with an XBOX controller”
- Yes but its very difficult, if not so annoying that its useless
“OK cut it and put more onus on the units”

“Can you select and assign teams for co-ordinated strategic strikes”
- Yes but its very difficult to do
“OK cut down the number of units, and lets introduce Boss fights!!!”

What in the name of christ jebus were you thinking!!!!! Boss fights!!!!! FFS!!!!!!
Why not just put Mario and Sonic in power armour and let us run them around the place picking up gold coins!

My friend made the point that the introduction of a commander who could gain XP, is a concept that was first introduced in Warcraft 3 (6 years ago). He then made a point that the first shooter to crack the console was Halo…..10-15 years after wolfenstein/doom/unreal had created the genre.

It must be really annoying for PC developers who have to dumb down their content and indeed detract from the overall experience to service a larger part of the market who cannot use “wasd”. It’s a very sad time…..”The Console Effect” is a creation the of Sony, Nintendo and MS…..and as we have seen with MS its not about innovation or improvement….its about making things look shiny and stupid, and requiring massive hardware to then run said content!!!!!

Opposing Fronts Review

Having downloaded from Steam and had a few technical frights with the horrid “game is currently unavailable”error, I was very excited about playing the follow up to the best game of 2006. Like Dawn of War (DOW - another Relic title), it seemed very hard to improve on a formula that worked so well. Company of Heroes (COH) had incredible involvement for an RTS, and very re-playable. Even some of the Skirmish maps warranted a second look. Most RTSs only require you to build a large force and march forward, even in the case of the squad based DOW. However, COH had incredible moments, like a fire fight between houses where your MG teams are dug in, or the sound of a tank approaching your horridly exposed AT gun. Even laying out barbed wire to keep pesky infantry at bay was fun.

So how could Relic follow up on their magnum opus? Well they could get DOW winter assault out and take a good look. Not a stand alone game, but featured a new army, patches and short campaign. It arrived with DOW at the peak of its online popularity so was bound to do well commercially. However as far as value of money is concerned, it was disappointing. Not only was did the army have the weakest units, in keeping with the culture of the table top game, but required incredible micro-management to make it all work. Unfortunately, if you’re not a 12 year old on your summer holidays, you just can’t invest enough time into an army like this, so it became an ultimately useless add on. Dark crusade was the same again, new races but just another skirmish gimmick.

Now why haven’t I mentioned Opposing Fronts (OP) yet? Well you have to take the Winter Assault experience onboard. OP is a stand alone game so you have to pay a lot more for it then your average add on pack. You get two new armies and two campaigns. Now Relic has added weather conditions and more varied terrain, but if you hadn’t played the original COH, then you would think the two games were released simultaneously, there just isn’t any game play or substantial graphical differences. There are also rumors of an insidious installation process….

Now to the armies, which were the greatest feature of the original, with varied units and doctrines to add to the chaos. It’s still Normandy/Western Front with the Wehrmacht having the advantage in armor and tactics but a horrendous reliance on fuel resource, while the British Army have excellent defensive options but poor armor.

However, the Wehrmact does not resemble the COH army at all, it is highly mobile, compact and fuel permitting and can unleash very powerful armored units. In the case of the Jahd-Panther, perhaps too powerful. I can foresee big changes when the patches come out, as the balance is just not right yet. Almost all the units have been overhauled and all the buildings are new. The Doctrines are very different from each other, but not necessary equal in their impact on the game. The scorched earth Doctrine is totally useless and the campaign levels which force you to use it are painful in the least.

Now to the British and anyone who has played winter assault will know what I mean by stodgy, boring and lame. Its one thing using gun emplacements and artillery to your advantage on a scripted campaign level, but in a skirmish game that does not giving you geographic advantages, your in trouble. In truth, they have an uncanny resemblance to the imperial guard. I just can’t see how this will be a popular army online; they require far too much planning and management to put up a fight. The doctrines don’t really make any difference to the game in the same way that doctrines from the original game did or the new wehrmacht options do. The commando units are good, but armor is the key to this game and infantry is too vulnerable to rocket and artillery attack to be the focus of an army. Plus, the wehrmacht are very mobile from the offset, so their armored cars just drive around your pill boxes! I don’t need to elaborate on what a King Tiger can do to them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if further armies and campaigns are released by Relic peace-meal over the next 18-24 months, to milk their (excellent) product. An opportunity was missed here though, as the focus should have moved to the Eastern or African theatres, to really add a new dimension. The Engine is probably strong enough to only need minor upgrades to hold its own for a while longer.

All the same, there are some very entertaining campaign levels for both armies. If you are familiar with the original, I would recommend playing on hard or expert difficulty to get the most out of the game. The problem if you have played the original, is the sense of déjà vu which might put some players off. I think relic is really trying to sell the same game twice. If you plan to play online then it is necessary to own OP to play the new army, even if you have bought COH already. Similarly, if you have OP but not COH, then you can’t play the old armies online. Truthfully, if you had to buy one, I would say get the original, as the armies are more balanced and the new maps in OP aren’t really that different. Overall, don’t expect to be overwhelmed by OP if you’re a seasoned COH player, but do expect to pay the say price for it.

In my opinion the Command and Conquer Series have been the best P.C games ever made. The combination of excellent story telling (cut scenes) mixed with explosive real time play wins the day for me. I’ll never forget the video in command and Conquer where Kane shoots the Brotherhood of Nod commander in the head for being a traitor…..what a way to introduce the bad guy!!!!

Red alert introduced a few new factions but kept true to the Command and Conquer style of excellent level design and amazing plot twists!

Then came Command and Conquer: Generals…..nice in my opinion but did not cut the mustard. The Matrix style “zoom in an slow mo” when vehicles were destroyed reeked of show off the game engine….forget about the game play!!!! No video cut scenes…..what were you thinking!

So on to the next serving…..Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Now I must say that this game seems to me like Command & Conquer: Tiberium Sun with the bells and whistles attached. Tiberium Sun was set in the a futuristic settling…sometime after the first Tiberium war. The developers tell us how ever that this game is set much later, in 2047 or something….meaning a few new units. I’m surprised the popular Mammoth tank has survived in service with GDI for 50+ years!!!!! (Obviously to appease the fans!)

So its 2047 and NOD (The Brotherhood of NOD…or Al Quida) and GDI (Global Defence Initiative….or the Americans) are at it again….fighting for control of the Tiberium fields and untapped endless energy! Alas the party gets crashed by: “The Scrin!!!!”. It seems the developers have decided to spice things up a bit and introduce an alien race.

Now I can see where this is going….and I hope it does not go there. An unholy NOD and GDI alliance to defeat the evil Scrin….and Kane and the GDI commander can hold hands singing “Come by a me lord” with flowers in their hair when they defeat the Scrin!!!!! Lets hope not!

More interestedly we are promised a whole new race and a host of new units for NOD and GDI. The engine looks super: click here

Heres hoping it a good one!

Its been a while since I’ve installed and got immersed in a game….mostly because of the horrible crap floating around at the moment. Its testimony to the good work done by Relic that I still regularly play Dawn of War over much newer titles in the RTS genre.

Company of Hero’s will be very very familiar to players of DOW. The interface is very similar and the game controls will be quite similar to a seasoned Dawn of War player. Power and Requisition have been replaced by 3 resources in Company of Heroes. They are Manpower, Munitions and Fuel. To capture these resources and produce a supply you must capture “control points” which are identical in every way to DOW’s control points. You can even build an Observation post, obviously very similar to building a listening post, on a control point in DOW.

The game however never feels like a game that has just had space marine models swapped out for axis and allies. I found with COH that the idea of the unit and its abilities is paramount to success. In DOW you build and re-enforce a squad with special weapons. In Company of Heroes you do the same….however you are able to pick up captured enemy weapons during a mission, which I believe is an excellent touch. You can storm an enemy MG post and then turn his own machine guns against his troops! Small artillery pieces can be captured and moved and deployed anywhere you wish.

I found huge variance in the fact that my men seemed to interact with the environment much more than Dawn of War. Although Dawn of War deals with cover, in COH cover becomes obsessive as your troops will not last long when exposed to suppressing fire. Troops can become pinned down, leaving retreat as the only option. Once a retreat is ordered you troops run for their lives and re-group later. This again is similar to morale breaking in DOW, however it is implemented in a better way I believe.

As this is a first impression……I have only encountered a few vehicles. The axis have a full range of light, medium and heavy tanks….but alas I have not come across or commanded any allied tanks yet. In the training you control a Sherman tank. This training level introduces you to the concepts of armour (ie weak at the back…strong at the front). It also gives you a first taste of vehicular combat and vehicle damage…another completely new concept to Company of Heroes. If your tank takes damage in a certain area it can become immobilized. If you are lucky enough to have Field Engineers you can quickly repair any damage.

On the downside so far I must note the horrific similarities between Saving Private Ryan. I really don’t know why they did not just use the voice overs from the movie in the opening scene of COH. Another point to note is the fact that it was only American troops that fought the D-Day landings The opening mission is deliberately stupefied for the American Audience, to the point of Good vs Evil, America Vs Germany. This is understandable given the biggest market for the game (Don’t worry “the rest of the world”, I am well aware of your contribution to the war…lets not forget 20 million dead Russians……who won the allies the war again????).

So to sum up a first impressions review…..good game. A bit cinematic for an RTS but it works I think….as it did in DOW.

I am a recent Eldar convert. Have been playing the Space Marines now for ages but decided to give the eldar a try….mainly because I have got my arse kicked so many times by eldar players.

Although I am not playing long with them….here’s what I have learned. The key to victory is well placed and numerous webways. Once built shroud the webways, and if you have time put in a turret or two for good measure

That done the only troops worth their weight are Warp Spiders. They are not very tough against Terminators or Possessed Marines, but in large numbers they are very effective at taking out buildings and men. I build as many warp spiders as possible and load them into a webway. This takes the bulk of your army out of harms way but ready for deployment anywhere you have a webway in seconds. (Hence the reason for all the webways)

With the infantry ready the only vehicles I bother with are Wraith Lords and Fire Prisms. Wraith lords move quickly, are tough and dish out quite a bit of damage. In large numbers they can push deep into an enemy base before they die. Also the Fire Prism jump into the enemy base when used in conjunction with a space marine deep strike can win a game in seconds!

I would like to hear if anyone else has any eldar insights???