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A Minute With Will Wright

August 12th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Television

I don’t watch G4 TV. I don’t have cable, for one thing. And most of the programming doesn’t appeal to me as a mature gamer or general television viewer. From what I’ve seen, X-Play is pretty good for a game review program, and if you read their text reviews, the station – in general – has some knowledgeable people. There are supposedly terribly lame sketches somewhere in the shows.

But as old media turns into new media, we see the cool things uploaded to the internet and I think that The Will Wright Minute, a new irregular feature on X-Play, is a cool thing.

No, it’s not really about gaming. It’s Will Wright talking about something he thinks is interesting (The first episode is about an armed Russian spy satellite) and I like to know what interesting people find interesting. Do you remember the old TechTV show Icons? Imagine that, only instead of having, say, Miyamoto talk about Mario, he starts talking about the origins of the spice trade. It’s bizarre, but it works because Wright is one of the most captivating obviously nerdy people I’ve ever seen without looking in a mirror.

Could you do this with other industry figures? I don’t know. Wright has the advantage of being instantly recognizable to the target audience – at least in name. Garriott could do it because he’s also a big time nerd with nerdy hobbies. Molyneux, of course, since he’s so garrulous. But from the current generation of developers? You’ll notice an ad for Spore at the end of the clip, so you have to wonder if X-Play can keep this going for long after the release date. If the idea takes off and they decide to do someone new, would it have to be tied to an upcoming title?

Still, whoever thought of this for X-Play should get a raise and a chance to do something about G4 in general. Because every time I see an ad for Code Monkeys, I want to reach through the internet and slap somebody.

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Hinterland Preview

August 8th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Preview, Tilted Mill

Allen Rausch has a new preview of Hinterland up at Gamespy. It’s nice to see a small game like this get some big game site media coverage.

In the piece, Tilted Mill’s Beatrice and Fiske hit the same notes they’ve been playing for the last month or so. The PC game industry is broken, there is still an audience for games between casual and AAA, the current market and tools make delivery of this sort of mid-range experience feasible.

Still not a lot of detail about the game itself, but the screenshots are pretty informative. Characters have names, four inventory slots and ratings for attack, defense and health.

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Civilization Revolution First Impressions

August 5th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Firaxis

I’ve finally gotten a chance to play some Civ Revolution and I’m not sure what I think of it.

First, it’s clearly a Civ game. All the stuff you would expect is there – settlers, production, research, etc.

Second, there is a lot of stuff from Civ IV that makes an appearance – great people, unique units, and the like.

Third, this is a sequel to the first Civ game, the last in the series that Sid Meier had primary design control over, just as he has had with Civ Rev. And it’s not just that settlers cost population points. Diplomacy is reduced to near irrelevance, technology comes quickly, and unit and building types are few in number.

Most noticeably, however, this is a very streamlined game. Maps are relatively small, terrain and resources are almost an afterthought, roads make your units move at ridiculous speeds to your vulnerable borders…for a turn-based strategy game, it has a crazy amount of haste.

I’m not sure how I feel about armies. The game idea is that you throw together three similar units and create a super unit. Armies are necessary to win the game since they are a huge force multiplier, especially when you toss in the promotions like healing or city attack. But because they are so necessary, there isn’t a lot of decision making involved in whether or not turn three soldiers into an army. Once you can, you do.

There is, I suppose, a little bit of strategy in using armies for defense. An army counts as one unit, so if it loses a battle then that’s it. Three separate archers or riflemen will require three attacks. But considering how much more powerful an army is in general, I doubt that the two or three turn tradeoff really matters. Besides, no one attacks with only two units once the early game is done.

More impressions as I play more.

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Tilted Mill Interview Part II

August 4th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · City Builder, Gameshark, Interview, Preview, Tilted Mill

Now we get to the good stuff – details on Hinterland.

The maximum party size is four guys. Everything that is made in town and equipped on your characters can be seen simultaneously. Every sword, every pitchfork that you own, you can just drag it around to where you want it. It allows for ease of play and you become attached to that dilemma of how you turn the corner in your town. You’re not just looking at the lord; you’re looking at all the characters you might have in your party. Maybe you should be leaving your smith behind making shields for everybody instead of taking him with you because he’s good with a sword. I think the small scale allows us to push the game in a variety of directions.

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Civilization 4 is inferior to Civ 1

August 3rd, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Design

Or at least that’s what Paul Barnett would have you believe:

It is important not to get carried away with the idea that players need huge lists of options, Barnett said. “People like the illusion of choice,” he explained. “They like a long menu at a restaurant despite the fact they will always order from the same three things.”

He used Sid Meier’s Civilization series as an example of a game suffering from a glut of options over the course of several entries.

“Designers are obsessed with adding in ideas,” he said. “Civilization 1 [was] strong as anything, and then progresses into cuckoo-land complexity before finally returning to its roots with Civilization] Revolution.”

His central point – that more options does not necessarily mean a better game – is a good one. I’m an evangelist for simple and elegant designs and love to rail against games that mistake options for depth, details for immersion.

But to call Civ 4 “cuckoo-land” is silly because all of the options are clearly laid out. Everything is explained, systems are transparent and you can easily get the hang of things without getting lost in the number of choices open to you. And the choices support the core idea of the game, not detract from it. Civ 4 isn’t some hydra headed monstrosity like, say, Supreme Ruler 2020, with no focus.

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Sid Meier’s First Game?

August 3rd, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · History, Industry

Stanford University is at the forefront of game preservation efforts. Eric Kaltman is the official blogger for the Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection. And he found this little gem.

The idea that Meier’s earliest published work wasn’t a flight sim is an intriguing one. The “I can make a flying game better than this” bet with Bill Stealey is part of the lore of Microprose’s founding. And now we have a racing game that everyone seems to have forgotten.

(Spotted at Game, Set, Watch.)

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