Let’s turn The Sims into an online game! What could possibly go wrong!
(Spotted at Broken Toys.)
Spore Creature Creator Verdict
July 2nd, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Blogs, Electronic Arts
I love this thing. It’s a neat little toy, and it’s hard for me to put into words just how critical this game could be for the future of gaming as a mainstream pastime.
So I’ll let four people smarter than me sound off.
Soundbites from the Rock, Paper, Shotgun summary:
John: It’s that cruel fate of the excellent. If I paint a crude stickman, you’re unlikely to criticise the details. But if I paint something near photorealistic, and the ears are a bit off, you’re more likely to say, “Shame about the ears.â€
Alec: I’ve said it before, but it’s worth noting that The Sims totally seemed a hardcore affair to start with. There was real PC geekiness to it. It crossed over somewhat unexpectedly, after several months. The same could happen with Spore.
Kieron: It isn’t game design – it’s autobiography.
Jim: Hey, it’s one of the themes of my book!
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Countdown to What?
July 2nd, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Tilted Mill
Tilted Mill now has a countdown meter on their website. It is now at nine days, and has a picture of what I think is a dryad.
Let the speculation commence.
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Strategy Games of the Half Year and 2008 so far
June 30th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Awards, Blogs, Me
It’s the end of June, so it’s time to look back at the first six months of 2008 and see how the genre is doing. Frankly, it hasn’t been a great six months. We’ve had a lot of expansions and a few original titles, but not much in the way of new games.
The good thing about that is that it makes my job that much easier.
3) Galactic Civilizations: Twilight of the Arnor: It wouldn’t be a summary list without a GalCiv game on it. This final expansion to Stardock’s 4x space game doesn’t really do the type of re-exploration that most of my favorite expansions have, but it does add a considerable about of polish and energy to the game. With unique techs and unique structures for every race, playing the Yor is now a very different experience from playing the Terrans. Though Stardock still has a way to go in making all the information available when and where you need it, Arnor is major upgrade in the GalCiv series in all respects. If you aren’t playing with this expansion, you’re not playing the game right.
2) Europa Universalis III: In Nomine: Another expansion, but one that takes the opposite approach, redoing a lot of core concepts and game play mechanics in a manner that finally fixes most of my complaints about the game. It is now harder for a couple of superstates to dominate the world. Decisions and missions add direction and distinctiveness to every major nation. Paradox does need to do something with rebels; even a short war can, with some bad luck, lead to decades of crippling revolts, keeping many AI rivals from being threats. But IN is a wonderful expansion and a promising sign from a company that delivered the very disappointing EU: Rome earlier this year. Here’s hoping that the first expansion for that game is a free apology that adds something special. Because, as much as I love ancient history, I haven’t touched Rome since In Nomine came out.
1) Sins of a Solar Empire: I haven’t written a lot about Sins of a Solar Empire, mostly because everyone else was writing what I wanted to say. Sins is an original title with an original take on both 4x and RTS mechanics. It moves at a stately pace, but forces you to be ready for action at a moment’s notice. The small differences between the three factions are enough to make playing each one a little different, but they are similar enough for you to just jump in. The multiplayer system is great. Ironclad decided to just let the game speak for itself, with no ludicrous back story or plot focused scenario campaign. Sins is the ultimate rejoinder to people who complain no one makes games like they used to, because I can easily imagine this coming out in 1992. Though it wouldn’t have looked so nice.
Civilization: Revolution is ineligible for these awards because UK releases don’t count in my world, but I’m hearing some great things about it. Same with Grigsby’s new Civil War game.
Blog wise, 2008 was a year of steady growth. The series I did on Roman themed games was picked up by Kotaku and Rock, Paper, Shotgun (those guys are very friendly about linking to here for some reason) and so was, by far, the most widely read thing from the first six months. I regret not getting the rest of my 1960 game with Bruce posted, but it’s been difficult to write up the AAR with so much other stuff going on. I’ll try to finish it all before E3, though. I like doing these AAR/post-mortems, and hope to do more in the future. Maybe with a proper computer wargame or something. Fraps can save me from forgetting to take screenshots. But there is something about boardgaming that makes this sort of thing different and appealing.
But FoS is my own brand, now, and it has opened quite a few doors to me. Without this platform, I doubt that John Keefer would have given me much of a chance to flex my brain power over at Crispy Gamer, which would be too bad, because I love writing Print Screen, my book and movie column. (And if you’ve been avoiding CG because of how terrible it looked in the first few months, give it another go. The site design is much better and the content is top notch.)
I am also in the middle of negotiating a new opportunity with a company I greatly respect, an opportunity that would probably not have presented itself had this place not kept my feet in certain circles. More on that once/if negotiations are settled and I can make a public statement. Suffice it to say, I am excited about the possibilities.
And much of the credit goes to the mostly civilized discussion of my readers. I try to avoid sensational headlines, because I think they encourage the wrong kinds of readers, but I doubt I would have that problem with you guys. I’ve felt no need to moderate comments because I haven’t had much insanity to moderate, even though I often disagree with some of you. A regular readership that I trust and respect has made me work hard to make Flash of Steel a quality site. So I don’t update every day, but only when I find something interesting or have something interesting to say. I don’t want to waste your time, after all.
Moving forward in the year, we have a lot of strategy gaming to look forward to. And lots of blogging. Please use the comments to throw out suggestions or ideas for regular content you’d like to see here. I’d like to see more guest blogging, and would like to do another series like the Roman one, but pipe up with how I can make this place better.
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Ben Fritz Thinks Colonization is Bad
June 26th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Blogs, Design, History
Ben Fritz, a video game blogger at Variety has some issues with the upcoming Colonization expansion for Civ IV.
But goddamit, am I the only one who think it’s morally disturbing to make a game that celebrates COLONIZATION? It’s ironic, actually, because just a few months ago a friend sent me a link to some information about the original “Colonization” game from 1994 (pictured left) that this one updates. At first, I thought it had to be a joke, but sure enough, it was real. However, I dismissed it as a relic from a time when neither developers nor players took videogames seriously as media with moral implications.
But the idea that 2K and Firaxis and Sid Meier himself would make and release a game in the year 2008 that is not only about colonization, but celebrates it by having the player control the people doing the colonizing is truly mind boggling.
I’ve written about this sort of thing before. A few times, in fact. The tough issues in America’s history are something that game designers have tended to avoid, for one reason or another.
I’m not going to be one of those morons who says that “it’s just a game” and lets it go. Fritz is right that games should be judged on many of the same grounds as other media that deal with these issues. His point about modern colonization being founded on racist principles is oversimplified but a valid issue to raise.
But with all due respect to Fritz, he’s getting very upset without fully understanding the context.
1. Historical strategy games will always have baggage. Wargames let you play Nazis, Europa Universalis encourages forced conversion and eradication of natives, and Civilization reduces history to a template of invention and warfare. If we choose to only make games about the easy stuff (killing Nazis, ending Communism, feeding the hungry) then you close off a lot of the past to designers. Games can only speak to our history by portraying it, and, like it or not, narratives of conquest (starting small and getting bigger) have always been popular subjects.
2. Colonization is about the United States. The goal is always independence and many of the founding fathers are Founding Fathers. But America was built on the blood of native peoples. Would Fritz prefer a game about America’s rush for independence that starts after the native populations are pushed beyond the Ohio? Isn’t that even more of a whitewash?
3. The original Colonization had a brilliant historical narrative regarding native/European relations. The way the mechanics worked, immediate hostility on the part of the player would be met with quick defeat. You need the natives to survive the early game because they outnumber you, they can train your colonists and they will help you. But as you grow, you will inevitably encroach on their lands and relations will deteriorate. You can win without destroying the natives, but you are forced to make tough choices along the way. I am in no way implying that the genocide of the native peoples was the inevitable result of historical imperatives. But if any game has captured the dynamic between European colonists and the native population, Colonization was that game.
4. It is the duty of a designer to avoid distorting history when possible, of course. But you can never tell the full story, any more than Terrence Malick’s The New World captured the Powhatan response to Jamestown. The criticism that Colonization misses the native point of view is a legitimate point. But you can make that point without getting over-excited about the fact that the story of America’s founding is being told. At least it’s not The Patriot. A game told from the native point of view (assuming that there was a singular point of view, a very debatable point) would run the risk of being Dancing with Wolves – a beautifully shot and well acted movie that told the story of saintly natives as seen by a white man.
Of course, America’s legacy of slave holding is the big silence of game design. Where you can excuse the lack of games that confront the Holocaust because of that event’s singular horror, the Americas were largely a slave economy based on race. It’s a truth that games have been reluctant to accept or acknowledge, probably through fear that someone would interpret this as “celebrating slavery”.
The problem, naturally, is that for all the talk about education in games, strategy games do not teach anything of importance with any great dexterity. The more didactic a game is, the less people want to play it. And if your message is beneath the surface (like the living planet in Alpha Centauri) you run the risk of people missing it altogether.
It is to Fritz’s credit that he is willing to raise this issue, comments on his blog notwithstanding. But, since he certainly accepts that movies can have a rhetorical purpose beyond their surface subject matter (Lawrence of Arabia) or authorial intent (Top Gun), I hope he’ll give Colonization a chance.
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More Great Patch Notes
June 24th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Patches
The first patch for the recently released Out of the Park Baseball 9 has this nice entry:
Several fixes to Cleveland Indians
As of today, the Indians are 35-41 in 4th place, 6.5 games behind the White Sox. A few fixes might be in order, but not too many.
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