British gaming brains Kieron Gillen, Alec Meer, Jim Rossignol and John Walker have launched a new blog devoted to computer gaming.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has been up for a few days but I missed the launch I guess. So start reading it today since it has an interview with Ken Levine.
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In my review of Battlegoat’s Supreme Ruler 2010, I called the game a “first draft of the future”, a reference not simply to the setting of the game but to Battlegoat’s promise as a designer. I could see lots of little things in the game that I found appealing.
So it’s with a conflicted heart that I write about the upcoming Supreme Ruler 2020, a sequel that will be published by Paradox. (A colleague has theorized that Paradox is becoming this generation’s Strategy First – they’ll publish anything.)
SR2010 had a unique aesthetic, demonstrated a clear understanding that conquering a region can be as fun as conquering the world, and was an attempt to integrate domestic political restraints on player action.
I was kind of hoping they’d do something different this time around.
Instead we get a sequel that promises “many new features.”
From the press release:
…Supreme Ruler 2020 includes the use of 3D for both Map Elements and Military Units, high resolution satellite imagery, numerous gameplay options like World ‘Sandbox’ mode and much more.
SR2010 already had too much. Too many ministries that could be easily overridden, too much stuff on the map to track, etc. And though I’m not one to harp on how 3D is ruining the world, unless they can overcome those problems, the 3D will add zilch.
The also refer to their game as “award winning”, which I assume is reference to their Canadian Elan prize. SR2010 was one of only two nominees in the PC category, the other being a game based on a children’s TV show.
There will be a presentation at Leipzig, so if anybody here is there, feel free to enlighten me.
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The fruit of my brief trip to EA Headquarters ten days ago can be found now on Gameshark.
A lot of people will not like this game. Societies turns its back on so many SimCity assumptions that the hardcore city building audience will be astonished. Not that this is a bad thing. I agree with Rod Humble and Will Wright that the SimCity franchise had strayed too far from its toybox city roots.
I have other concerns. At this point, it’s not clear how strong the NIMBY effect will be. In the alpha build, I can stick a county prison by an elementary school and no one cares. Your people don’t make specific demands of you, something that I think would help in the whole “goal creation” problem that I experienced in the freeform play.
On the plus side, lots of terrain types and a nice range of buildings to draw from.
This was an alpha build, of course, and the Tilted Mill design team wasn’t on hand to answer any questions. (They were doing prep for Leipzig.) Maybe I’ll try to get them for an interview on the blog.
I’m proud of myself that I didn’t ask Rachel Bernstein for an autograph. The name might not mean a lot to you, but she was an Executive Producer, Designer and Programmer on Imperialism. She doesn’t have the longest CV, but anyone associated with that tiny piece of brilliance has a special place in my heart.
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It’s the second link to Soren Johnson’s blog in a week, but he’s answered a question that people have been asking for while. Alpha Centauri had a unit creation tool, but this feature was not included in Civ 4, even though the latter drew many lessons from the scifi title. Apparently Firaxis thought the tool broke some basic game design rules.
Being able to distinguish units is a key graphical issue (perhaps the key graphical issue) for strategy games, and the Unit Workshop tied the hands of the artists trying to make the game’s sci-fi units look distinct.
And now you know the rest of the story.
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I’m reviewing Overlord
But if evil can only exist when it is juxtaposed to good, my guy has no worries. I don’t want to spoil too much of the game, but most of the “heroes” you go up against are corrupted criminals. The halflings rely on slavery and extortion to keep their parties going and their grotesque king alive. The elves are so in love in with nature that they grow forests that will force out civilization and agriculture. Though you can “murder innocents” to increase your own power, the plot has you riding to the rescue of villagers and townspeople oppressed by fantasy archetypes. My Evil Kingdom, it seems, is a manifestation of Hobbes’ Leviathan – everyone surrenders their rights to a tyrant just to get some peace and quiet.
If you can’t kill Prince Charming, even in a satiric fantasy action game, where can you?
The old Bullfrog game Dungeon Keeper had sort of the same problem. You weren’t really an evil lich-king so much as you were Lord of the Tunnels. You could torture heroes and slap around your own minions but it’s not like you were capturing princesses or undermining empires.
There is a tendency to rewrite fairy tales. Gregory Maguire
If the lesson of Overlord is that Sauron wasn’t such a bad guy, then it’s following a well-worn literary tradition. But, as great as the game is, this sort of moral cop-out isn’t that satisfying. It’s sort of like how Tropico offered you the chance to be Somoza or Batista or Castro but made this much more difficult (and precarious) than being the beloved President of a tourist paradise. The game even rewards you for doing “evil” but not becoming “corrupted.” Kill sheep and elves but don’t suck on the life force of the peasants you liberated. Destroy their pumpkin patches, but not their lives.
At least Evil Genius demonstrated that Goldfinger was a bureaucrat, a dark soulless creature obsessed with meeting targets and cutting costs.
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Namco Bandai has announced an expansion for the pretty good Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
Warhammer: Battle March will have all the usual expansion stuff, but, in an interesting move, it will be released for the 360 as well, including all the Mark of Chaos content.
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