Month: May 2013

Are very often the simple ones.

At least, they tend to be founded on very simple principles which allow for great scope and depth. Those principles when turned into gameplay can’t get in the way of enjoying the game, or gamers quickly get frustrated and walk away.

I’ve bought a little selection of games lately and it may surprise you which has taken more of my time over the past week.

F1 2012 – is a racing game based on Formula 1 Grand Prix. They’re the fastest cars on the planet. I left this one aside for a while because I didn’t have the equipment to appreciate it properly. Strange thing is though, now I do have a steering wheel for my PC, this game still leaves me cold. It doesn’t have the immediacy of Forza on the Xbox or the old Need For Speed games I was addicted to way back.

I suspect it’s because it has bits interfering with the gameplay. With the settings I had active, the game was actively slowing me down. The brake pedal didn’t do much. I didn’t have the chance to do late braking because the game was taking away that ability to make and learn from my mistakes by braking for me way too early.

And that’s very frustrating and interferes badly with the ability to enjoy the game. The interface is also far too dominated by console influences.

Napoleon Total War – I was happily addicted to the original Shogun Total War when it came out and have followed the Total War series with curiosity, if not by buying it. It’s another split game, where there’s a strategic layer combined with a tactical battle layer. The forces at your disposal in the tactical layer are the ones you’ve built up in the strategic layer.

The Total War series is another which has all the ingredients to make a great game of its type. The strategic layer is full of depth and scope. The tactical layer looks gorgeous with plenty of options for commanding the troops. But … something doesn’t add up with it. Things like having the options for commanding the troops but ending up with them facing the wrong way. Yep, did that in the tutorial.

I’ll go back into the Total War series at some point but all the tutorial did was remind me why I avoided getting Rome Total War a few years ago. A game with great promise but that gameplay got in the way of me enjoying it.

So what have I been playing ?

Let’s start with the Steam stats. Steam tells me I’ve spent 32.8 hours on it over the past 2 weeks. Except that isn’t over the past 2 weeks, it was all last weekend. In comparison, I’ve spent 179 hours on I think 4 Deus Ex Human Revolution playthroughs, 86 hours between 2 Skyrim playthroughs (and barely scratched the surface of that game), 33 hours on the latest XCom game (1 playthrough) and the 2 Torchlight games lasted me about 12 hours each before I got bored of them.

In terms of value for money this latest one cost me about £4 on a 75% off sale. So I’ve already got 8 hours per £1 spent. And I’d get many more too … I’ve only played through the main campaign and none of the extra content so far.

So what is it ?

There’s a genre of game called Tower Defense. The premise is that overwhelming wave after wave of monsters are attacking and it’s up to you to stop them by deploying defensive towers. There’s usually a bunch of different types of tower and different layouts to the maps. Each level is a puzzle to be solved. Most games of this type are free to play, although there is the occasional paid version.

The game I’ve been on is called Defense Grid : The Awakening. I stayed away for ages because it wasn’t free to play, which was a mistake as it’s actually incredibly good and worth the little amount of cash when it’s (often) on sale.

It’s fairly typical of the type with a wide range of enemies and enough towers to keep things interesting. It’s simple to play but tough to beat. And you get a little extra value from the money by there being a narrator who gives you a bit of context.

Trouble is, a game can be a little too good.

I’ve been struggling for sleep over the past week. One cause is my skin condition, it’s much better but there’s still enough irritation that I’ll “help” it. I’ve had better discipline there but when I’m trying to sleep, my discipline is much weaker because I’m not thinking. But the other cause is Defense Grid. I’ve been playing it in my head while trying to get to sleep. ARG ! It’s that addictive and that simple. Here’s a video to a walkthrough of one of the levels which will give you an idea of the gameplay.

Verdict on Defense Grid ? So good that it’ll kill your sleep. Buy it anyway. I’ve banned myself from playing it midweek cos you know ? Gotta work ! And I’ve been struggling to function on the limited amount of sleep I’ve been getting.

Friday tomorrow – bring on the weekend 🙂

For a person with extremely high IQ, I can be a real idiot sometimes.

Road trip today 🙂 I had two objectives : acquiring a steering wheel and wandering around Stoneleigh until my feet were too sore to walk any more.

The first part went just fine, although Coventry’s roads are somewhat a) dangerous, b) clogged and c) confusing. Been noticing with new roads built lately, they’re not building roads the way they used to. New roads hold the water. And that’s definitely not a good thing. Roads are supposed to be designed so that the rainwater flows off them. Standing water shouldn’t happen. Yet on the new A46 and the A45 around Coventry, the water stays on the road and creates dangerous puddles. Bright blue sky, no rain for a while, yet still a big chance of aquaplaning. Yep. Had one incident today when the traction control woke up to stop the car going sideways.

That’s not good.

Yet on the M5 motorway, occasional apocalyptic rain saw really poor visual conditions but there was always sure footing under the car.

Ok. Steering wheel acquired – been meaning to pick up one of these ever since putting F1 2012 aside due to it really needing the right equipment to enable enjoyment of that game. On to Stoneleigh.

I had a feeling I’d messed up when I was approaching the showground. In my defence, I think I picked up on the show dates by misreading the ticket prices. I’d read the camping prices, thinking “cor ! not paying that to get in”. I think that made Saturday as a show day lodge in my mind.

Oops. I figured it out when I read the signs for parking : “Sunday and Monday”. Ah well. One successful roadtrip, just one day too early.

So off I pop on the way home, having not seen any kit cars. Not straight home though … there was tell of a Bristol Motor Show on at the Mall, which put me in the right place for :

New trousers for work (yep – needed those)
Lurking round the Mall (Nerina Pallot cd and Superman blurays)
Sweetie shop (munchies !)
Iron Man 3

I have to say, the motor show isn’t worth going to see. There’s barely any manufacturers there. Even people like Audi (who have a showroom about 500 yards away) didn’t turn up. No opportunity to check out the new Lexus.

Iron Man 3 is well worth seeing. The first two are great films, this one beats them. Far more story involved than the bangs and bumps of the first two. And I’m not telling anything cos it would be so easy to innocently spoilerise this film. If you enjoyed the first two, this one is even better. Definitely beats the Avengers movie.

I really enjoyed today. Yeah, I drove a couple of hundred miles and didn’t get to see any kit cars. However. That’s not the important thing.

I feel as if I have some of what people may call “mojo” back. It felt weird earlier to be able to jump in the car and just go somewhere, without having to worry about the implications of my skin condition. I’m not free of it yet, there is still a lot of me that looks like it’s been dragged through a very thorny bush. But it’s no longer at that level where it dominates my thinking.

I was thinking about that “weird” feeling. I’d describe it as “liberating”. The point where you get your freedom back. I had options today. I had a text fairly late yesterday offering a game of cricket. I assessed my condition and thought – “yeah, could have played”. I declined because I’d made other plans and playing a 40 over game of cricket in my current fitness condition would have been … stupid. I can get away with evening games but need a lot more conditioning before trying longer games. That’s if I’m able to play longer games any more anyway – I’m getting older and more broken inside.

Wasn’t feeling broken today though. A fortnight ago, if I ran up the stairs I would have started bleeding from the back of my knees. (Seriously!) Today, the knees are very close to fully healed, which I wouldn’t have believed a week ago. And I have my full movement available, which includes being able to dodge trucks when running across the road.

Yeah – really enjoyed it, despite the feelings of being an idiot. The road trip marks a change from reclusively dealing with the skin condition to hopefully being able to put it behind me and move on.

PS I also have a sugar mouse. Or should I say … had.
PS2 That Spa trip just got a lot more viable 🙂
PS3 Those Superman blurays mean I have a spare copy of Superman Returns on dvd now if anyone (local!) wants it

Feels very weird to be making plans.

Lately, when I’ve had a break from work, all I’ve planned to do is stay at home and protect my arms and legs so they heal up a bit more. However, those arms and legs are far less angry with me now, even compared to just over a week ago.

Hell, I even declared an availability for playing cricket after thinking that the first half of the season was written off. Things have improved that much.

So how about those plans ? They vary in scale from just mundane to perhaps a little bit epic.

Mundane – clothes. They’ve cleaned up ok but I know what the condition of the skin underneath was. I need new stuff. I need new shoes too, I’ve been waiting until my skin’s been on the mend for that because new shoes always shred my achilles tendon area. I’m also thinking of buying some wicket keeping gloves, although I’ll wait for an answer from the skipper to see if that’s really necessary.

Bristol Motor Show this weekend and I’ll definitely be going to that. It’s up at Cribbs Causeway this year. Dunno how they’ll arrange it. I suspect there will be cars in the Mall and cars on display in the car park. I’m curious. And I’m hoping the new Lexus will make an appearance. I have to get the car serviced as well soon but that will be before the new Lexus appears at the garage for peeking.

Stoneleigh.

This is kit car mecca. I’ve always been interested in kit cars, although I’ve never had that combination of Money, Facilities and Time come together to let me build one. Stoneleigh is the biggest show of the year, so there will be tonnes of stuff to see.

Oh and it’s just 7 miles down the road from a place that will sell me a steering wheel for the PC.

The last place is a lot more miles away. Bear with me while I think through the arrangements …

It’s the Belgian Grand Prix. I know … epic road trip ?

The road trip itself would involve crossing two international boundaries and about 450 miles each way. That’s not quite as bad as it sounds by miles, because roughly halfway there’s a break from driving while you’re on the Channel Tunnel.

Then you have Channel Tunnel prices at £51 for a Short Stay Saver, £75 for Standard Single or £149 for a 5 Day Flexiplus. The more expensive tickets allow more flexibility or more days between there and back.

Finishing it all off is the main event, tickets for the event and hotels. If you’re doing this kind of trip, you really have to go All In. And that means tickets covering the entire event, not just the race day. There’s more to see too, with support races featuring other classes. How much for this ? Erm. A “certain package deal specialist” is offering £296 for Silver Grandstand event tickets, plus £398 for a few nights at the hotel.

That makes it almost £800 for the weekend, with petrol to come on top.

To be honest, the Spa trip is a bit far fetched. It would be fun but it’s one where I’d definitely want to have company along. (Oh look there’s just been an email in from an online site …). The motor show and Stoneleigh trips I’ll happily go to on my own but I think the Spa trip would need me bringing a sanity saver.

Oh – the motor show trip also gets me in the vicinity of a cinema with Iron Man 3 on 🙂