Busy busy busy!

Wow, it has been like, a month since the last post? The workload right now in school was quite incredible and I barely had time to sleep on weekdays, let alone play on weekends. That caused me to push Witcher 2 to one side, much to my dismay. Witcher 2 really looks incredible and will probably be the best RPG this year (thus far).

On a lighter note, I have been spending my spare time playing Terraria, which was released semi-recently. It's a pretty fun game and you can sink in quite deep if you are those explorer/achiever hybrid gamer types... especially those who love to explore. Some say it's a Minecraft clone but I would say they are quite different. However, I won't go into the Mincraft vs Terraria battlegrounds. To me, it's quite pointless to compare them. Hopefully once I have the time, I'll spend some time reviewing it.

On a even better note, board games are just landsliding into my life every couple of weeks. This is make me consider reviewing not only video games and animes, but also board games when time isn't choking me. Thus far I've played Ascension, Resident Evil, Cutthroat Caverns, Nuts, Poo, Falling, Aye Dark Overlord, and more with other schoolmates when we are really tired of working. Saboteur 2 just sitting around the corner for this week :)

And lastly, July is coming. ^_^

Achievements in Games

Remember back then when you played your good old Starcraft, Baldur's Gate or, for those super old schoolers, Asteroids or Rogue, achievements were defined by you and those around you. Back then, winning was the only goal of the game.

Possible History of Achievements?
Along the way, some genius thought that to keep their games going, player-defined achievements and goals are not enough. So this guy, whoever he is, went ahead and place achievements in his games. Then suddenly, consoles have it compulsory for every game to have it. It wasn't until I got my X360, and a couple of "ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED"s popping up to make me feel really really good, when I realized what an elaborate trap it was.


Achievements are like drugs
That year I was rather hooked onto achievements. It tempts your inner perfectionist self. If you are a casual player, seeing your first virgin "ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED" makes you curious. It's like a hook; you might search all the possible achievements and when you look at ALL the empty spaces, something inside you will feel empty as well. It's like a hook. Casual or not, you will be tempted. If you fall into temptation, suddenly you will leave your life behind and join the ranks of the hardcore players. Thinking about it, it's no different from drugs, just that they shove the cocaine right in your throat before you can start protesting.

Networking made it worse. From a board perspective, it's like an MMO. You achieve -> you show someone -> that someone acknowledges it -> you feel GOOOOOD. As far as PSN or XBL is concerned, well, they saved everyone the trouble since achievements are stored in their server, so everyone can see what everyone else has achieved at all times. You might think they are simple-minded. Well, I would say you are just jealous, elitist or couldn't be bothered. It's natural, not all products are for all consumers, but heck achievements are something most people in the world like. It's like a luxury item...just that it's not so material, so it might not get gals for you. Maybe give gaming a few more decades to grow and we'll see how that turns out.

Utilizing the power of Achievements
I looked through some games' achievements. It became obvious that some games do not fully utilize the system. Ninja Gaiden 2 or Devil May Cry 4, for instance, have almost all their achievements ridiculously hard. It is obviously catered for hardcore players, which is what I don't get. The game is catered to (semi) hardcore-players, so why must ALL the achievements follow suit? Achievements are the easiest bait to draw in the casual audience. Just set maybe 1/3rd of the achievements to be relatively easy to obtain and you are probably set to draw them in. Tweak them a bit (like making all your achievements progressive, or separating them into easy/medium/hard to get) and you are good to go. The opposite can be said for hardcore gamers. They want challenge? Let them have some, but not ALL. Idealistically, this will merge the casual and the hardcore audiences.

The system is so powerful, yet so underused. At this point, I believe that a video game designer should seriously take a look at 'Achievements'. Even better, reward them for it. Rewards are soooooo powerful. EVERYBODY loves to be rewarded. "You killed 1000 orcs, now you get +5% bonus to kill orcs!". Think about that. Would a hardcore player be tempted sink time to kill 1000 orcs? I would. Would the casual players be tempted? They would be tempted. At least they would be tempted. Better than NOTHING. In psychology, this is called 'Positive Reinforcement'. Suddenly those stupid orcs you probably randomly designed as some random encounter would become a key creature to your game. From here, there is another dimension to explore about a designing creature.

And it's not just creatures or mobs alone. Levels, items, weapons, NPCs can all do the same thing. "Talk to NPC_X 10 times? You unlocked a mini game!". This example makes player feel that the world is bigger and more interesting. "Hit 9999 times with a cursed weapon that drains your health? It's now upgraded to a super item!". The possibilities are endless. Knowing this, I do not how FF13 came about in this age and time but that's another story for another time.

My thoughts on an interesting read
Here's an interesting read which talks about how to design achievements:
The Cake Is Not a Lie: How to Design Effective Achievements, Part 2

To dumb it down, the designer who wrote this broken achievements down to two kinds: Unexpected Achievements and Expected Achievements. Basically Unexpected Achievements come about as a surprise to players, especially new players. This is precisely the type of achievements needed to draw casual audiences in, the 'hook' that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. From there, you might want to lead them to easier 'expected' achievements and subsequently harder ones.

In the article, he mentioned having delayed feedback, as players become more experienced. This basically means you should not spoon-feed all your achievements. Give them some, let them work for the rest.

He does raise a good point about games that cause people to 'zone' though, or in my words, enter Flow; a state of mind where an individual is so focused on his task that he forgets the world around him. It really depends on the game. The article mentioned temporary achievements like DOTA's "MONSTER KILL!" which actually doesn't break the flow of the game. On the contrary, the feedback is integral and builds up adrenaline of the player, building up on the state of Flow the person is in.

Aside from that, the others DO break the flow. I still feel that Starcraft 2 shouldn't inform the player of the achievement they unlock in-game; it should be done AFTER the game is over. Immediate feedback, as the article mentioned, is not always good especially for experienced players going for greater challenges. And as far as I know, PS3 lags a bit when an trophy is unlocked while playing MVC3 and that's annoying as hell.

So when do you show the feedback? Does it break the flow of my players? It is annoying? Is it helping? Are they really needed? What am I trying to obtain with them? What message am I conveying to the players? Is it too hard? Too easy? How do I draw players in with that achievement? Is it placed at the right place? Am I expecting the player to achieve this at this time? The questions just go on and on. These are important points to consider when you design achievements into your game. There is so much you can do and if there's one thing I learnt for the past 2 semesters about making a game, is that the most important ingredient in a game is FEEDBACK.

And this one simple flash game simply illustrates some of my points:
Achievement Unlocked

Cheers and happy designing.

EDIT: fixed some grammar @ May 12th 2011

Review: "Patapon 3 "

There are quite a few mixed reviews about Patapon 3 as many people do not like the direction it's taking. No longer do you command a horde of patapons to battle in Patapon 3. Instead, you command 4 (only 4, don't look at the trailers) really beefed up patapons, one of them being your main character. Some patron fans dislike the change, but honestly not everyone wants another Patapon 2 grindfest. Patapon 3 also attempts to delve into the multiplayer aspect of the game, so it sensibly elaborated and enhanced the heroes from Patapon 2, as well as porting over Patapon 2's multiplayer gameplay to single player. This makes alot of sense since both modes will no longer be treated differently.

There isn't really much to bash about the game. In a way you can say they made the game more mainstream, in a good way. Basically each character you control now has an archetype and depending on which archetypes the are, they will gain access to different classes. You will select your main character's archetype at the start but you can access other archetypes once your basic archetype's class hits level 15, so essentially you will get to try out all classes in one playthrough.


That is the main change in Patapon 3. There are other small changes like architems. Once you level an equipment past level 10, you will choose it's type to be your architem. Architems can leveled past your blacksmith level (which starts at 10). Once you get an architem past the next ten levels, you blacksmith level will increase, allowing you to upgrade your other items to that level. One thing to note is that if you want to change architem, it's level will drop to your blacksmith level. However you can go to your friend's blacksmith and upgrade the type of weapon he has choosn as his architem without suffering any penelties. Sounds a little complicated, and I didn't really get it the first time either. An example: you choose spear as your architem and upgrade it to level 27. Blacksmith level is now 20 because you hit the 2nd tenth milestone. All your items can be upgraded to level 20 until your architem hits 30.

If you skipped the wall of text above, you probably made the right choice but it was necessary to at least have it there because it's one of the important changes to the game. Aside from that, they removed a all of those mini games from Patapon 2. In fact, I can safely say that Patapon 3 is not the same as its predecessors, so there are bound to be people who hate it, and those who have a newfound love for it. Multiplayer becomes a key factor to the game much like Monster Hunter or other raid-based MMOs out there. Sure you can solo your way through, but higher level dungeons are multiplayer-only and to experience the whole game, you HAVE to play with your friends. Period.


As far as plot is concerned, Patapon 3 writes its scripts in comedy to the point where its almost like those random Cartoon Network shows. You will laugh a bit, raise your eyebrows a bit and sometimes facepalm but it's enjoyable all around. Patapon 3 really narrows (again, not a bad thing) its scope to the individual Patapons and that makes the game enjoyable in a different way.

Patapon 3 is different, 'nuff said. There will be haters, but looking it as a solitary game, it's definitely worth giving it a try before making any rush conclusions. It's still grindy as hell though, just not as much as Patapon 2. Below is a gameplay footage (walkthrough really) found on YouTube so click at your own risk as there much be spoilers. I just wanted to show the dialog of the characters mostly.

Review: "Portal 2"

Short version of the review:
Portal 2 rocked!

Long version:

More Gameplay Elements
We shall observe Portal 2 as a consumer, a game designer and a game developer. There are so many things done right that I could not possibly list them all out. But first, we must talk about what are we to expect from a sequel of a game which revolves around one and ONLY one mechanic: Shooting Enter and Exit portals. From a game designer perspective, one mechanic can only entertain for so long. The question is not how to find new ways to use the mechanic (it's nigh impossible, too much effort for possibly a dead end), but how to make the mechanic act on other gameplay elements (the easy, fun way out).

So rightfully, as a consumer, one should not expect new ways of using the portal gun as it is. One should look forward to more elements to use the portal gun on. As far as this aspect is concerned, the Portal 2 team came up just enough to entertain us. From the gravity beam, the 3 different gels to the catapult thingies, it's more than enough to mix and match and come up with puzzles that will entertain us.




But of course, just having elements is not enough. Elements are just that: elements. Once an engine is up, elements are easy to implement. In fact, only the level designers and possibly the QAs are having headaches over it. So much more can be done and the team indeed delivered.

Storytelling
The team proceeded to create a more engaging storytelling. Back in Portal 1, it's basically no different from a flash puzzle game only that it is in 3D FPS-style with Glados randomly talking crap at the background. There's no character development at all. Now, in Portal 2, the characters you interact are more alive. Glados suddenly had a history, developed over time and her speeches are more engaging to the character. Same for the new Wheatley character, whose role provided an interesting twist to the game (alright I will not spoil). Even your character received some kind of background.

The team also broke away from just going room to room. There are quite a number of areas that are outside of the testing chambers. Basically, from a designer point of view, the consumer was given another environment to play with. This might seem to be a small change, but it affects the player in a huuuuge way. For one, he does feel that he was given more freedom, and more freedom, fake or not, in any designer or consumer's books, is a bloody good thing.

Anyways, I'll go as far as to say that Bioware has a thing or two...maybe A LOT to learn from these guys.

Graphics
The final thing to note is the graphics. Again, there isn't much I can type about graphics in the blog, but I can say that Portal 2's graphics is amazing. Seriously when you get the game, before every room just look at the surroundings. Dynamic soft shadows, shattered glass, water dynamics, the gel mechanic's decals on different surfaces, light, etc. The best thing is that they wasted no time in showing off their graphics. Right from the start of the game, you get to observe how light and shadow changes around you when things fall apart. It's no joke man.



Overall, Portal 2 is a great game. I can't wait to actually try to co-op mode, which is a brilliant add-on and another ball game by itself. It's really nice to see a novel idea go this far in the games industry. It gives me, and possibly other aspiring developers out there comfort that such novelty is Still Alive, that the game industry isn't just filled with the same old FPS, RPGs and Facebook games.

Semester 2 is DONE!

At last, semester 2 is done and over with. It has been really tiring throughout the semester; my professor saying that I'll be busy this semester is really not kidding at all. So finally it's time for an update.

Firstly, I have updated my ABOUT section a bit as well as my Reviews list section if anyone even found it. It's up there in the navigation bar when you mouse over one of the tabs.

Secondly, the 2011 election. It's finally time for me to vote what I feel is right for my country. This election is gonna be huge; I saw videos of very strong speeches made by the opposition as well as from the People's Action Party. It does look like change is FINALLY coming to this little island. I won't rant on about politics here, but I do hope that the outcome will give all of us a better life.

Given the week off, I'm hoping to do a quick physics system for my next semester's game project as well as get started on Arcanum (the troika game) and of course finish off with Portal 2 and wrap it up with a review.

Finally:



Omg George R. Martin, it's about TIME =D

Review: "Dragon Age 2"

Good god, I don't even know where to begin. Looking back at my Dragon Age Origins review, I keep wondering where did Bioware went wrong with this game. Seriously, there weren't many things wrong with the previous game. The biggest complaints I had were mainly balance issues and a couple of personal opinions which disagreed with the game.

I'll list down the main problems up here first in case I forget as I write:
- Stats, Weapon restrictions/customizing equipment
- Fortitude
- Bugged import feature/ Buggy characters
- Lack of animation cancelling in combat/ Animation in general
- Lack of strategic view
- Incredibly cheaply generated instances
- Plot

From here on, be warned that some sections contain spoilers.


First off, I'll like to briefly discuss the good parts, however few the game has. Dragon Age 2 does has some improvements which I find pretty decent like the new Skill system. I'm kinda in support for the skill tree, although it might be just personal preference. I find it much cleaner and much more fun navigating the trees. Aside from that, there's the improved graphics, which I don't really have much to comment about.

Then everything just went downhill from there...


Stats and equipment restrictions
Bioware, or EA for that matter, I understand that you are streamlining stats for the sake of the masses. It's so obvious: Heavy armor can be worn if you have high strength AND constitution, light armor can be worn if you have high dexterity AND cunning, and mage robes can be worn if you have high magic AND willpower. On top of that, bows and daggers require dexterity, staffs require magic and sword/shield and two handed swords require strength. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where this is going. It means that as a warrior, it simply does not make sense to try to play a light armor dex-based warrior because if I invest into dexterity and cunning, I won't have the stats to carry warrior weapons!

But why not just pretend to be a rogue then? Can't you carry daggers? Well, apparently Bioware decided to go "Well, what kind of warriors carry bows?" or something and only allowed swords/shields and 2 handed swords to only be used by warriors, daggers/bows to only be used by rogues and staffs to only be used by mages, on top of the stat requirements to wield them. Then what the hell, don't bother allowing me to customize my stats then. If you want to streamline a mechanic, just do it all the way. Why bother my rogue with other stats such as 'willpower' and 'strength'? Already by passing half of my stat gain to dexterity and cunning, I'm finding it a little hard to keep up with the equipment I found and it hard to find the remaining points to spend onto other stats. Seriously, if they are so supportive of restricting important things such as equipment, they might as well save themselves the trouble and restrict us from customizing stats.


Fortitude
This is a wonderful sub-stat that Strength governs. Apparently Bioware found it cool to send your characters flying when they are hit by a mob with higher strength value or something. Apparently, they also find it cool to tell you everytime you die in the loading screen that "All classes have their way of escaping. For instance, Fighter can use Stonewall, Rogues can use Evade and Mages can use Mind Blast". F*** it does not work when you are stunned or knocked back goddammit. What good are such abilities when you can't use them while stunned? Once I recover from my knockback, I'm just gonna WASD my way out of safety instead of spending stamina to enter ANOTHER animation and risk myself getting killed if the skill did not do what it's supposed to do (for mages and rogues, it's reducing aggro) because sometimes it doesn't.

It's gonna stupid to see a random guy or monster suddenly hitting your rogue/mage and he/she is doomed to die unless you somehow manage to stop him. Seriously my rogue have skills like Inconspicuous and Evade and I hardly use them because once I get hit, I'm gonna get chain stunned to death anyway. You may say I lack skillz or something, so then how would you use Evade? You obviously don't use it when you are not getting hit, and you can't use it when you are getting hit. So what, add strength to my rogue? I might as well make another warrior.

And if you are going to say I am supposed to manage the aggro with it, well take a look at the description: "The rogue leaps backward. Enemies within melee range will often seek an easier target instead." The second statement OBVIOUSLY implies that I use it WHEN I AM GETTING TARGETED (which usually translate to getting hit). Well, if I'm targeted and unlucky enough to fail my dodge chance with a 80% defense (to an even mob), what then? The skill don't even make sense at all. Same for Mind Blast: "The mage projects a wave of telekinetic force that knocks enemies back and diverts hostile attention." What good is it if you can't use it when stunned or knocked down?


Bugged import feature/ Buggy characters
There are a few bugs like the horrible Merrill Act 3 quest bug but such bugs are unfortunate since it does require quite a deal of testing to find. But Fenris' and Isabella's friend talent bug? What? This is so damn easy to test. It leaves me wondering if the developers even checked the numbers properly when they implemented the talents. For those who don't know, when you become good friends with Isabella, and if they are in your party, your main character will be hit by a permanent 5% attack speed DEBUFF every time you load the game. Check the video of a victim here:



This bug is rather unforgivable and it's really not that hard to test. This leads to me think that there is something funny about whoever programmed the Save/Load aspect of the game. Maker's Sigh potion also had a bug regarding Save/Load.

On top of that, they screwed those who imported from their Dragon Age: Origins DLC save or Awakenings save. Apparently, romances and other flags are not toggled properly when imported. This is apparent when Leliana appeared in the Exiled Prince DLC and implicitly tells my character that she did not romance with my Origins character. It may seem like a small thing but it has several several implications. Firstly in invokes the wrath of the perfectionist fanboy and people like me who purposely replayed Dragon Age: Origins so that I could port my character over. Secondly it raises the concern about future DLCs and expansions. Why can't Bioware even get something as simple as an import feature or Save/Load right? It feels like they are abandoning this franchise.


Lack of animation cancelling in combat
When I first saw the new animations, I thought it was a change for the better, but I could not be so wrong. During an animation, I am only allowed to perform a command (drinking potions or casting spells) only after the character completed the current animation. As if the Fortitude thing I stated above isn't bad enough. Not only Bioware thinks enemies chain stunning me is a fun thing, they even went ahead to implement self-inducing stun! It was ridiculous to see my mage low on half, pausing the game, switching the camera to his view and see him in the middle of his staff-twirling antics (the last animation for auto-attack that takes 2 full seconds), and realize that he refuses to drink the damn health potion until his animation is done.

It's not like it's even hard to implement animation canceling. Oh wait! If you have coded animations before, you'll know that animation cancels from one to another naturally UNLESS you put code to restrict it. What does this mean? It means that Bioware intended to restrict your characters from cancelling his animation, so that he can't suddenly drink a potion in the middle of his attacks. Yes Bioware, aesthetically it's good. Mechanics-wise, it's horrible, not fun and ruins one of the main features Dragon Age claims to bring (remember they emphasized strategic thinking in combat?). Speaking of which...


Lack of strategic view
Seriously Bioware. The best thing that EVER happened to me in Dragon Age: Origins is the existence of his semi-ingenious mechanic that allows me to see most of the battlefield from a bird-eye view. Why did you take it away? Is it because you want to be in sync with the console versions? Is it because you suddenly decided not to make combat strategy, but instead more arcade? Might as well just turn the whole game into an FPS then. Otherwise, I just don't understand why it was removed. The camera is restrictive and painful enough to control in battles already with all the weird corner issues. If your reason is to make it more arcade-style, it STILL doesn't make sense from the previous reason (animation cancelling). There seem to be almost no direction in the game just by considering these points. It seems that the guys making Dragon Age 2 had no idea what made Dragon Age 1 good.

If they are taking into reference Mass Effect 2, they really are idiots. They are DIFFERENT games. Mass Effect can live without strategic view because it's mostly a point and shoot game. Their enemies are based on that. You are not going to see enemies chain spells of doom on you. In Dragon Age, knowing where each and every mage on the field is important. Knowing where the low-hp mobs are is important. Knowing where the archers are important. EVEN MORE SO when you give me crappy mechanics like Fortitude and restricting my animation cancels.


Incredibly cheaply generated instances
I've gone through instancing and ranted much about it in the past, but this takes it to another level. I wanted to kill someone when I went through all the random missions in Mass Effect 1. All the missions look the same as each other because of instancing. But it's okay. Those are just very unimportant sidequests.

But Dragon Age 2? When I saw Fenris' mansion's layout look exactly the same as the Bartrand mission and MANY MANY other sidequests (the Blood Mage that killed your mother quest, Silent Sisters (?) quest, the list goes on...), I was disgusted. But the worst, the most dirty trick they did was to give me the map of the dungeon and find out that most of the corridors are inaccessible. Like the ONLY difference (aside from minor texture changes and other aesthetics etc) between Fenris' mansion and the Silent Sisters mansion was that different doors are locked, but I was able to see the entire map (which ultimately looked the same). Otherwise, both mansions are EXACTLY the same as far as layout is concerned. It's disgusting. I thought Mass Effect 1 had it bad. This is not even trying. I can't even say that it's called instancing. From what I've studied so far, this is very close to 'cloning'.


Plot *SPOILER ALERT*
Finally we come to the final ingredient. There're so many ways to begin. When I tried to explain how discontinued the plot seemed to my friends, it was difficult. The overall story is actually digestible, but the plot was bad. What I meant was the way the story was told, and how the game lead me through the story. Lemme try to explain.

First you tell me that Hawke was from Lothering, ran away from the darkspawn to Kirkwall, find out that their uncle used up all their money and tells you that you need to find work. Hawke then finds someone to serve for a year in return for allowing her into Kirkwall. Fair enough. It's just a prologue.

Next, time skip 1 year. You tell me Hawke decided to go to the Deep Roads with some dwarves to get rich. After 200000 pointless quests, none more epic than the next, you managed to get enough money to allow the dwarves to let you into their merry party. Then in the Deep Roads, you found a curse idol, the leader of the expedition, Bartrand, stole it and locked you up in the cave where you found it. Obviously, you found a way to leave the cave.

Chapter 2, you tell me that Hawke became rich. Eventually Varric found out and decided to seek his brother Bartrand for revenge. You found him and do whatever. Curse idol cannot be found (or most of it anyway). Qunari attacks Kirkwall, you fight for Kirkwall, you meet leader of templar and leader of mages. Qunari was defeated and you suddenly become Champion.

Okay let's stop here. The next chapter is going to be the FINAL chapter. So after hours into the game, I still have no fucking clue who the BBEG, or what drives Hawke, which ultimately means that the game does not play with my intrigue and feed my curiosity enough for me to continue. To put it simply, there is no hook and no bait. If you are saying that those does not matter, you are wrong. A story without hook is not a story; it's a documentation or a biography. In fact, my companions are more interesting than me. They have their goals and BBEGs. They know what they want. When I played Hawke to this point, I had no idea what Hawke wants. He/She feels like some errand boy/girl running around aimlessly to do everyone's bidding as long as it is within his/her interest.

So the qunari is not the bad guy. So Bartrand is not the bad guy. Suddenly in chapter 3, you are telling me that the leader of the templars is the BBEG? Wtf? I just met her and she had NOTHING to do with whatever I was interested in in the previous chapters. And why she became bad? Oh apparently her sword has the cursed idol crafted into it. My brain just exploded. It reminded me about the crew in FF8 'suddenly' remembered that they are all from the same orphanage in the middle of disk 2. And I thought back than this was bad. I really didn't expect Dragon Age 2 to top it, doing the exact same 'revelation', only this time you tell me at the END of the game. Not only that, you tell me that the templar leader is a possible important NPC only at the START of chapter 3 and confirmed that she is the BBEG ONLY BEFORE the FINAL quest of the whole game. It utter crap.

Compared to DA:O, DA2 had almost no epic moments. In DA:O, the dwarf quest was really epic. The elf quest was kinda epic. The mage quest was awesome. The human quest was also epic...you get the idea. I never complained about DA:O being bad in terms of plot really. The whole playthrough of DA2 was just underwhelming. I can barely remember most of the quests. None of the quests in DA2 tops the DA:O elf quest which I thought was the worst among the main quests in that game (and it was still very well done despite that).

Well, that's about how I felt about DA2. On the bright side, they did implement the cross-class exploit system from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes which I liked alot. But the bad stuff far far FAR outweighs the good stuff. I honestly felt that Dragon Age Origins is a lot a lot better and that Dragon Age 2 was a huge setback. I will still keep it around in case of further add-ons, but as vanilla, it's a huge disappointment.

Review: "Civilization 5"

I'll be frank: there's really nothing much to review about Civilization 5. That's why there isn't a review of it until now when I decided that it deserved one. When a sequel held on to the foundations that made it's predesessors good, it will end up just as good if not better...most of the time anyway. So this review will be rather short and will be a nice breather for me from my work and the painful upcoming review I'm still writing about Dragon Age 2.

Civ5 has changed quite a bit from 4. It seems less number crunchy, much more aggresive and more streamlined in general. Graphics were better but I think they are still using the read/write method to advance the game, causing end turn wait time to increase progressively. I guess it's asking too much from them to change their engine for future installments of the game.



The game is thankfully much more aggressive and combat is thankfully less nonsensical. You can no longer stack units in one grid so no more giant tower of doom or giant pillar of defense. Ultimately, this mechanic nerds both attackers and defenders, espacially defenders. It's not cool when your city with one unit is surrounded by 6 units.

The grids are also changed to being hexagonal. This make mug more sense from a designer point if view as square based grids can be problemetic when taking into consideration diagonals. Culture growth is also less nonsensical. Each growth now only gain one tile instead of one radius unit (which is an exponential increase). This also forces people to be more aggressive in expanding. Culture also give you points to spend on tech trees for your entire city. Call it biased or whatever but I loved the idea of skill trees so I obviously support this change.

There are other minor changes such as City-States which are basically neutral cities you can take over or persuade to aid you. The game also seemed more streamline now; no more missionaries to spread religion for example. Upkeep is also added to prevent nonsensical flooding of units if the city has nothing more to do.

Overall, I loved all the changes made to the game. What can I say? Sed Meier did it again. If you are a fan of previous civ games, I highly recommend this. It's lost a few things that made civ4 great but the new mechanics added do more than enough to compensate.