Elemental: War of Magic

I enjoyed Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire, and I've been known to lose myself to other 4X games (games based around "exploration, exploitation, expansion, and extermination") such as Civilization. With this in mind you might assume that its newest game, Elemental: War of Magic, would be a match made in heaven for someone like me who enjoys both the genre and is a huge fantasy nerd. Which is why it's so disappointing that Elemental is in the unfinished, beta-like state that it's in. At the time of this review Elemental has been out for two weeks, and yet it still feels like it's in development. But before I get way too deep into its issues, let me try to give you a brief overview of what this game is all about. Elemental is a turn-based strategy game where you control a hero known as a

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Sovereign. After selecting what nation and Sovereign you want to use (or creating your own complete with backstory), you then use a series of options to select the size of the world, the length of the game, who you'll be facing, and the victory conditions you want to play with.

In the game you use your Sovereign to build up a series of cities and forge an empire, competing with other Sovereigns for valuable resources on the map. That makes it sound pretty simple, but trust me, it's not. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you're not only managing the resources of your empire, but also worrying about the income and construction going on in each of your cities on a turn-to-turn basis. Stack on this the constant choices you're making about the research your country is performing – focusing on either military, politics, infrastructure or magic, which in turn will affect the entire way you play the game since research determines the things you can build – and the head that's wearing the crown starts to feel heavy indeed. The ultimate goal of this complicated empire building? To unite the land through conquest, diplomacy, questing, or uniting all the magical shards in the world.

Like Civilization, the primary focus of Elemental is not playing through a story-driven campaign, but is instead more about creating a world out of a series of options and seeing how it works out. Sure, Elemental has a short campaign mode that follows a story, but the tale itself is pretty mundane, and it doesn't even work all that well as the tutorial it's so obviously meant to be. You can learn some very basic ideas behind the game through playing this guided version of the game, but even by the time I finished the it – even after reading all the in game tool tips and guides that are available – I still felt like I didn't have a very good understanding of how any of the more complex mechanics in Elemental worked. Even now, after many single player battles outside of the campaign (the primary way you'll play Elemental), I still find that I learn more about the game by talking about it with other people who are playing than I ever do through any of the in-game help that's available. It's a significant problem, and one that Stardock is aware of, as they've informed me that they're working on a full-blown tutorial right now.

If, like me, you're willing to put the time into learning the more complex parts of Elemental on your own, then you might enjoy some of what it has to offer. Like other 4X games, Elemental is very addicting, and it's easy to start a game and then realize the sun is coming up because you've played through the night. And while most of the stability issues seem to be fixed now, I can understand a lot of the internet forum outrage that's occurred since the game launched in regards to its known technical issues. Repeatedly I lost my progress to a random crash, and in one case I even lost the ability to load up my prior saves because they were incompatible with the new version Stardock released.

Sadly, even when the game was working there are some issues with the A.I. that make it pretty frustrating to play against. The A.I. often takes its Sovereign into battle in foreign lands, making it easy to kill – which in turn eliminates the empire from the map. But should the enemy empires be smart enough to avoid this, they'll usually amass amazingly large armies and march on you, even if the victory through conquest option has been disabled. In all the matches I played I never once saw the A.I. try to win by any other way than wiping out the other nations, making it so I had to focus on my military to a point where I could never effectively pursue the other victory conditions.

The A.I. problem might be less of an issue if I could play against other players, but the multiplayer portion of the game still hasn't been activated. I would love to tell you all about how much fun it is, or talk about why this aspect of the game might make it a more appealing package overall, but sadly none of us have the option to engage in a part of the game that's advertised on the back of the box. I know that this is being delayed to fix issues and make sure it's the best experience possible, but at some point last week it became more than a little ridiculous that paying customers are still waiting for this.

Against A.I. (or, in theory, players) I'm not opposed to winning by conquest, I just wish that the other victory conditions felt more viable, and, more importantly, that playing out the battles was any fun. When you engage with an enemy force in Elemental you are given the option to auto-resolve the battle, or to engage in a turn-based battle where you can control each of your units individually . Going the latter route brings the player to a screen where they can see a battlefield that's divided into squares. Using their units' and characters' action points, each side takes turns maneuvering and fighting until one side is gone or routed from the field. The turn-based option is mildly interesting if you have a spell caster in the army – as casting can make a huge difference in the outcome – but generally this mode is extremely boring to play through. The only thing you really need to consider in combat is whether your army is bigger, and whether or not it has better armor and weapons. If it is, then you simply hit auto-resolve on every combat and move on to the much cooler empire building aspect of Elemental.

While the enemy A.I. and battle system are problematic, Elemental has some redeeming qualities that help me partially overlook its problems. Being able to customize your units – outfitting them with the weapons and armor you've researched, giving them mounts, and even editing their name and battle cry – is awesome. I'm a huge nerd, so I can really get into creating my own stories for my army. I also really enjoy the game's use of limited resources, forcing players to compete for things like mines, fertile soil, ancient libraries, and more, as this makes geographical location of cities much more important than it is in other 4X titles. Heck, even the look of the game is charming, as the hand-drawn looking world has an aesthetic that makes the game unique amongst what we're seeing releasing for the PC market as of late.

Closing Comments
In the end I have to admit that despite its large number of problems I find Elemental strangely engaging, and I want to keep playing just because I know that someday it's going to become a much better game than it is right now. It really is the damndest thing: even with the instability issues, even with its utter inaccessibility for newcomers to strategy games (and to a large extent, experienced players with anything less than an abundance of patience), I still want to make time to play Elemental. Is this some sort of Stockholm syndrome, I wonder? I doubt it. I think it's just that this is a game with some great ideas that just haven't been implemented as well as they could be. With Stardock's track record of post-release support I'd give it a month, and then you can play the game you should have gotten when they started asking for your money a couple of weeks ago.

by: Anthony Gallegos

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Posted in: Strategy

R.U.S.E

Zoom all the way out from one of RUSE's World War II battlefields and you'll see the edge of the strategy table in the commanding Allied general's war room. Desk officers work silently in the background; troops are colourful blue and red counters inching across a map of Europe, their movements delineated in bright, wide arrows. Zoom all the way in, and you can hear the artillery fire, watch foot soldiers set up an ambush in a French village square and see a tank battalion inch along forest paths whilst a recon unit scouts ahead through the trees, on the lookout for hidden enemy soldiers. You can command the battle as if you're on the ground, or from a

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strategist's eagle-eyed viewpoint, and you'll need to make use of both. Pivotal moments in battle play out in letterboxed cinematics on the edges of the game screen, showing you a squadron of incoming bombers or the moment of defeat on another front.

RUSE's challenge comes from strategy and planning to outwit the opposition, moreso than any competitor on the RTS scene. It's a precise, ponderous game; it demands careful thought, forward-planning and preparation for all eventualities, not quick reactions. Overpowering the enemy by sheer force of numbers or speed of action is never a possibility. The game plays out significantly differently on each of its three difficulty settings – reinforcements that back you up at crucial moments simply don't show up on higher difficulties, and easy secondary objectives turn into death-traps.

The story follows an American chap called Joe Sheridan on his journey from a Major in Tunisia to a General on the front line in the closing stages of the War, guided by a charming, mustachioed British ranking officer. Unfortunately, Joe is a tiresome dude, a big-headed frat boy who often seems more concerned about his rivalries within the American army or the attentions of his attractive assistant than with the war at hand. The plot focuses on tracking down a German intelligence source, Prometheus, but frankly it's not a gripping war epic.

The opening mission gives you a tantalising glimpse of the scale and variety that you'll be playing with later, teasing you with a German battlefield full of looping fighter planes and bombers and tanks on all fronts. After that, though, the game takes all of that away for a good few starter missions. It flashes back to Tunisia in 1942 and takes quite some time to get going again. As the war goes on and Joe climbs the ranks, access to new units, base building and the titular Ruse techniques slowly opens up, but it's hours before you're really allowed to stretch your legs on the battlefield.

Those opening hours crawl by at the speed of one of the game's heavy tanks. Battles are slow and steady, relying heavily on your ability to predict the next enemy movements and defuse their attacks with ambushes and strategic unit deployment rather than meet them head-on. Crucial to this approach are the Ruse intelligence techniques themselves, which allow you to decrypt enemy transmissions to determine their movements, send spies behind their lines to see exactly which units are hiding there, speed up your own deployment and movement speed and boost your chances in various other helpful ways. In higher forms they even allow for dummy attacks, feinting your forces one way while in reality attacking from another. In multiplayer, the ruses evolve into devilish mind games and panicked gambles.

Knowing which Ruse mechanic to use at which time is crucial to success. RUSE isn't easy on strategic mistakes. You must remember to put your bombers under radio silence to protect them from fighter planes, or hide your infantry in towns or forests, or your vital, limited units will be wiped out. Make a mistake during the earlier missions and you're almost guaranteeing yourself an instant restart – oddly enough, things get a little easier later on, when the game finally starts allowing you to build your own bases, establish your own supply lines and deploy and position your own units. Once Joe is a general, you can always manufacture some extra tanks to make up for your strategic mistakes.

The slow pacing never changes, though. RUSE isn't a fast-paced RTS, but it's not a dumbed-down console port either (apart from a bizarre inability to redefine the controls, smartly laid-out as they are). It has its own tension; watching masses of Axis troop counters creep slowly and inexorably towards your base whilst you deploy defenses at the limited speed allowed you is just as tense as the frantic, unpredictable battles of other games in the genre, in its own way.

Closing Comments
RUSE takes a while to warm up, but once it does, it's cracking stuff, as the game's unfailingly proper British generals would no doubt put it. The Ruse mechanics do much to breathe fresh air into the genre, allowing for a pleasing game of tank-based poker. Its faults – that slow, slow pacing and yawning, sluggish start – are largely the result of this approach, and we're inclined to forgive them for the focus on the original psychological gameplay it creates.

by: Keza MacDonald

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Posted in: Strategy

Civilization V

My Iroquois nation spreads across the world quickly, being likened to plague by my enemies. In real life, this relatively small group of people was all but wiped out by the end of the 20th century, but in my game, they are a force to be reckoned with -- a nation wresting control of the seas with modern navies, and taking cities by force with infantry and tanks. Manifest Destiny takes on a whole new meaning; by 2010, I've slowly but surely conquered the Americans and other European nations, subduing them to my rule... or simply burning their once-haughty nations to ashes. It's a turn-based strategy game based around building up a selected society into a world power. And, yes, Civilization V can look seriously boring to the casual bystander, but for the person at the helm of the game each turn can lead to a weighty decision, giving the player a certain feeling of power that few, if any, games match.

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Civilization has no campaign, instead it simply allows the players to create a world of their devising and jump right into it either by themselves or with others in multiplayer. The biggest choice a player will make is what civilization they're going to play. Each civilization is led by a great leader from history, and gets a few special benefits and units, so its' important to consider what type of victory you're out to achieve before setting your nationality. For instance the French get cultural bonuses that give them a huge bonus towards a cultural victory, while playing Germany will give players access to powerful military units like the Panzer tank that can aid in taking over the world by force. Of course you can always pick a military-focused leader and take them on a route towards a cultural victory, but this will also present a greater challenge.

Besides picking a nation, players can further customize their scenario by switching between options such as whether the world will be made of several continents or not, what era they start in (Civ moves in eras, such as Medieval, Renaissance, etc., which also influences the level of technology you have access to), and how many other civilizations they wish to compete with. It essentially makes for infinite replayability, giving players a simple tool set to craft the challenge they want in of the world over and over again.

And hell yes, this is the type of game that you want to just play over and over. Like its predecessors, Civilization V is amazingly addictive, with games commonly drawing more than five or six hours out of me in a single sitting. The reason? Because win or lose, Civilization V allows players to guide an entire society and craft their own story, taking them from the dawn of history and far into the future. I love taking the Japanese and making them into a peaceful country who wants nothing more than to make Opera houses and win over their neighbors via their culture, or take the Aztecs and fashion them into a powerful imperialistic nation that is completely fascist and obsessed with world domination. Civilization V really is what you make of it, and for me it's a good way to tell alternate stories about some of history's most interesting nations.

I say Civilization V is only "good" -- and not "great," as I would have said about Civilization IV -- at crafting stories because I feel like the game's taken away some pretty important tools for customizing your society. In Civilization IV players could force things on their country and opposing nations in the form of religions and government. In Civilization V, though, players gather up "culture" as a resource, spending it every so many turns on "policies" that give their civilization bonuses. For instance a player might choose to put policy points into the "Piety" tree, giving their nation a boost to happiness and forcing them to accept an unnamed religion. I really appreciate the way the various policy trees give players a wide array of customization options for their nation, but I miss the power and ridiculous glee I got out doing things like forcing Judaism down the throats of my enemies because my Jewish Japanese empire was out to win owning the hearts and minds of my neighbors.

I could try to argue that the new city-state feature in Civilization V makes up for the lack of clearly defined religious and governmental institutions, but sadly I'd be lying. City-states are single city nations that players can either make allies of, ignore, or attack and take over. Gaining their favor grants your society access to their goods and gives you another loyal sword should your nation go to war, but ultimately I found the limited interaction I had with them pretty boring. Sure, it's fun to make a city-state that borders the opposite side of my enemy's nation an ally, watching as they attack them on their flank, but you can't do much else with them. Still, I guess I do kind of get a sick bit of pleasure of even mildly manipulating lesser powers to achieve victory…

Winning, actually, is where one of Civilization V's weaknesses come to light. While players can win through either diplomacy (via building the United Nations and being elected the leader), conquest (by taking out all other nations), science (by building a space ship and launching it), culture (by completing five of the policy tree branches), or by having the biggest score in the year 2050, in all the games I played it seemed it was overly difficult to get anything but a timed or military victory against the AI when starting from the earliest period. The AI is simply far too aggressive once they're on your borders, and no amount of gifts or other concessions would keep them from deciding to attack me. Attacking would then force me to focus on my military, taking my cities' production away from building the other scientific or cultural items I needed to win. It's more than a little annoying to play for ten or more hours only to realize that the victory you've been working towards is going to be thwarted by a belligerent computer player. I mean, look, I'm all for the blood of nations on my hands, but sometimes I like to be peaceful too, you know?

Still, if combat is what you're looking for, Civilization V has it in spades, and it's better than ever. In past Civilization games you could "stack" enemies on a space on the board, allowing you to make gigantic armies that players had to smash against one another turn after turn -- with results only really savvy strategy players seemed to fully comprehend. Civ V, on the other hand, doesn't allow stacking at all, forcing players to use more strategy than ever. With hexagon-shaped tiles making up the board, players now maneuver fewer units so that they can surround enemy forces, or use powerful units to choke off key points like mountain passes. Ranged units can also now fire over other units, making players carefully consider every army formation. As a result, combat is vastly more satisfying than it has ever been, feeling much more like a game of chess than a simple game of my-numbers-bigger-than-yours.

Combat is just one example of how Civilization V improves the franchise, with a host of other significant changes making this the most approachable the series has ever been. For instance take the advisor system. Like the console title Civilization Revolution (and other past Civilization games for PC), players have access to a set of advisors. These advisors specialize in various branches of nation building such as military and economics, and are available at any time for players confused about how to proceed. Moreover, each time a player chooses a new construction for their city, they can easily identify which building or unit their advisors think is pertinent thanks to symbols sitting next to the options. Every place the player looks in Civ V there's helpful tips on how to proceed, as well as in depth in-game "civlopedia" that easily allows players to find most any detail they could need in a given moment. Every menu or interaction in Civ V is more intuitive and helpful -- a testament to the lessons learned by a developer that's been making these games for almost two decades.

Years of experience has helped developer Firaxis understand their audience more than ever, and they've included tools in Civilization V that are going to make the community aspect of it accessible to casual players. Civilization has always had an active modding community, but unless you were knowledgeable enough about where to look and how to make them function, you probably never played any of them. In Civilization V the mods are in the main menu of the game, with players empowered with the ability to create, share, download and install mods with just a few clicks of a button. Creating and playing out your own stories is fun, but I for one think that it'll be a blast getting to enjoy unique scenarios crafted by other players.

Closing Comments
Civilization V is one of the best turn-based strategy games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Whether teaming up with my friends for some multiplayer, or simply losing a whole night of sleep to the game’s endlessly replayable single player, this is one game that any strategy enthusiast, or, hell anyone strat-curious should check out. Sure, I miss some of the deeper inter-civilization relations that the more defined religion and government setup brought in Civilization IV, but that’s nothing anyone new to the series will even think twice about. With all the tips, advisers and tools in place, this is the first Civilization for PC that I feel is worth just about every person’s time. Go forth and create, subdue, and exploit. Do as Firaxis has done, and bring Civilization to the masses.

 

by: Anthony Gallegos

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Posted in: Strategy

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: PC

The third entry to Dawn of War 2, Retribution, targets rabid fans that can't get enough of the franchise while also appealing to those who haven't tried it all. As a $30 stand-alone expansion it's easy to recommend, because despite its comparatively less exciting narrative, it still has a great set of missions, a lot of tactical options, multiplayer, and the same fun Dawn of War mechanics the franchise was founded on. The Dawn of War 2 series has long been a story about the Space Marines, but Retribution gives your a choice between Space Marines, Tyrannids, Chaos, Orks, Eldar, and the new Imperial Guard. After selecting an army, you play through 16 missions that are written just vaguely enough that they can work for any force. It's a clever way of giving you a lot of choice, but

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it also results in a weaker narrative than the previous Dawn of War 2 games. None of the characters stand out like the previous entries in Space Marines, and Retribution lacks that same sense of attachment that built up during the many, many hours I spent with the campaigns of both the original Dawn of War and the first expansion, Chaos Rising.

Even if the story isn't as engrossing, the gameplay is as addictive as ever. Retribution, like the Dawn of War 2 franchise in general, is a unique real-time strategy game, forcing the player to focus more on things like cover, unit facing, and general terrain layout more than just manufacturing an overwhelming force. And unlike so many other RTS games, Retribution pushes physics into the mix, making combat a wildly chaotic, violent experience compared to the predictability of something like StarCraft. It's not uncommon for explosions to blast craters in the ground and enemies to crash from the sky, knocking back your infantry. All the while your machine guns lay down suppressing fire while you micromanage small forces to overcome the odds.

The best part of having a campaign playable by multiple races is that it gives you a good reason to play things over and over again. Each army plays just differently enough that the stages don't feel too repetitive, and Warhammer nerds like me definitely appreciate the chance to play as their favorite army. In this case it's the newly added Imperial Guard that I love, who are just the right mix of squishy humans and tough-ass armored vehicles Other armies specialize in some field like ranged or melee combat, but the Imperial Guard have a little bit of everything – albeit of lesser quality. It makes them somewhat less heroic, and easier to identify with.

Like the previous Dawn of War games, Retribution still gets a lot of its mileage from its role-playing aspects. After each mission, you gain experience for hero units as well as equippable wargear. The result is a system that increases player choice and tactics even further, allowing you to customize your heroes to your play style, and better tailor your forces to the missions ahead. For instance you might love to have a hero that compliments your ranged troops with buffs or a powerful gun, or have a heavy hitter that can soak up damage and rush into the fray, inspiring those around them. It keeps the hero units interesting, and serves as a reason to look forward to the briefing screen in-between missions.

Retribution takes army customization one step further than the previous Dawn of War 2 titles because it also gives you the option to build units during battle. No, this isn't the return of base-building – that's something Relic is trying to clearly avoid – but players can now choose to bring additional units into battle in place of their heroes, and supplement their forces mid-mission with disposable ground forces. It's a great compromise between the unnecessary complexity of so many RTS titles and the small-scale micromanagement characteristic ofDawn of War 2.

It's easy to think of Retribution as an expansion, but it's much more than what I'd typically associate with that moniker since it comes with Dawn of War 2's multiplayer. Admittedly, the multiplayer has never been something I've been super into – Dawn of War 2 has always been about the campaign first and foremost for me – but it's still a fun distraction from the story. The online cooperative mode called Last Stand, wherein players use hero characters to fight wave after wave of enemies for experience and wargear, is also fun, though certainly not the main reason to pick up Retribution.

Closing Comments
Dawn of War 2 – Retribution is a great strategy game, and at its price point of $30 there’s simply no excuse not to pick it up if you’re a fan of the series or have been curious to check it out. It makes warfare into something violently beautiful, and pays homage to the nerdy lore that Warhammer fans like me can’t get enough of.

by: Anthony Gallegos

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Posted in: Strategy

Dungeons: PC

Dungeons is a game that suffers from an identity crisis. It's not unusual for a game to borrow elements from multiple genres. Take a look at shooters like Call of Duty that include RPG-style leveling, or Portal, that combined first-person action and immersion with mind-bending puzzles. Dungeons doesn't simply borrow from other genres though, it is caught between them in a tangle of confusion. That's not to say it's a bad game, it just has some issues. It is heavily inspired by the Dungeon Keeper series, which, if you're not familiar, is like Theme Park Tycoon meets Diablo, except you're Diablo. Your character is a Dungeon Lord, a being of the underworld who creates and controls magnificent dungeons that attract adventurers from far and wide. When they arrive, they are treated to rooms filled with piles of treasure, libraries full of ancient and arcane knowledge, and armories with only the finest gear. They fight

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clusters of monsters and make their way through deadly traps, all the while filling themselves with Soul Power. Then you, the Dungeon Lord, dash over to them and remove their precious Soul Power by beating them with a rod until they fall over, locking them in a prison, and then torturing or sacrificing them.

It is your duty within the context of Dungeons to build, maintain and improve your dungeon to provide maximum enjoyment for your invading heroes before you unceremoniously murder them and harvest their souls. It's a brilliant premise with good execution, but not content to simply be a dungeon simulator, Dungeons introduces extra requirements each campaign level to provide an ultimate goal and a means of progression. This is where Dungeons begins to show its split personality.

These extra goals swing wildly in fun, quality and difficulty. The campaign is broken up into three main parts and tracks your journey of revenge after being exiled by your ex-lover Calypso in a bold act of sabotage. Each part culminates in a boss fight. A boss fight. In a dungeon simulator. Strangely, the idea works well because as a Dungeon Lord, you have stats and skill trees which advance throughout the stages. You gain stat and skill points through completing levels and objectives within levels and can assign them however you see fit. Some of the skills, such as an early Construction tree option which increases the amount of light that emanates from your Dungeon Lord and mouse pointer, seem totally useless (the light doesn't affect the amount of dungeon you can see, just how bright things actually look), and a lot of the physical abilities greatly outdo their magical counterparts in damage and utility.

The abilities also have excessively long cooldowns. Some make sense, like the heal, which could potentially keep players alive indefinitely if the cooldown were too short, while abilities like the stun you get from the Minotaur boss does very little and needs a full 90 seconds to recharge. The result is that fights against tough opponents can mean that you sit and watch yourself auto-attack while waiting for abilities to recharge.

That's not always the case, however. The first boss fight requires you to follow a very specific (albeit simple) course of action, and the second requires some actual strategy. It took me a few tries to figure out how to beat the Minotaur, and some careful play to pull it off. It was surprisingly satisfying. Only the final boss, who should theoretically be the most exciting and involved, was notably dull.

A stronger commitment to either the dungeon simulation or the combat would have made either more satisfying. As it is, the dungeon components are fun but relatively shallow. If you can decipher the game's cryptic tutorial and get over the initial difficulty curve, creating a functional dungeon just requires you to learn a few simple techniques. Building several interconnected rooms of libraries and armories, throwing in some treasure and monsters, and setting a few traps around the perimeter tends to be very successful. Your demonic boss (who changes depending on the level) will try to throw you some curve balls, such as demanding that you dig your way to a flag or water some plants somewhere in the level, but often their challenges are mundane, like asking you to give them some gold (which you ought to have plenty of anyway).

Luckily, a lot of their demands and the other level objectives are framed with solid and well-written voice acting from your green henchman Mr. Sidekick. Mr. Sidekick keeps the mood light with regular puns and references (Dungeons is FULL of references to other games. A particularly prominent one is a character called Marthas, a powerful paladin that you turn evil. Sound familiar?), a sentiment mirrored by other samples of text. Items will reference their poor textures and relative un-scariness, and heroes that enter your dungeon have randomly generated and frequently hilarious names.

Although a lot of the game hits the mark in terms of wit, most of the ancillary characters -- primarily your bosses -- come off as boring and tend to talk way too slowly. Dungeons also peters out at the end, and by the time the campaign is through, the make-a-dungeon formula begins to overstay its welcome. Beyond the campaign, a custom game mode offers some new twists, but the relative shallowness of the dungeon-creation formula means that there's not a huge amount of replayability here.

A feature that is notably missing is multiplayer. Given the levels in which you face off against other AI controlled Dungeon Lords, it seems like a multiplayer version is a no-brainer and could offer an extremely fun, competitive and unique alternative, where players could balance the challenge of maintaining an attractive dungeon against the opportunity to sabotage or take over another. Instead, it may be up to modders to find a way for multiplayer to work.

Of course, the modding community's first priority may be making the game a little more stable. As it is, Dungeons crashes regularly and tends to corrupt save games. Both happened to me on more than one PC, and the official forums tell me I'm not the only one having problems.

Closing Comments
Dungeons is a fun but deceptively shallow Sim-RPG-thing that would have benefitted from pushing the envelope for either genre a little more. The creativity of its premise is never fully fleshed out but offers moments of genuinely unique fun. Although the missing multiplayer is a sore loss, the single player campaign still offers a pretty satisfying experience. If you like management-style games, Dungeons is well worth a look.

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Posted in: Strategy

Record of Agarest War Zero

Turn-based strategy's shining moments arise when a battle's won against staggering odds -- like avoiding defeat when half of the party's been wiped out. Record of Agarest War Zero features dozens of these tactical triumphs through its solid combat, but the stale other areas keep it from surpassing its predecessor and leaving a truly memorable mark on the genre. Record of Agarest War Zero continues the mechanics, story-style, and gameplay of the original Record of Agarest War. If you've played it, you'll be quite familiar with the territory treaded here. Zero's dropped the overt-sexuality of its predecessor, such as the well-endowed mouse pad in the

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special edition -- though you'll still find plenty of heaving chests and big-eyed maidens. Zero uses three main types of gameplay: turn-based combat, a dotted world map, and portrait-based city scenes. The combat is the strongest element of the package because the other types of gameplay still aren't as engaging. Record of Agarest War Zero is the prequel to Record of Agarest War. The tale follows Sieghart, an army commander who gains magical powers from a strange woman named Mimel. Blossoming from this setup, Record of Agarest War Zero is a slow-paced tale treading on familiar territory: the world is in danger and it's up to a small band of warriors to set things right. Sieghart travels through the world and wins the affection of a gaggle of ladies. This doting is odd set against the tumultuous events in the world, but it comes with dating-sim territory.

The main reason the Agarest War series is different from other strategy games is that the story is split over multiple generations. When the curtain finally closes on Sieghart's side of the story, it's his offspring with the maiden-of-highest-regard that carries on the tale into future years. It's a cool mechanic that suffers only from its own unpredictably. Namely, almost none of the dialogue choices with the in-game ladies logically apply to the strength of each relationship. Choices feel random and don't necessarily add points towards the maiden you may want to connect with.

Record of Agarest War Zero's shining light is combat. Moving characters into position like a chess board is a challenging undertaking, but a rewarding one. Depending on which square characters occupy, they can link to other characters to unleash joint attacks with powerful results. But it's the calculated movement of sprites into position that makes exciting battles. While the terrain is flat and backgrounds repetitive -- the environment is still a non-factor like the original Agarest War -- the strategic requirements of success are fulfilling for all strategy fans. Like winning a tense game of chess, Record of Agarest War Zero requires patience before revealing its spoils. Many enemies and spells return from the original Record of Agarest War, so don't expect a completely new experience, just more (plenty more) of the same.

Battles dish out experience like candy, yet money feels constantly tight. Record of Agarest War Zero is unforgiving in its difficulty (which isn't a bad thing) but because at least one character's slaughtered in almost every confrontation, resurrecting them becomes a huge money sink. Without selling off items and powerful spells in the inventory, it's difficult to sustain a battle-heavy lifestyle within Record of Agarest War Zero -- and that's really the only lifestyle there is. While keeping characters alive is an element of every fight, it's an expensive tenet of the experience.

One element that bothered me throughout the experience, more so than the original, is the lack of tangible connection to the characters. This begins during character creation, when selecting a vague set of cards dictates what the main character's strengths are. While the idea is interesting, the obscurity of the symbols makes for confusing character creation.

Continuing into gameplay, Agarest War Zero never has a section where you completely control your party running through a dungeon (which Record of Agarest War had). So the only time you really get to connect with your party is when their portraits are subtly breathing and speaking to each other. While this style did bond me to the characters eventually, it took a long time to feel like I knew them.

The graphical style is a striking aspect of Record of Agarest War Zero, for better or worse. The main party is made up of classic sprites pulled from a long-gone era, along with the majority of normal enemies. But these sprites stand in stark contrast to the 3D rendered backgrounds and bosses. This mixture makes the battlefield a jumbled mess of graphical styles that don't synch up. The 3D animations are smooth while the sprites jaggedly skip around. On their own, the graphical styles are cool, but it's the blending that's unappealing. It's as though Agarest War Zero can't decide whether to be a window to the past or an evolutionary step forward -- almost exactly like the last Agarest War.

Closing Comments
Record of Agarest War Zero retains solid combat and some interesting mechanics, but very little has changed since its predecessor came out last year. It’s a tough sell for anyone fresh to the strategy experience, but delivers a solid and lengthy campaign for those who know the territory. If you liked Record of Agarest War, you’ll feel right at home in this prequel which doesn’t dare change up the original formula.

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Posted in: Strategy

Risk: Factions: PC

Risk remains a favorite of board game fans, but playing it is a lengthy affair. A video version could keep gamers tethered to their PC for hours and hours before a victor is declared. That's why Electronic Arts wisely came up with a faster, streamlined version of Risk for Steam. Risk: Factions is an objective-based game where you're racing to complete specific tasks rather than conquer the world. It's a fun take on the classic strategy game that effectively speeds up the action. If that sounds sacrilegious to you, know that Risk: Factions also includes the classic game of Risk without the fancy pants new objective-based rules. Classic Risk can be played both locally and online.

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Instead of a map of Earth, the battles in Risk: Factions take place on fictional continents. Environmental hazards have been added such as a volcano that may erupt and wipeout the armies on nearby territories. Essentially, you're still taking over enemy territory and expanding your own, just as you do in the Risk you know and love. But now there are a variety of objectives you'll need to work towards. You could control a certain continent, control three connected cities, or own a set number of power plants. Achieve three objectives on a map and you'll achieve victory.

Switching the focus from land grabbing to objective completion really gets the game going faster. Your average game of Risk: Factions should run around half an hour. But just because it's faster doesn't mean it's easier. This is still a very difficult game full of strategic opportunities.

You roll dice to determine who loses troops in a battle, and the random nature of this can be slightly infuriating. Your army may greatly outnumber the enemy's but it's entirely possible to lose ten dice rolls in a row through no fault of your own. That's just the nature of Risk, though, and not a criticism of Factions.

Like most board games, there's not much you can do with Risk: Factions by yourself. While you can play against bots, it is really designed as a multiplayer game. There are only five single-player campaign missions and once they're completed there isn't anything else to work towards. But up to five players can join a match locally or online, which is really the heart of the game. I should point out that because of the game's difficulty and the fact that you need to spend some time with each map before you can master it, you'll spend several hours beating all five campaign missions.

Electronic Arts has added a lot of personality to Risk, making for some amusing visuals. There are five factions to choose from (Humans, Cats, Robots, Zombies, Yetis), each with their own attack animations and individualized dice. When you attack an enemy the offensive and defensive forces will appear on the bottom of the screen. The cats will spit hairballs while zombies will toss severed limbs at the opposing team.

The one interface issue is in the way you add troops to territories. You have to click an area and then slide the mouse left or right to add or subtract units. It feels really awkward and I can't believe there isn't a better solution for this major game mechanic.

Closing Comments
Messing with a beloved board game is a risky affair, if you'll excuse the pun. But Risk: Factions succeeds at streamlining the classic game and adding a little personality to it. It hasn't been over simplified or cheapened. Instead, it acknowledges that there is more to winning a war than world domination.

by: Daemon Hatfield

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Posted in: Strategy

Theatre of War 3: Korea

For the last four years, online publisher Battlefront.com and developer 1C Company have channeled their joint enthusiasm for realistic war simulations into serving a niche market of like-minded hobbyists. Through their Theatre of War franchise, they've presented a series of realistic, historically-based titles focusing on real time tactical warfare. Their latest offering, Theatre of War 3: Korea, focuses on the battles that took place between the U.S. and North Korea during the summer and fall of 1950. Despite 1C Company's obvious love for the subject matter, the game suffers from various legacy issues that prove the old adage, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

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The first problem you're confronted with is the near-complete lack of direction. A bafflingly complex menu screen displays all your infantry, weapons and vehicles, but all of these appear to be completely non-interactive. You hit the "start battle" button hoping the tutorial clears things up, and this takes you into the brief, single objective tutorial battle where the instructions continue to be near-nonexistent. What you do get is limited to a handful of terse pop-up messages from your commanding officer who tells you how to select combat units and move them, as well as how to enter and exit a helicopter. For further instruction, you're stuck referencing the manual through Steam.

Very quickly you find yourself in the weeds, unsure of why units won't move or if they move, why they won't go where you tell them to. You continue to urge your reluctant units to move to the objective marker on the mini-map but just as you make it within spitting distance of your objective, a victory message inexplicably pops up. Confused, you hit the "Finish" button to end the battle, not knowing how you won a battle you technically hadn't even attended.

Post tutorial, you head into the campaign which can be approached from the perspective of either the North Korean offensive or the American counteroffensive. Whichever you choose, you'll then be whisked to the game's strategic map. Strategic mode is new to the Theatre of War series and takes place on a large map detailing the larger areas under contention. Each side takes a turn moving markers around the map, either to conquer an unoccupied territory or to clash head-on with the region's occupying force. On paper this mode might sound like a ton of strategic fun, but in practice it's terribly dull. Nothing much happens unless you're involved in a fight so this mode quickly becomes an unnecessary pit stop on the way to the next battlefield.

Once the battle starts, you're tossed onto the field again with a selection of armored vehicles and infantry as well as the ability to call for air or artillery support. Calling for support is actually the most fun you'll have in the game since you hit a button and soon after, see an actual result. Otherwise, you spend most of the time fighting your own forces more than you do the enemy. Despite the extensive number of unit controls, it's amazingly difficult to get them to do what you intend and more often you're stuck watching your infantry run off in the wrong direction or watching helplessly as a tank circles around and around a building rather than blowing it up. It's extremely frustrating as poor AI and poor pathfinding make your army act like it's been bombed with idiot gas, rendering it completely incapable of taking direction.

It's really too bad because 1C Company has obviously worked very hard to create a sense of realism in the game. Sadly, they seem to have lost sight of a game's purpose—fun. They might have spent hundreds of man hours create individual names, skills and gear for each member of the infantry and emulating the way things work in real warfare, but is it any fun to watch for 45 seconds while a helicopter takes off or to wait ten minutes while your mortar crew drags their collective ass across the map? Dedicated military history buffs will likely think this is a big part of the fun but everyone else will likely become impatient with it.

Other problems Theatre of War 3: Korea suffers from are poor frame rate and an overall lack of historical flavor. The game chugs when there are more than ten or fifteen units on screen, even with the graphics turned all the way down. And with the settings cranked down, the work 1C Company put into the environment art is all for naught since all you'll be seeing are flat, ugly textures. Of course, this graphic handicap could be countered if the game offered more in the way of context and story. Strangely, while embracing one of the most interesting phases of the Korean War, Theatre of War 3 offers nothing in the way of backstory, characterization or even background music. After seeing so many war movies, most of us think of America's wars as taking place to music so where's Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" when we need it?

These flaws do a lot to undermine the game's overall fun, though hardcore wargamers may gladly ignore the frame rate, unresponsiveness and AI issues; heck, they might not even mind having to leave the game to study the online manual. Additionally, dedicated sim gamers who live for the genre's inherent micromanagement will no doubt relish the time and effort it takes to plan assaults, direct individual units and in between battles, upgrade each soldier's specific skills. While there are only two ready-made campaigns to choose from, the Campaign generator allows creative players to make their own, setting things like number of turns, terrain, maps and even the dates of the battles. Further, they can use the Mission Generator to create individual battles, setting the mission type (assault or defense) as well as the weather. Multiplayer too offers other gameplay possibilities, although it features only attack/defend and capture the flag.

Closing Comments
While 1C Company should be congratulated for being ambitious enough to put forth the effort to recreate in minute detail, one of the most pivotal events of the Cold War, they should perhaps be admonished for not being ambitious enough. For all its aspirations in regard to realism, Theatre of War 3: Korea fails to set the bar high enough for itself when it comes to AI, player feedback, unit responsiveness, framerate, new player tutorials and oh yeah—fun. For all its historical correctness, the experience of playing the game just isn't as much fun as it could be and in the end proves not only that "War is Hell", but that sometimes it's Hell for all the wrong reasons.

by: Neilie Johnson

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Posted in: Strategy

Two Worlds II Castle Defense: PC

Two Worlds II Castle Defense is only vaguely linked with the third-person action adventure Two Worlds II. It takes place in the same universe, but is an overhead tactical game all about you defending an area from invaders, summoning troops and strategically directing them to victory. It's a surprisingly deep take on the castle defense genre, but its current $9.99 price tag and brutal difficulty make it hard to recommend.In Two Worlds II Castle Defense you're the all-seeing commander of a small battlefield. From your birds-eye view you summon troops to defend an important person from

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incoming waves of enemy orcs. You're challenged to select the right troops for the job, picking from specialties like swordsman, bowman and healer. Of course all these units (and their upgrades) cost money, so it's up to you to effectively spend your limited income on what will best hold against the incoming enemy tide.

Those features described above are nothing I haven't seen before in a castle defense game, but where Two Worlds II adds a lot of depth is with unit placement. When you choose to purchase a unit, you have to put him down on a limited number of spots. From here the units have a radius around them that they'll react to if enemies cross. This is important not only to make sure you have enemies covering specific areas of the battlefield, but also because some deployment areas give a 50% bonus to health and attack power. The enemies you're fighting don't advance in a straight line, and the placement points aren't a neat grid, so it's important to analyze the battlefield and plan deployment in ways that create choke points. I'm the type of guy who likes to mill strategic choices over in my head, so the more options the better.

Even after you pick your positioning, there are more factors to consider. Most of the time you won't be able to afford troops for all the slots, so you'll have to use special powers to teleport them around as needed. This also awards a unique strategic option to warp troops in and out of combat, cycling out injured warriors for those who are being healed. Combine this with other options like the ability to spend money to heal troops in battle, or even call down special offensive spells, and there's always plenty to do and think about during any wave. It can become overwhelming, but the developer put in a brilliant pause feature, allowing you to move troops around before un-pausing. I love the variety of tactical options they've implemented; it turns a potentially dull experience into a deep experience I dig as a strategy game enthusiast.

But despite all the smart features Two Worlds II Castle Defense includes, it also has some pretty glaring omissions. The biggest of these is a difficult option. Two Worlds II Castle Defense often feels unfair and if you're not ready to try each stage over and over you're never going to make it through the campaign. Moreover there's no way to tell what type of units are coming in the next wave, giving you no way to prepare for what's coming, and leaving you to restart the entire level over after you get wiped out.

Closing Comments
While I enjoy the deep strategic elements of Two Worlds II Castle Defense, it’s oppressively difficult and a chore to finish the levels. Maybe if all the stages were unlocked right off the bat it wouldn’t be such an issue, but when you have to finish a level to move onto the next it becomes a frustrating, repetitive affair.

by: Anthony Gallegos

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Posted in: Strategy

Total War: Shogun 2 PC

Breaking from the complexity of Empire: Total War, Creative Assembly trims things down for Shogun 2. It's not a revolutionary step, but a necessary one. It's a reaffirmation of Total War's core values. It's about armies charging forward waving spear and sword, clashing in the middle of vast battlefields to determine the fate of a nation. It's about navigating a land at war to negotiate trades, establish alliances and govern a growing collection of provinces to satisfy a need for conquest.

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Shogun 2 proves Creative Assembly's combination of turn-based strategy with sweeping real-time tactical combat is just as entertaining as ever. It features brilliant visuals and sound, thrilling clashes between massive armies, and an expertly designed interface to ease in newcomers without sacrificing the depth veterans expect. Issues with the game's artificial intelligence and stability are still present, but pale in comparison to the whole of Creative Assembly's accomplishment. Shogun 2 is a high water mark for the Total War series.

As established by the original Shogun back in 2000, the Total War formula is comprised of two parts. First there's the turn-based campaign map management, similar to Civilization. In Shogun 2 you have but one goal: seize control of Kyoto and establish yourself as shogun in 16th Century Japan. Starting conditions vary, with a short campaign starting in 1545 and lasting until 1575, while long and domination campaigns last until 1600. With four turns per year, one for each season, you'll need to spend time wisely to navigate Japan's hostile landscape packed with warring clans and swirling loyalties. Competition for territories and trade routes is fierce, making establishing dominance all the more rewarding.

One of nine clans is available to play from the beginning, each associated with a set of bonuses and level of difficulty. Some are positioned by the sea with easy access to harbors and trade routes and few borders to worry about. Others begin the game in Japan's center, locked in on all sides by potential enemies. Expansion and acquisition is always the goal, as you'll need to capture and hold a number of territories in addition to Kyoto to attain victory. Expand too fast and you'll draw the attention of the sitting shogun. Move too slowly and you'll fall way behind as rival clans maneuver and seize territory, eventually storming Kyoto before you've even had a chance to see it. Diplomacy can be crucial when extending your network of power, but this is ultimately a game for warmongers.

There's still a huge amount of room for varied styles of play. To stay on track alliances can be established with other nations, family members married off to strengthen ties and trade pacts formed to exchange resources. To enfeeble enemies ninjas can be sent out to assassinate targets and sabotage city gates, ports blockaded with ships and metsuke stationed in home cities to watch for enemy agents and help keep the population under control. Declare war on a powerful enemy alliance and expect to be swarmed from all sides as they assault your castles. Conquer a city and occupy it peacefully or turn it into a vassal state and benefit from regular payments. Upgrade farms and markets to bring in revenue and exempt provinces from tax if civil unrest grows to near-revolt levels. And be mindful of the seasons as armies in the field suffer attrition in the winter months. Though Shogun 2 is wrapped in a pretty new interface meant to lower the barrier to entry, it loses none of its depth.

Everything in the game is artfully presented – from the skill trees and personality readouts of individual generals to the unit cards of your infantry in battle. Though there's plenty of information to pore over, including individualized traits for notable clan members and detailed city status breakdowns, it never feels as though you're examining a spreadsheet, even as you're mousing over clans on the diplomacy screen and reading the tooltip that shows exactly why they do or don't like you. There's still a learning curve in Shogun 2 so don't expect to jump in and unify Japan a few minutes later if you're new to the series. This is still a game for those with patience and an appreciation for looking five moves ahead instead of only at the immediate. An exhaustive in-game encyclopedia and a wealth of tutorials are on offer to make the learning experience less daunting.

This leads to the second major aspect of Total War, the real-time combat. When two armies clash on the battlefield, there's the option to either auto-resolve the conflict or dive in and decide the fate of those involved by hand. You'll command thousands of units: archers and matchlock infantry for inflicting damage from range, spearmen to skewer charging cavalry, katana samurai to slice through spearmen, and cavalry to loop around behind the enemy, hide in a tree line, establish a wedge formation and thunder forward, breaking the back of the enemy force when they least expect it. Nobody does big battles as well as Creative Assembly. In Shogun 2 the studio delivers a masterful blend of visuals and satisfying gameplay, a result of years of experience refining the Total War formula.

The artificial intelligence of your enemies is also much improved. On the campaign map, if you make an alliance with a clan, there's no need to worry they'll suddenly turn and raid your empire with no warning. In battle, it will move cavalry away from spearmen to drive into the sides of your formation, surge katana infantry at archers, take to the high ground and hide in trees and wheel its front lines around to match your angle of approach. Though it is possible to pull in live players to your campaign battles if you want, you'll still find a formidable adversary in the AI, even if from time to time it forgets to move entire columns of spear infantry out from the range of archers.

Like in Empire before it, battles span land and sea. Thanks to a shift in time period and ship types, the action on the water is much more manageable in Shogun 2. A majority of the sea-faring vessels are propelled by oars. While a few have explosive options, a bulk of your force will fire at the enemy with arrows until they're able to close to boarding range. Once hooks are flung across to the enemy vessel, those aboard will pile out and over, slashing at foes on the other ship until a victor is decided. This move away from relentless micromanagement of wind direction and cannon shot types makes the sea combat more digestible. As is the case with the land combat, the clarity of unit relationships leads to more comprehensible, controllable warfare, which is ultimately more fun.

All of the action is presented with incredible visuals. You'll see burning arrows soar through the sky leaving trails of smoke, igniting the ground under their target and, occasionally, houses if they're in the way. Riderless horses flee from the heart of combat while katana infantry slash and block as individual units. Though organized into artificial formations, as soon as columns clash there's chaos as samurai charge into combat and cavalry topples those on foot like toys, while the occasional rider is sent flying helplessly through the air. Whether at sea or panning across the campaign map, the attention to detail is always impressive, even less technically advanced effects like the way undiscovered regions on the campaign map are displayed like paint strokes on paper. It's still a demanding game that will chew up lower end systems, but still better optimized than past Creative Assembly products. As might be expected of a Total War game, the soundtrack is absolutely brilliant, with pounding drum arrangements that churn the adrenaline in the midst of a fight and wind and string melodies that soothe the mind while tending to tax rates. If you listen closely on the campaign map, you can even hear the flutist's intake of breath.

Those who'd rather ditch the challenge of Creative Assembly's artificial intelligence in favor of live opponents are in luck, because Shogun 2 has a substantial multiplayer component. For starters there's a full multiplayer campaign where you can play co-operatively with another, taking turns moving across Japan. Your progress can be saved and returned to later in case, like most people, you don't have to time to run through a full campaign in one sitting. What's even more impressive is the Avatar Conquest mode, where you manage an online persona and fight your way across Japan in an interactive setting.

There's an obscene amount of upgrades in the Avatar Conquest mode unlocked through your actions in battle. You'll unlock different gear for your avatar's character model like helmet crests and armor pieces, develop a giant skill tree that's entirely unique to conquest mode, as well as manage a growing stable of land and sea units to fight your online battles. The goal here is to conquer provinces in Japan, and to do so you'll move board game-style icons across land and sea. There's no turn-based play in the mode. Instead, the conquest map serves as a gateway to player-versus-player real-time battles. In one-on-one or team battles you can join up with others and test your tactical skills with an army of your choice. And just in case that wasn't enough, you can also join with Steam group clans to dig into yet another layer of territorial control across the conquest map. While creating all this content, it's great to see Creative Assembly didn't lose sight of the details as well.

As tends to be the case in many online modes these days, all your progress is fed into a leveling system that gradually makes available more features. You'll be able to slot retainers on your avatar profile to gain bonuses in battle, customize and save your army loadouts and check leaderboards. You can even assign individual names to units awarded with veterancy ranks through experience in battle, dump skill points into their upgrade trees, and customize the color scheme of your avatar's personal body guard. Between this mode and the multiplayer campaign, there's enough content here to keep you busy for long after you've run a few campaigns and tried out all the difficulty settings. Though many of the multiplayer games I played worked fine, I also experienced numerous crashes while trying to connect with others online. It's nothing that hampered the overall experience, though, so don't let that dissuade you from giving Shogun 2 a shot.

Closing Comments
Longtime fans will surely find a lot that's familiar in Shogun 2, but will also find Creative Assembly's most polished, well-presented and playable version of its Total War franchise. Shogun 2 is an expertly tuned turn-based strategy game filled with exhilarating real-time tactical battles against a capable artificial intelligence or others online. With a gigantic multiplayer suite and fantastic visuals and sound, Shogun 2 is a high point for the Total War series, featuring a staggering attention to detail and immensely satisfying gameplay.

by: Charles Onyett

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Posted in: Strategy