Tropico 4 has taken a hold of me

As a gamer who spends most of my time on my Xbox 360 strategy games are few and far between. Far more tragic is the fact that one studio, EA Los Angeles, has been the developer for almost all of the good ones. What feels like several years have passed since I last played a good strategy game on my Xbox 360 but now that I’ve acquired Tropico 4 my love of them has been rekindled. Tropico is most easily described as a SimCity-type game set in the cold war Caribbean with a huge dose of humor added into every bit of text, dialogue and design.

Overview of an island inhabited by Tropicans, image from worldoftropico.com

The campaign follows the template of most other strategy games with you starting with a few buildings and being tasked with expanding the economy and building up the entire infrastructure from as good as scratch. Every mission gives you a slightly new set of circumstances like decreasing the amount of resources available on the island or restricting the types of buildings you can use.

After having played 10 missions my feeling is that the campaign should end soon but thanks to the menus I know I’m only halfway through. It’s a shame when games don’t know where to stop. This aside I’ve had a helluva time with the missions I’ve played and definitely feel that Haemimont Games have done an excellent job.

From what I understand reading online Tropico 3 is extremely similar to Tropico 4 but with this being my first game in the franchise this has not had any impact on me whatsoever. The real benchmark for how good a game is the following question: “Have I had a lot of fun playing this game?” or in case you haven’t already finished it completely: “Do I want to play more?”. In the case of Tropico 4 the answer to that last question is a definite yes so that’s precisely what I will do now.

Far Cry 3 anecdote

There has been a lot of talk about Far Cry 3 on the many gaming communities online and after having played it for about an hour I’m starting to understand why. To explain I will share an anecdote that in my mind verifies the claims of greatness that so many people have made about this game.

I have just cleared my first pirate outpost and I’m given directions to the first proper mission, a meeting with a Dr Whateverville in the south-west who apparently knows where one of my abducted friends are. With this destination in mind I get into one of the trucks whose pirate owner’s pink-slip has just been revoked by my AK-47 and I get on my way. 

With excellent handling the vehicles in Far Cry 3 are great to drive, image from ubi.com

As I pleasurably drive down the sandy roads towards my target I’m suddenly under heavy fire from several hostiles and I floor it straight into one or two of them. After jumping out of the car and then taking cover behind it I begin to take the attackers out one by one, eventually clearing all of them out. A few of the hardened island inhabitants come out from behind cover and thank me for assisting them. My thoughts are something along the lines of –“I was just helping myself”. When I start heading back for my vehicle a straggler runs over to my car, gets in, turns around and starts heading right for me. I immediately start shooting with everything I’ve got to stop him from running over me and only a few meters away from me the car stops and the text “Headshot: 25XP” comes up on my screen. I am overjoyed with not having a 2 ton car sitting on top of me. I get back in the car and continue my journey southwest towards the doctor.

After only a few moments two trigger-happy pirates in a truck pass me by on the road. Me and the other driver, both having identified each other as enemies, slam the brakes, get the fuck out of our cars and start shooting. The only trouble for me is that I run out of bullets after about two seconds and so I quickly hide behind the relative safety of my car.

The desperation sets in. –“These guys are shooting at me and I have nothing to shoot back with”. I check my inventory. I see a single Molotov cocktail and of course my trusty knife.  A plan appears in my mind. I throw the Molotov cocktail at the truck and one of the guys taking cover behind it is set on fire along with the entire truck. Fast as hell I run up to the other guy who barely reacts before I thrust my knife into him and finish the encounter.

I hope I managed to convey some of the awesomeness experienced in this for all intents and purposes random event in Far Cry 3.

This isn't a meta-post

I'm really not trying to write a meta-post about how little time I have left for both gaming and this blog but I will write a line or two just so the information is here. Since I started my education (Master of Science in Engineering, Engineering Mathematics) in August I have had little to no time to play games and no time at all to spend on this blog. This means that even though I might write a blog post every now and then I don't intend to keep a regular schedule. I'm still undecided on whether or not I should pay for another year of hosting. Don't worry for the time being though, the site isn't going to disappear for at least 6 more months even if I do decide against paying.

The gaming I have done for the past few months has been sporadic but I have managed to get through some of Uncharted 3, I've played through Halo 4, spending a few hours in multiplayer too, and I have tried out Hitman Absolution (only the first few missions). What I will says is that each and every one of these games are fantastic.

I tried to stay clear of all Halo 4 coverage during the past few months and I fully expected Halo 4 to be my last Halo game had 343 industries messed it up but with great gameplay and fantastic visuals I got a huge surprise. Halo 4 absolutely blew me away and I must say that it is probably the strongest entry in the franchise I've had an intimate relationship with since its start.

Uncharted 3 has pretty much done everything right so far and I do want to finish it as soon as I have the chance. Hitman Absolution has done more than enough to make me instantly fall in love. I thoroughly enjoy the replayability of the missions and the fact that the gameplay is smoother than ever. In that fashion it is sort of the Splinter Cell Conviction of the Hitman series. Absolution takes an excellent series and with a few "simple" steps makes it a complete joy to play and helps me unlock my inner badass.

This is very overtly positive post but the fact is that now that I don't have time to play for hours every day I sort of automatically stay away from the mediocre stuff. When a game royally pisses me off or just isn't very good then I can just say fuck it and play a much better game instead. This is in relation to the past where I could play the excellent games to 100% completion and still have time for the mediocre games.

Peace Walker does MGS a bit differently, but then very much the same

I’m starting to get into Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker more and more now. I’m still in the beginning of the game but now have enough missions under my belt to say that the game is rather good. Some spoilers ahead, beware.

I get somewhat annoyed by the amount of unnecessary dialogue at times but apart from that I’m really warming up to this game. That was a lie actually, I have another thing that annoys me with Peace Walker.

During a couple of the cutscenes while the characters babble on and on you get sort of an X-ray vision so you can see through one of the girl’s clothes and look at her half-naked body. A deep “for fucks sake get your shit together Kojima” emerges inside of me. I thought the constant shots of boobs/ass in MGS4 was excessive but this shit is even worse. They could’ve left this juvenile “feature” on the cutting room floor and the game would’ve been better for it.

The mother base stuff is pretty darn good and satisfied part of my thirst for “management” type stuff to do in games. Choosing the right guy for the right job is a welcome change of scenery that makes me, Big Boss, feel like I am actually in control of an organization and not just a pawn like in the other games. The mother base sort of remind me of the world map in Evil Genius where you could send your henchmen out on assignments and then reap the rewards. They didn’t overcomplicate it either, you can just auto-assign all of the new recruits and not worry about it at all.

Looking forward to the rest of Peace Walker.

My adventures as a Witcher are over

I just can't finish this game. I've played about 9 hours and have hit a point where all my current quests are "Collect 5 flowers" and "Collect 8 more stones" and I just can't get past it. I feel like I haven't really got anywhere in the game yet and that's not a good feeling to have after almost 10h played. This game could've used a whole lot of content-trimming, making the main quest more accessible for those of us who don't want to spend such a crazy amount of time just trying to finish the main quest.

The Witcher looks quite good for its age

I don't have anything more to share over this, I just don't want to spend all that time playing this game, fetching shit for NPCs. That's what MMORPGs are for and it's for that exact reason I don't play them. I guess that in the end, The Witcher is just not for me.