Stronghold, how I love thee

So I have been playing this game called Stronghold a great deal lately. As I said before it is a castle-building game and has several game modes. I am playing the demo as we lost our copy of the game a long time ago but it still gives a fair few hours of gameplay if you can play with someone else. The solo stuff includes an economic mission, where you have to makesome weapons in a specific amount of time, a siege where you can attack or defend, and an invasion, where you have a limited amount of time to prepare your castle for a large attack. The game requires you to manage your resources and servants as efficiently as possible. Often there isn't a lot of space, and you always need to make the most of it, so you need to be able to know in future what you are going to build and where it is going to go.



Depending on the popularity of your castle/king people will rock up at your castle for you to use as workers, or to turn into archers/macemen/crossbowmen etc. The main resource in the game is wood. This can be used to make buildings, make spears and bows and crossbows, and make fairly weak wooden walls. There are a few other resources such as iron, wheat, apples, peat etc. but these are less essential in the early parts in the game. To build certain buildings you need gold and the only way you can gain gold is by either selling your goods for a tiny amount, or taxing your workers. However, taxing your workers results them in being unhappy and they will begin top leave the castle unless you do something to cheer them up. These things include bribing them with food by increasing their rations, increase the variety of their food, so produce apples, cheese, and bread, or build happy little places for them to look at such as large ponds.

The game however does have some major flaws. As I said above I have been playing with my brothers and friends. My on one computer and them on the other, yet the game is always favoring the defending side. If you decide to build up massive defenses then there is little the other person can do to beat you. There are also issues with...balance...I guess you could say, as some troops are much much stronger then others for about the same cost. But overall, it has been a blast, I wasted most of yesterday playing with my brothers and loving the nostalgia. Oh, one last thing about Stronghold which is really the icing on the castle; each player is able to trade medieval insults. You just hit a button and the man will roar out "Weasel Turd!!"

Moar Updates!

A couple of weeks ago our neighbour entrusted me with here two darling guinea pigs to take care of for a couple of weeks while she and her family were in Singapore. Strangely one of the guinea pigs died within a week of laying eyes on me so I guess I can expect a lawsuit any day now. :P

On a lighter note I've started playing a game called Spectromancer which is a tactical onlien card game with singleplayer elements. The game is free to play and is surprisingly entertaining with none of the usual micro transactions such as buying booster packs.

Everyone has the same cards which are chosen randomly each game, so while you might be slightly unlucky with the cards you get, its never hopelessly unfair. It makes the game even more tactical as you really need to be constantly working out what combinations are best with your randomly generated cards. It would be nice to be able to customize your deck by picking form cards available to everyone but there are various reasons why this isn't the case and the game doesn't suffer without it. So check out Spectromancer today because it is well worth the download.

Digging out the old stuff

After quitting WAR a few weeks ago I have been getting out all my old games and came accross Test Drive 6 which I played as a young kid. TD6 is so ridiculously unrealistic that it surpasses being funny, then keeps on going till it gets back to being funny. It was funny how different I saw the game so long ago as apposed to now. I managed to finish the game very quickly and as there isn't any difficulty setting there really isn't any point to keeping it on the hard drive any longer, yet I can't do it. Whenever I'm slightly bored TD6 is there for a quick absurdly, stupidly, outrageously rediculous race. Just to illustrate my point I made a quick video of the game showing just how unrealistic the game is, not to make fun of the game because I love it, but just to preserve my fondest memories of the game.

The first game I ever played

Ah, sweet memories. I'm in the middle of my school holidays so I'm spending most of my time reading, sleeping, resting, or on the computer. The post about WoW yesterday got me thinking. I said that it was the first mmorpg that I played and the experience was completely new, well then I thought of the first ever game that I played. It was called Sid Meirs Colonization, and it was a brilliant. It was the kind of game that you can play like crazy for a few weeks, then lay off for a few weeks, then go just as crazy again and again and again.

Of course as a young kid, this being my first game I would only play it on the easiest level, as anything above that would result in a quick loss. There is not a whole lot I can remember about the actual gameplay but it basically involved starting a new colony in a new land, from a variety of nations, each of these nations had a specific tactical advantage such as faster or stronger ships. (Don't choose Spain because they suck)
You gain various convicts from your home city who can perform tasks for you such as gathering furs or corn which you would then sell. The productivity of these item depended on where you built your town. Theoretically you could explore the entire map searching for the perfect spot but this would take too long and let the neutral Indians and Incas build up their troops. Also, your colony could produce more if you had a specific specialist like a tanner or something who would enable you to produce more furs. These specialists were rare and often came from capturing or destroying enemy ships.

You could only return to your home city my exiting the map from the east so it was time-wasting and unproductive to build your new colony far away from the eastern edge. As you gain more convicts you could then build another colony build a little road between the two and begin making troops. These troops were convicts who had been trained in a barracks which you would have to build in your colony. Combat was simply based on the skill and strength of your troops and their terrain. Naval battles were also vital in preventing other nations from trading with their home city.

The game was extremely fun and quite tactical. Looking back now I begin to notice how much other games gathered from Colonization, and how remarkable it was when it was released in 1994. The final thing you had to do in order to pass the game was declare your independence and then an massive army of enemies would appear around your cities and you would have to beat them off. Even though it was a simple game I still got an incredible thrill from gaining my independence. And that was the first game I ever played.

Combatting Combat Arms

Despite my hopelessness and first person shooters I downloaded Combat Arms the other day. It came as recommendation from a friend of mine who was gushing over it. After starting up the client and logging in, I picked one figure from four others, this wasn't really important as the differences were purely cosmetic. I then went to the shop/modification place where I was able to spend some of the money I had been given as a starting point on weapons. I picked one randomly, not really minding too much about the stats (I told you I'm hopeless at these games) and added a scope and silencer using the modifications option which was quite cool. Everything I bought gave me the option of either buying it for a day, a week, a month, or even 3 months, each getting more and more expensive with the weapon expiring from your inventory after that period of time. So saying, it would take an awful long time to save up enough to buy a gun for a year with the only way to acquire money is through playing matches, so I quickly entered a server and found a game. The loading time was surprisingly quick and within seconds I was running around pew pewing.

For a while I just ran around, getting used to the game and figuring out what all the keys did and dying so many times I started to think that some of these people were hacking. After five minutes I got my first kill and did a little dance of victory, having died nearly 10 times before doing so. The match was over and I gained a little bit of experience towards the next rank as well as $100.

I joined a few more games and did equally bad in them as well and was starting to hate the game quite badly before I found a map that seemingly suited me. It was called Junk Flea and was a very small map, with plenty of cover and things to hide behind, needless to say there was a ton of camping but I didn't care. Because so many were camping I just ran all over the place chucking grenades and then changing startled players, spraying all over the place. By the end of it I had actually got a positive kill/death ratio and had found my calling. Now I only play on that map and manage to get in the top 3 regularly. There seems to be only about 5 maps which is quite limited seeing as a few of the maps seem very similar, however I'm sure that Nexon will be releasing more maps later.

Kingdom of Loathing

A few days ago I was drawn to the game Kingdom of Loathing by a fellow blogger Tobold. Before that I had never really heard of it before and was interested in testing it out.

The game is a free browser-based game that presents a humerous view of not only pop culture but other, expensive games with high graphics. I found the game quite refreshing for a while and was really enjoying myself before I found out that you could only do a certain amount of stuff each day. See, you have a certain amount of 'adventures' per day which means that you can only fight a certain amount of battles or talk to a certain amount of people every day. While this makes you choose what you do very carefully it does also create a restricted nature to the game that makes it hard to accustom to, for the new player the first hour or so you are just wandering around and getting used to the dynamics and then the big imposing adventure cap comes along and stops you from doing anything more.

If by that time you hadn't done anything particularly exciting, other then just settle down and explore, then the restriction would probably prevent you from playing again. However, this is just a minor problem which supposedly can be solved by eating various foods and drinks that will increase you adventures.

The game also has a rule which requires you to log onto your character every 60 days otherwise your account will be deleted. This is an idea that can swing both ways; for one it reduces the number of people that played for 2 seconds before thinking it was boring and never played again, but it also can put a whole lot of pressure on those that just want to have a break from the game. A friend who has a top quality character with tons of good gear of stuff says he only logs on now and then just so his account is deleted, but doesn't really play very much.
And here is where I kind of agree, Kingdom of Loathing really only interests for a short period of time, while the dynamics, characters, battles, and items are original and funny for a while I couldn't see myself playing for a whole lot longer.

The game is funny, smart, unique and relaxing to play and I enjoyed it for all of two days, but try it out and hopefully you will enjoy it and play longer.