Below are the 3 most recent journal entries recorded in ludopolis' LiveJournal:

Friday, March 17th, 2006
9:13 pm	God of War God of War is fun. Usually games that simply involve running around and hitting shit down keep my interest for long, but God of War is an excellent example of a fighting game with some real appeal. Quick Summary: You play Kratos, a near-psychopathic Spartan who sold out to Ares, the God of War. Ares saved Kratos' life, and in exchange Kratos became Ares' right-hand man/hired muscle. One of the main perks of this job are the 'Blades of Chaos', two big sharp things attached to chains seared into the flesh of his forearms. Things go sour between Ares and Kratos, and Kratos decides to kill Ares. This is where the game starts. (Well, actually, it starts with Kratos killing himself, and the rest of the game is a flashback, but you get the point). God of War is a work of art. A basic premise of good fiction is that if you introduce a gun in the first chapter, someone should get shot with it in the last chapter. God of War does this sort of thing very well, at least twice that I can recall. There are a few gaping inaccuracies from a historical standpoint-I don't think that the gates of Athens open onto a huge desert for one-but the general feel of the game (sound, music, architecture, camera positioning) is sufficiently immersing that it doesn't matter. The game squeezes a lot out of the PS2 graphics hardware too. There is very little 'jaggedness' to the graphics, and a lot of the larger monsters look amazing. God of War is gory. Speaking of larger monsters, God of War introduces some excellent ways of finishing off the more difficult enemies in the game. You can always beat things to death with the basic moves, but when an enemy is sufficiently weakened you can press a button and enter a sort of mini-game (timed button presses) to finish the job. For example, killing a gorgon involves rotating the left stick to match arrows on screen. As you do this, Kratos wrenches her head around, before tearing it off. To kill a giant/cyclops, you punch it in the nuts, slide through it's legs, stab it in the leg/back, climb up and stab it through the face. You tear the wings off of harpies, impale people on their own swords, chop the legs off of centaurs, and this isn't including the unique ways of killing the boss monsters. Lastly, God of War is damn hard. The game itself is challenging (I've only beaten in on difficultly level two of four). After you beat it, you unlock something called the Challenge of the Gods. This is ten mini-levels, each with a special objective or restriction. I spent a good portion of last weekend beating that. And by 'good portion' I mean HOURS. Probably a total of 10 hours over Saturday and Sunday. The eighth and tenth levels are especially impossible. Level ten involves killing things that are especially good at knocking you off of the small platform on which you have to fight them. I got very pissed off at the game, so much so that Sabina had to drag me out of the house for two hours. (We went bowling). Still, it was very satisfying to beat in an '8-bit NES game' sort of way. A good choice for last years GotY (although so many people hand out Game of the Year awards it seems a bit pointless now). I have a large stack of other games I want to finish off before we move in a couple of months, and I've told myself I won't buy any others until I've finished them all. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 5th, 2006
10:51 am	Twilight Struggle Session Report I played two games of TS this weekend, both as the US. Both ended on turn 9. Sabina beat me on Friday by Controlling Europe when the scoring card came up, and I won against Jamal yesterday by playing Wargames. Wargames ends the game immediately after giving 6 points to your opponent (so it's a game winner if you get the card and are up by 7 or more points). Presumably this represents one side or the other putting on a sufficient show of force in training exercises to finally topple the other power. The game I played with Jamal was excellent; it was very well balanced and very quick. There were a few excellent moments in it. Early on I put a bunch of influence into West Germany, securing (or so I thought) that country as a bastion of democracy in Europe. Jamal's very next card was Blockade (remove all US influence in West Germany unless the US discards a 3 card or higher). So I lost West Germany. Soon after that he played DeGaulle Leads France, which led to battles over France for some time to come. Another great moment came in the Late War, where Jamal played Iranian Hostage Crisis, kicking me out of Iran. That card also doubles the effect of Terrorism, which I played next. The first few turns saw the Soviets climb to 15 or 16 VP, making things look very dicey. I managed to play Mid East Scoring and made off with 7 or 8 points which averted disaster. We were fairly well matched for a few turns, then I pulled ahead to almost the same margin. Finally, I was at about 11VP when I played Wargames, winning the game. Two things came out of this. I really like the Space Race. Since the Soviets go first they can usually stay ahead unless the US plays Captured Nazi Scientist or 'One Small Step...'. Keeping those two cards out of the hands of your opponent can keep you on top in the Space Race, and benefit from the extra points, and from the bonus powers. Also, I have a greater appreciation for Realignment rolls. Some reports I've read don't give much credit to them, but as I see it, they're good for two reasons. Firstly, you can use them risk-free in countries where you don't have influence. Secondly, they benefit from influence you have on the board in neighbouring countries, so with careful play you can use realignments to spread out through a region starting from a strong base of controlled countries. Coups may look better on the surface, and you have to use Coups to get required military operations, but I think that Realignments are very useful in more situations. You can never get more influence from a Realignment, but you get to make multiple rolls rather than just one Coup. (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
6:51 pm	Twilight Struggle Review: Twilight Struggle is a two player card-driven wargame from GMT. It's set in the Cold War, one player takes each of the two superpowers, and tries to achieve global supremacy by political, military and economic means. In gameplay terms, this translates into selecting a card from your hand, and playing it in one of several ways. Cards contain two things: an event, and an operations value. The events are either neutral, or aligned with the US or with the USSR. Co-aligned or neutral cards can be played as an event, or to gain operations points equal to the card value. Playing them for operations points means that the associated event gets put into the discard pile, possibly not to emerge for several turns. Enemy events can be played for operations, but will also trigger the associated event. Operations points are spent in one of four ways. If I play a card worth 3 points I can: add 3 points worth of influence to the board, attempt 3 realignment rolls, attempt a coup with a +3 modifier, or attempt the space race. The space race is the only option that will prevent an enemy event from being triggered. More influence will help you to win points when one of the regional scoring cards is played. Relative score is tracked, with the USSR claiming victory at -20, and the USA winning at +20. Some points can be won on the space race, or as a result of certain events, but the lion's share of the points come when a regional scoring card is played. The regions are Europe, Asia, Middle East, Central America, South America, and Africa. Each of these regions will be scored at least once during the course of the game, and it is important to have at least a token presence in a region in order to prevent your opponent from pulling too far ahead.. The space race is a neat abstraction of the two powers struggle to outdo one another in the race to the moon. Upon reaching a new box, a power either wins victory points (more for the first power to reach that stage) or is awarded some special ability (but only until their opponent catches up). This actually turns things into a race, and the powers and points are significant enough that some attention must be given to the space race. However, since it represents the only way to 'defuse' powerful enemy events that you may draw, it is usually not hard to find cards to spend. Coups and realignments form the game's only combat. A minimum number of points need to be spent on military operations each turn, which encourages coups, but coups certain key spaces (called battlegrounds) will lower the DEFCON level. As the DEFCON level lowers, the two powers inch closer to thermonuclear war, and it becomes harder and harder to conduct operations in the valuable regions. First Europe, then Asia, then the Middle East get virtually locked down, forcing the conflict out into the periphery. This has the nice effect of simulating the historical flow of events, from the Iron Curtain and the Korean War, on to insurgencies and puppet governments in South America and Africa. Comments: I've only had it a week, and of the three games I've played, one was uncompleted at turn 5 (of 10), and the other two were won by the USSR (me) on turns 7 and 3. However, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that it's a keeper. It's a two player wargame that I can talk just about anyone into playing (even my girlfriend, and she recoils from Europe Engulfed, Paths of Glory etc. etc.), it plays quickly, and it's fun. Probably the reason that the game is so fun is that the events allow bring a very human quality to the game. Many of the cards include events that are very well known (and the game includes an excellent summary of each of them for those of us who are unfamiliar with, say, the Camp David Accords). Rather than simply adding three tokens to Cuba, you get to install Fidel Castro as dictator. Rather than causing your opponent to lose a turn, you are funding the Viet Cong, or the Mujahadeen, and embroiling your rival power in an unpopular and troublesome war. I anticipate that a good portion of the replay value of this game will come from these factors. I should be playing on Saturday, so I'll post a session report on Sunday. (1 Comment |Comment on this)