2023 is dying, and 2024 struggles to be born. It continues to be a time of monsters.
Er, apologies to paraphrase Gramsci and then to roll straight into a 2023 round-up post. If it’s any consolation, these things are hard to think up openings for.
September was a busy month for both my partner and myself, and we didn’t play too many board games. I sense this will change in the near future, as several Kickstarters I backed look to be delivering before the end of the year, and as the Finnish climate turns colder we’ll be spending more social time indoors! That said, I’m away quite a bit in October, and am planning to participate in a miniature painting competition, so it might be November before we play much more.
All that aside there were two notable pools into which we dipped our toes; two large games that felt beyond the scale of most games we’ve previously played. The first of these was Twilight Imperium. Together with four other friends, including several from our Dark Heresy TTRPG group (something Claire and I have been doing for a few months now, and about which I might write something someday), we played what turned out to be a test game.
This is not really a post about Starfield. This is a post about my feelings about Starfield, as squeezed through the cheesecloth that is almost two decades of playing the same game, and often writing or talking about it.
It’s weird looking back over this stuff. Eleven years of posts and podcasts documenting how I grew tired of Elder Scrolls gameplay, and how I came back to it again and again, each time I found the experience more grating, and sooner.
These past experiences made clear to me that I was unlikely to get much out of Starfield. Given that, I didn’t plan to play it. But Microsoft own Bethesda these days, and that means Starfield is a day one Game Pass release. So I had to check whether my expectations would be met, you see.
As for your expectations: don’t read this if Starfield is your new favourite game and you just can’t bear to hear that someone on the internet didn’t like it. Really, don’t bother. Neither of us will get much out of how that would play out.
Thronefall’s been picking up considerable attention and positive responses since it launched into Steam early access at the start of August. This is deserved success, and I’m interested in where the game goes from here – though I have some reservations.
First off, let’s put the game in context. If you imagine a game that takes liberally from the Kingdom series and the tower defence genre, and garnishes with survival RTS like They Are Billions or Age of Darkness, you’ll be in more or less the right place for Thronefall. You directly control a hero character ala. Kingdom and invest your precious coins into constructing and upgrading buildings. Each night you come under attack from progressively more dangerous and numerous enemies. Some folks just want to watch the whole world burn, you know?
It’s been delightful to read that Pikmin 4 has met with modest financial success, especially when compared to its predecessors. The Pikmin games are a delight that I’ve loved since my girlfriend introduced me to them. We played through Pikmin 3 together both on Wii U and when re-released for the Switch, and we revisited the first two games back in the Wii U era as well. They’ve never previously seen even a fraction of the success of Nintendo’s flagship games, and that’s doubtless why Pikmin games are so few and far between compared to the abundance of Mario and Zelda titles.
Although, if you’re inclined towards feeling like a special flower, this could be a sad moment, as it’s a rare thing indeed to be able to celebrate a previously little-known Nintendo series.
Pikmin 4 clearly set out to be more approachable than the previous games, which have a fairly aggressive difficulty curve in terms of gameplay as well as an overarching progression system that put pressure on you to make the best use of every precious minute. The game starts out slow with a gentle and extended tutorial which, frankly, I don’t look forward to on any future playthrough. It does do a good job of introducing you to the game’s concepts and mechanics, including the most notable addition to the series’ cast: ‘space rescue pup’ Oatchi.
These days my partner and I play more boardgames than ever, despite our regular gaming group being something we left behind when we moved away from Brighton. (Don’t feel too sorry for us: we still have friends with whom we can play, we just lack the regularity of that old group.) We play more two-player games than we did in the past; fortunately there are no shortage of these.
Here are some first impressions of what we’ve played this month: Cosmic Encounters Duel, Portobello Market, Patchwork, and Curious Cargo.
A quick administrative note: in the interest of stretching my writing muscles a little more frequently, and publishing a little more frequently to this sadly neglected blog, I’m going to try writing small pieces about stuff I’m doing or am interested in. This might mean some posts seem a bit weird or undercooked… more so than usual, anyway.
I’ve again been playing Slitherine Software’s second most recent 40k offering, the not-quite-a-Civ-game and definitely-a-mouthful Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War. If you don’t know, the potted description is that it’s a hex-based strategy game that looks a little like Civilization or Warlock or Fallen Enchantress or any number of other civ games, but in practice it’s a great representation of the grimdark setting of 40k, because you will never stop fighting. Want to hang back and fix your economy? Good luck, pal.
The game is brutally tough on higher difficulties but, happily, it works well as a multiplayer title. I’ve been playing multiplayer games with some friends and friends-of-friends against AI teams and sometimes things go well, but other times one of us is stomped into dust before anyone else can help them. It’s luck of the draw where you will start out; if you’re close enough to support an ally, that’s good. If there are other players between you, that’s not so good.
Still, you can only blame random deployment so far: knowing what you’re doing with your faction is also very important. Our most recent starting games left me feeling like there was a lot I had to learn about playing as everyone’s favourite voracious bug swarm, the Tyranids. I’ve started a practice game to experiment with some stuff, and figure out possible build orders for the faction. Here’s what I’ve got so far…
Games Workshop launched the 10th edition of Warhammer 40,000 just two weeks ago, including a box set dubbed Leviathan. This contained a substantial collection of posthuman Space Marine and chitinous alien Tyranid miniatures; about 75 models. Thanks to a friend I was able to snag a copy of Leviathan, and spent the launch weekend building models and reading the new rules. This post is a round-up of assorted reactions to the new edition, including my thoughts after playing a couple of games, and my feelings about the contents of Leviathan.
Let’s start with the box set, about which I’ll be brief. Since pre-orders sold out rapidly, at this point the only copies available will be via third-party sellers, and so there’s not much reason to dwell on it. So, here you get approximately fifty Tyranid models, approximately twenty-five Space Marine models, a hardback book containing the 10th edition rulebook and Crusade rulebook in one, a pack of Leviathan mission cards, and a transfer sheet. There are no dice, measuring sticks or other ‘starter’ items, as this limited run box set is clearly aimed at existing fans more than new players.
The rulebook including the new Crusade rules is really nice, as this more narratively oriented way of playing the game is something I’m interested in. The book itself is hefty AF, although the core rules are covered in just 40 to 50 pages; just a fraction of the contents. There’s otherwise a lot of lore, artwork and miniature photography, as you’d expect. It’s a nice book, well laid out, and the Core Rules are mostly well explained. I also like the included pack of mission cards; like the Crusade rules, this is something I’d otherwise have bought separately. These cards are a way to easily generate a variety of mission objectives, rules and deployment areas, giving games plenty of variety. I’ll speak of these again later.
I felt the absence of the new style of ‘index cards’ – double-sided cards containing all the status and rules for any given unit – for the models included in the box set. These feel like they’d have been an easy inclusion, and without them you’re left referring to a downloaded PDF or the official app. This isn’t ideal, but more on that later. Reference sheets for the core rules would also have been a nice inclusion, but not including them does make sense for a box set not targeting new players.
Tactical vehicular highway combat in a satirical and cartoonish post-apocalyptic America! What’s not to like?
I’m familiar with Games Workshop’s Mad Max-inspired Dark Future setting from a bunch of secondhand paperbacks I read as a kid in the 90s; the franchise endured longer as a narrative setting than it did as a tabletop game. I can’t speak to Auroch Digital’s 2019 video game version’s proximity to the original, but given that it was released over thirty years ago there can be few with strong feelings on the matter.
The core mechanics of Blood Red States feel solid. You’re always on the highway and you’re always in or between one of four lanes. Your car has three weapons: front-mounted, rear-mounted, and a 360 degree turret weapon. You can switch into ‘command mode’ at any point, slowing time immensely and allowing you to carefully plan your moves and then click to execute them. Target an enemy with your turret, speed up, slow down, brake or switch into reverse, hit the afterburners, match a target’s speed, and so on. You’re generally going to always be moving forwards, and as you do so enemy or allied vehicles will merge onto the highway or appear up ahead. All this works nicely and is fun, with a few exceptions, which I’ll come to shortly.
Between missions you spend your hard-earned cash. You’re a ‘sanctioned operative’; a mercenary for hire. You’ll need to spend cash on fuel, which isn’t cheap, and the price escalates as a run continues. The campaign structure is a bit like FTL or Convoy – the latter a much closer comparison for Blood Red States – in that you need to complete your overarching objectives and final mission before you literally cannot afford to go on, but it’s otherwise fairly open-ended. Cash you don’t spend on keeping your motor running goes on upgrades: more armour, new weapons, modules that provide buffs, and more powerful engines supporting heavier and better upgrades. A nice dollop of narrative flavour comes in the form of emails, of which you generally get one ‘fluffy’ email after each mission, in addition to any communiques directly related to accomplishing objectives.
A major weakness of the game is repetition. There’s a bunch of randomisation in the enemies you’ll be up against, mission difficulty, the level layout and scenery, but ultimately there are a limited number of mission types that cannot vary too widely. Quota has you straightforwardly killing enemies. Intercept is the same, but after a certain number of kills a ‘boss’ enemy appears. Gang War sees you killing enemies again, but this time there are allied cars on the road too. Escort requires you to protect an unarmed friendly until you’ve gone a certain distance. Blockade Run sees you fending off enemies and swerving through single-lane gaps in a set number of blockades. Data Heist has you driving close to large ‘robotrucks’ whilst a progress bar fills up, and there’s another mission type I forget the name that has you killing robotrucks. On paper it’s quite varied considering the core mechanics; in practice it boils down to whether or not you add an additional consideration alongside exploding enemy cars. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but with similarly-structured games like MechWarrior 5 I’ve found myself getting a bit bored as progress through the economy feels slow compared to my desire for novelty, change or a sense of progression.
Maybe I’m just impatient. I’ve only played four hours of Blood Red States, and I enjoyed them. I found myself getting frustrated by the random and limited selection of upgrades available between missions. I spent an entire campaign seeing the same tier 1 items appearing and sticking with my starting loadout almost the entire way through. It was only after the final mission unlocked that I saw different items appear – predictably, right after I had spent almost all of my money on an engine and extra armour, on the basis that I hadn’t seen anything more interesting appear. It’s random, I guess, but it’s still frustrating.
The game’s not without other problems. If you drop your speed to almost zero the game kinda breaks as the enemy AI doesn’t really know what to do. Hiring a second merc to help you out makes everything much harder and less fun; you may assume as I did that they’d act like an AI car, but nope, you need to issue commands for them. This more than doubles your cognitive load. It could be worse, I guess, because when you do see allied AI cars they are as dumb as bricks and will repeatedly crash into you and drive into your line of fire.
If you’ve got more time on your hands than me and don’t mind a bit of repetition and randomness in your action-tactical games I do recommend giving this a shot. The narrative flavour is great and the core mechanics are mostly solid. But I’m unconvinced that I’d get much more than I already have out of further enduring Dark Future’s foibles.
There’s a bunch I like about Inquisition. Some of the storytelling offers impactful and emotive moments. A lot of the character work and dialogue is good – very good for a game – as you’d expect from Bioware. There’s even a coda to a side story that was genuinely funny (it involved a goat/wall interaction). I liked the ‘war room’ sections and the feeling it provides of being a real leader, despatching agents, diplomats and troops across the world map to rally support for your cause.
And, um… I mostly enjoyed my time with the game? I’m actually struggling to share many other specific positives, here. I admit most of my time playing the game was when I had covid. It’s a great game for occupying your brain between waves of feverish discomfort and pain rippling across your skin!
Whilst the combat can click, oftentimes it felt like an uncomfortable hybrid of action and tactical RPG. Most of the time I controlled only my own character and let the others do their thing. You can flip between your characters to control them directly, and the AI will take over anyone you’re not controlling. So you could conceivably pull off some combos here, if the AI hasn’t got something you want to use on cooldown. It would be easier to pull that stuff off in the tactical view, but you only set up orders there, and on console it’s pretty clunky and slow to use. I can’t imagine playing the game and using it a lot. Inquisition is already paced like a marathon. That combat mode would make it positively glacial.
There’s an anecdote in Jason Schreier’s book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels about Witcher 3‘s reception and BioWare. “…what was remarkable about The Witcher 3 was that very few of the quests felt like padding. Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz’s edict to avoid FedEx quests had been successful. Every quest in The Witcher 3 had some sort of complication or twist, as Tomaszkiewicz had requested, which was a design tenet that BioWare’s developers would later tell me they were hoping to use in their own games after Dragon Age: Inquisition.”
Well, without wanting to be too unkind, you can certainly tell they didn’t come across that idea before creating Inquisition. There’s a ton of filler and shit in here. A lot of really, really tedious shit. Kill obscurely spawning enemies until random drops happen. Move from A to B to C and read a little box of text at each location to complete quest. Gather resources as you run about the maps and watch the same two second animation every damn time. A lot of this filler could be ignored, yet I found myself grinding out this crap because (1) covid brain, and (2) you level up abysmally slowly and the story quests have level range recommendations, so I felt I needed the pittance of XP on offer from minor quests. The flipside is that I spent hours and hours doing what in gameplay terms is filler and in narrative terms is shit I absolutely should not have been doing.
I wanted to see out the main story, as I found myself invested in the overarching plot and some of the characters. But after sixty or seventy hours I felt I wasn’t even halfway through, whereas I was fully recovered from covid. I could tell that the game’s pace and core loops and quest structures weren’t going to change: I’d still be the mighty hero saving the world but also collecting herbs and animal skins and pressing the left thumbstick every two seconds to locate nearby items. So I ended my time with Inquisition carrying both good and bad memories, but more than either a sense of tedium and missed opportunity.
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