Sim City Deluxe

Title: Sim City Deluxe
Platform Played On: iPad
Release Date: July 29, 2010
Date Played: Summer 2011
Time Played: 5 hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 5/5

Opinion:
Sim City Deluxe is a port of the 2003's Sim City 4 on PC.

There actually is not much to say about Sim City Deluxe on iOS. It is an excellent and faithful port of Sim City 4. The interface is tweaked to accommodate the touch screen, and the game runs great on iPad2. The iPhone screen is most likely too small to really enjoy this game, so I would recommend picking it up for the iPad instead.

When it comes to ports of PC or console games to handheld devices my main concern is the "dumbing down" of the game in order to appeal to a broader audience or because of hardware limitations. Luckily EA stayed faithful and ported over everything from the PC version over. Now I can play full on Sim City on a handheld without battling the controls of a Nintendo DS.

If you liked the Sim City games on the Mac or PC, then you will love this game. Its a great app to have to play on a portable device (iPad), and the best thing is that it has all the features of the computer versions both in content and graphics!

Draw Something

Title: Draw Something
Platform Played On: iPhone
Release Date: February 1, 2012
Date Played: March 2012
Time Played: 1 hour
Completed (Y/N): N?A
Score: 3/5

Opinion:
Draw something is part of the barrage of "with friends" games. It seems like at this point there is a *insert anything imaginable* with friends on the iOS. From solitare to poker to scrabble to chess... you name it. Draw Something is the same idea but with Pictionary.

Draw Something is a great idea, and is enjoyable. However I found myself constantly struggling with the interface and navigation. For whatever reason the developer chose to use a proprietary log in system that fails half the time and gives errors. Matchmaking leaves a lot to be desired as well, I could not for the life of me connect with my girlfriend's iPad to play a game. It just kept telling me that the game already existed even though it didnt. All of these things could have been avoided by simply using Game Center for logging in and matchmaking.

Draw something is cool, and enjoyable when it works. I had a lot of issues with it that might get fixed in the future. There is a free version on the app store, so if you are into "with friends" games, there is no reason to not give Draw Something a shot.

Spelunky

Title: Spelunky
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: December 21, 2008
Date Played: 2009, 2012
Time Played: 2 hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Spelunky is a roguelike experience. This means that every single level is randomly generated, and once you die, you are dead. The goal is to make it as far as you can without dying while exploring more and more of the caves.

Spelunky is an indie game developed by Derek Yu and Andy Hull. You play as a cute little spelunker slightly resembling Indiana Jones. There really is no set objective, just dont die and explore. The further you get the better stuff you can find. You have some tools like bombs and rope at your disposal to aid you in your exploration endeavors. And of course there are baddies and traps that want to see you dead.

For what it is Spelunky is an excellent game. The use of pixel art makes it incredibly charming and fun to watch. It controls well and is a great game to have installed to jump in for a few minutes now and then. It is free, and should be on everyone's desktop for quick breaks. In fact, it could be 21 century's Solitare.

Viva Pinata

Title: Viva Pinata
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 9, 2006
Date Played: February - March 2012
Time Played: 40 Hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes (Animal Crossing type game)
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Viva Pinata is easily dismissed; however as the old proverb states, dont judge the book by its cover.
If you have ever played Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, then you know what you are getting yourself into. It is a mix of those two with some Pokemon sprinkled on top.

Viva Pinata starts you off on a small patch of land with nothing but a shovel and a few items available for purchase. You are a gardener, and your goal is to create a garden attractive to various pinata animals to visit and hopefully become residents. The gameplay has an entire ecosystem where one species will depend on another, and certain species will not like each other (like cats and dogs, or ants and bees because ants eat bee's honey).

Viva Pinata is gorgeous. This is a launch title were talking about, its vibrant colors and cute animations are just as good as any modern game.

Viva Pinata suffers from some fundamental issues though. The controls are not standardized, which leads to some frustration. The X button will at certain times open a shop menu, at others dig a hole, the B button will sometimes back out of the menu, at other times do something else you didnt want to do. Sometimes the button functions switch, so you end up pressing the wrong button, even though a minute ago it would have been the right button. Thank god for the standardized 'get me the hell out of here' back button, which takes you back to your garden (most of the time).

Another issue, and a HUGE one, is the object limit. The great thing about Viva Pinata is its Pokemon bit of collecting every species of pinatas. That whole aspect of the game is ruined by the fact that there is a very low hard limit on amount of objects you can have in your garden. Everything effects this limit, even decorations. So what ends up happening is after having about 20 pinatas in the garden (keep in mind there are over 50 species, and you want to have at least 2 of every kind for breeding), and some trees/plans (which are also needed to either feed or attract pinatas), you hit the limit. Its actually pretty ridiculous how low the limit is, and kind of ruins the experience. You can not keep collecting the pinatas, you have to get rid of species to get new ones. I played the game for 40+ hours, and entirety of that time I was hovering at 99% full garden, constantly struggling to make room. This is unfortunate since the collecting aspect of it, is the thing that attracted me the most to Viva Pinata.

Overall Viva Pinata is a great idea, it is fun. However with the sequel out (Trouble in Paradise), there is no reason to play this first installment. TIP is the same game with some improvements. The aforementioned control issue is fixed, and the limit (although still there, and still constraining) is increased.

ArmA: Queen's Gambit

Title: ArmA: Queen's Gambit
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: September 28, 2007
Date Played: March 2012
Time Played: 5 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Right after finishing up ArmA's main campaign I installed and jumped into the expansion pack "Queen's Gambit", which actually consists of two separate campaigns Royal Flush, and Rahmadi Conflict.

I started off with the Royal Flush campaign. It is about 1/4 of the length of ArmA's campaign, and oh my is acting bad. I think that the cut-scenes do a huge disservice to this game. The NPCs sound absolutely terrible, its like they grabbed a random guy off the street, handed him a piece of paper and told him to read some lines into the mic. Every conversation is monotone with random moments of excitement which do not match the words or the action at all. Acting aside though Royal Flush features a pretty well done campaign that I actually found a bit more enjoyable than ArmA's campaign. It is clear that Bohemia Interactive (developer) was trying to improve the game. A bandage mechanic was added where you are able to bandage yourself at any point, its quite handy and is preferred to crawling to the next objective for 2 hours because your legs have been shot off.

Another welcome change is persistence. And if you know me, you know that I love persistence in video games. In Royal Flush you get to keep your squad mates, and whatever weapons you are carrying from the mission to mission all the way to the end.  This mechanic is supplemented by three mini missions where you can (optionally) meet up with a dealer and purchase new weapons. I found the dealer mechanic to be a bit gimmicky as it was much easier (and cheaper) to simply pick up the weapons off my enemies; however weapon and squad persistence is very much welcomed.

Sneaking Up on Some Rebels

The campaign is much more focused than that of ArmA. Instead of jumping from role to role you play as the same soldier through the whole thing working on one main goal. Towards the end you are even given a moral choice of whether or not you want to potentially spark a huge international scandal, but at the same time make sure your buddy is safe, or follow his orders and not look out for him. I chose to look out for my buddy even if it meant trouble, so I am not sure what  the other option would do. Potentially a second ending?

Overall Royal Flush is pretty good, even though it is spotted with some really weird hardcore/metal hybrid music, which I hate to admit doesn't really fit the simulation vibe of ArmA. I think Royal Flush made a few steps in the right direction with its missions; however scripting bugs nearly ruined my enjoyment of it. It is clear that Bohemia Interactive was trying to make a more streamlined, and focused campaign by utilizing a ton of scripting, but it doesnt seem like they did as many bug checks as they should have. Nevertheless I feel that it is a bit better than the original campaign and is worth playing even if only for the concentration camp missions. I really enjoyed those.

After Royal Flush I jumped into the second campaign "Rahmadi Conflict". While Royal Flush took place a year after the events of the original campaign this one takes place during it. You are a member of a special forces team tasked with capturing the enemy leader.

Rahmadi Conflict is fairly short (I finished it in just a few hours). It consists of 3 extremely focused and very polished missions. I think Bohemia Interactive realized how terrible they are at making cut-scenes, so instead of in engine clusterfrak in between missions they opted to use a stylized slideshow, and this time they hired a decent voice to do the narration. Overall the acting and cut-scenes are amazingly well done compared to those of ArmA and Royal Flush.

Welcome addition is also a set of new (small) islands to play on. Royal Flush reused the landmass from the main game, so it is nice to play around in the new environment in Rahmadi Conflict. I am guessing that it is due to the small size of the maps, but it seems like they crammed more detail into the levels as well.

All in all Queen's Gambit is a good expansion that expands and improves on the original campaign. While Rahmadi Conflict was the most enjoyable part of it, Royal Flush was pretty fun as well. If you finished up ArmA and would like more I would definitely recommend Queen's Gambit.

ArmA

Title: ArmA
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: May 4, 2007
Date Played: May 2007, Spring 2011, March 2012
Time Played: 40+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
ArmA, which stands for "Armed Assault" comes from the creators of Operation Flashpoint, and is only named ArmA because of the developers (Bohemia Interactive) not owning the copyright for that name. So for all intents and purposes this is the sequel to Operation Flashpoint.

Computer graphics have made quite an advancement since Operation Flashpoint (2001) came out, and so when ArmA came out it looked gorgeous with more advanced AI and weapon simulation than Op Flashpoint. Unfortunately as with all of the Bohemia Interactive games at launch ArmA was basically unplayable, the game was plagued with terrible framerate and countless bugs. All of these issues were eventually resolved via patches, for which I must commend the developer, they truly stick with their products much longer than any other developer that I have seen (aside Blizzard maybe). They will patch the game years and years after the sequel has been released eventually getting the game to the point that it has zero bugs.

But these bugs that were present at launch kind of shaped the way I played ArmA. When I first got it, it was unplayable. It ran at 10 FPS and unbalanced AI made me stop playing it after a few missions. I remember I could not finish the water tower sniper mission no matter what I tried. It was 4 years later once the game has been patched over a dozen times that I was able to try it again.

I must admit though, that once the game was fixed I could not stop playing it. ArmA provides the best military simulation out there (it has since been surpassed by ArmA2), with taking the simulation they developed for Operation Flashpoint and taking advantage of modern computing technology Bohemia Interactive managed to create a great looking and amazingly fun military simulator.

It did take me a while to finish up ArmA's main campaign, this is due to the fact that this game is very hard! Its a simulator remember? One bullet and you are dead. There is no Rambo-ing in ArmA, and there is no fooling around. It is all about strategy, and the ability to give commands. Its about crawling over a ridge and pulling out your binoculars to assess the situation. It is about outsmarting the enemy. There is no scripting. Everything AI does is calculated on the fly. So you can not rely that an enemy that was there last time will be there again. It creates a living breathing world, something very few games are able to pull off. All of these things are never present in your run of the mill shooters, and this is why ArmA is a unique experience. It is an experience you can not get anywhere else. It is not for everyone, but it definitely is for me. I enjoy spending 20 minutes sneaking onto a base just to be busted and having to replay that segment again. Why? Well because when  I do successfully execute my plan I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

Screen After Completing a Mission

I have to knock ArmA for the inexcusable bugginess at launch. When I got this game at launch I could not enjoy it for the first year until there was at least half a dozen patches. Another knock against it would be the cut scenes and voice acting. They are downright atrocious; however neither of them is important at all and can be skipped. What matters is the clipboard at the start of a mission that contains your briefing, all the cinematics in between is just fluff to make events flow better. When it comes down to it ArmA is fun because of its simulation, not because of its story. I would give it A for execution and F for the story. But as I said, the execution is 99.9% of the game, story is not why one comes to ArmA.

All off this amazing simulation takes place ona couple huge islands, several hundred square miles for you to roam and approach your targets as you see fit. You can also use the built in editor to create your own missions from taking out a small patrol to assaulting a gigantic base.

ArmA is as close as you can get to really flying a helicopter and driving a tank, it is as close as you can get to participating in a war without actually being shipped to Iraq or Afghanistan. This is why I love ArmA. It is unique and in my opinion extremely fun. I definitelly agree that it is not for everyone, but if you are a fan of simulation you ought to check out ArmA. You can pick it up on Steam for a couple of bucks.

RPG7 vs BMP2

Baldur's Gate

Title: Baldur's Gate
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: November 30, 1998
Date Played: Spring 2010
Time Played: 40 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
It took me a while to warm up to Baldur's Gate, by a while I mean 10 years or so.

Baldur's Gate is the type of game that can only be played with a specific mind set. It is the type of a game that you need to be in a roleplaying mood for. Comparatively speaking it doesn't have much action and instead focuses on character development and rich story telling. This is precisely why it took me so long to warm up to it. My view of isometric games was shaped by Diablo, and as such anything as slow as Baldur's Gate just felt broken.  It wasnt until a decade later that I gained the appreciation of the RPGs that focused on the story and not action. You will find yourself reading page after page of books, descriptions and dialogue.

Baldur's Gate is based on Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition rules, and as such has a lot of confusing mechanics (that were removed in the 3rd edition) , one of which is the fact that lower the armor the better because instead of telling you how much armor it provides it tells you how much damage reduction there is. This was confusing to me for a very long time, until I spoke to someone who knew D&D and they explained it to me.

Thanks to the fact that it features D&D mechanics Baldurs Gate manages to be an excellent roleplaying game. True to D&D your party members react to your actions and can straight up turn on you or each other if they dont like what you did. They are not your minions, they are your companions in the truest sense of that word. They have feelings and thoughts they are not afraid to express. They can die permanently and you never know if one of them will turn on you.

I feel that Baldur's Gate starts really well, with some interesting questions being raised that you are compelled to get answers to; however the middle half of the game drags on as you explore ruins and help strangers. There really isn't any "loot" in this game as you would think of it in a traditional sense, and so there is nothing to keep you going during the rough (boring) story parts, you just have to kind of power through them. There are a few "named" items that you can get through doing specific tasks, but most of the things you find in the world either has no stats at all or are clones of each other. I must have gathered enough identical staves by the end of the game to build a 5 bedroom cottage out of them, and enough generic long swords to arm the Chinese army.

It takes a while to understand how to play Baldur's Gate, and it is better if you have a buddy that is either very well versed in D&D or that has played through the game before. There is only one reason to play Baldur's Gate and that is the story. The best way to approach it is how you would approach a book. A book in which you can read chapters in any order you choose to.

Baldur's Gate is a classic, I feel that it should be played by any Dungeons and Dragons fan, even then since the game is based on the system that is several editions old it may come off as ancient to those that dont have experience with it. If you dont give a damn about D&D though this is probably not a game for you.

PS - I feel that the expansion "Tales of the Sword Coast" added a cool mystery quest to the mix and kept things interesting, it is something 'different' that you can do if you are bored of the main quest line.  

God of War

Title: God of War
Platform Played On: PlayStation 2
Release Date: March 22, 2005
Date Played: December 2006
Time Played: 10 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Being a PC gamer there are very few games that I would rather play on a console. God of War is one of those games. It is the type of game that is best played with a controller, and although Microsoft's introduction of plug and play Xbox 360 controller for the PC made it possible to enjoy this type of gameplay on the PC. One would have to use an emulator to play it on there, so might as well play it on the console.

God of War's universe revolves heavily around Greek mythology. Athena, Zeus, Sparta, Olympus and many other well known locations and figures play an intricate role in Kratos' story (main protagonist). And it so happens to be that I really like Greek mythology, so God of War's setting really appeals to me. But do not fret, even if you could care less about the story, God of War has incredible genre defining action. It is the best we've seen to date, in fact it is so good that many games released since March 2005 have been deemed 'God of War Clones' because they try to imitate its awesomness.

The beauty of God of War is that anyone can play it, even someone who doesn't really play that many games. The combat is simple enough to where mashing buttons will get you by and allow you to experience the epic story of Kratos and (by 2005 standards) stunning visuals, and at the same time it has enough depth to where a more experienced player can execute intricate combos and maneuvers.

God of War is an excellent game with fast paced visceral gameplay. I would highly recommend the recently released God of War Collection on the PlayStation 3, which has revamped, HDified versions of the first two GoW games. I loved the time I spent with God of War, and i think its a series that every gamer should play.

PS2 didnt have the best resolution :)

Resident Evil 5

Title: Resident Evil 5
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: March 13, 2009
Date Played: March 2009
Time Played: 12 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Ive always enjoyed the Resident Evil series, although the only game in the franchise that I have ever finished was Resident Evil 2 in 1998 on the PS1. The characters and the convoluted premise always appealed to me.

I was pretty excited about the prospect of playing through Resident Evil 5 co-op with my buddy Gavin. We have played through several games over Xbox Live (Army of Two for example) and it has always been a very enjoyable experience. So as soon as RE5 hit the shelves we each grabbed a copy and jumped in. I played as Chris, and he played as Sheva.  It took us a few weeks (5-7 sessions total) of playing a few hours at a time to finish the campaign.

Even though I havent played a Resident Evil game in over a decade I was immediately reminded of what it was like to play one.  The inability to shoot while moving, familiar characters and even the UI was reminiscent of my late 90's experience with the franchise.  While most people seemed to hate on the fact that RE5 failed to evolve along with the rest of the third person shooter genre (main gripe being the inability to move while shooting), I found these design decisions to be completely fine and fitting for the type of game Resident Evil 5 was trying to be. And although it did take a mission or two to get used to the controls, once I did, they felt as natural as in any other game.

I am going to go out on a limb and state that Resident Evil 5 was best co-op experience I have ever had (at least on the consoles). The game was of a perfect length, the level layout and enemy patterns were laid out in such a way that it was enjoyable to fight through them with a buddy. The boss fights were somewhat creative and different from each other. And the overarching story kept me interested throughout.

I have absolutely no complains about RE5. I feel that Capcom (developer) accomplished everything they set out to do with this title, and as I already mentioned I feel that it is one of the best co-op experiences this generation. I loved every minute of it and am hoping to find Resident Evil 6 (whenever that comes) to be just as enjoyable. Props to Capcom for sticking to the roots of the franchise and developing an excellent third person zombie (virus or whatever) action game. I had so much fun with it that I am thinking about playing through it again split-screen with my girlfriend (thank you Capcom for including NewGame+ mechanic).

Railroad Tycoon 2

Title: Railroad Tycoon 2
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: October 31, 1998
Date Played: 1999
Time Played: 10 hours
Completed (Y/N): No
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Who doesnt love toy trains? Only the Grinch and Hitler of course. As for the rest of us, we can scratch that toy train itch of laying out the tracks and ferrying "pretend" passengers from point A to point B by playing Railroad Tycoon 2, except here you can actually see the passengers and goods that you are transporting, which feels pretty rewarding.

Rendered with beautifully drawn detailed sprites Railroad Tycoon 2 looked great at the time of release, and to this day looks pretty decent. Railroad Tycoon is more on the simulation side than anything else, all of missions that I have played have all been very hard. The tutorial is not the best, and the AI is more skilled than he should be; however there is nothing more satisfying than finishing up that trans-continental railroad and seeing the little train trucking along it.

I really enjoyed the time I spent with Railroad Tycoon 2, I just wish it was more accessible and explained things more clearly; but then again, we wish that about every simulation game. It has been 13 years since its release, and although its sprite based graphics still look decent, the locked 4:3 resolution and multi-core CPU introduction did not let it age well.  If it shows up on GOG.com then perhaps Id give it a shot, Its a great train simulator. Otherwise you will probably get frustrated with trying to run it properly, and as such I would probably recommend going straight to Railroad Tycoon 3 (which utilizes a full 3d engine) to scratch that toy train itch.