Mike Salsbury’s Blog

Over Thanksgiving, I purchased Stronghold 2
for $19.99 from Office Max. I was in the mood for a real-time strategy
game, something a little different than my usual sci-fi fare. Stronghold
2 certainly seemed to fit that bill. It featured medieval castles,
catapults, trebuchets, archers, polemen, etc.

The graphics
in the game are 3D and more than adequate to the task. It was very easy
to tell units apart on-screen, buildings looked unique and recognizable,
etc. Rotating the camera in the game proved to be rather difficult, so I
rarely tried. It just wasn’t worth the effort.

The sounds
are also adequate and not overdone.

The controls are a bit
strange. To select a unit, you left-click on it. To move it, you
left-click where you want that unit to go. Most of the time, this works
fine. Sometimes, however, this makes it difficult to select and move
units that are located close together.

There appears to be
a “tech tree” of sorts in the game, where you can initially
make only spearmen and archers. Supposedly you can also make armored
troops, swordsmen, and a variety of others. Unfortunately the manual
doesn’t explain this well and it’s certainly not clear in playing. After
playing several levels of the single-player campaign, I still can’t make
a mounted unit or a sword-swinging unit. I’ve no idea why or how. Worse,
my AI opponents all seem to be able to produce these units in quantity,
and their units seem to take 2-3x the damage mine do before dying.

In addition to the “invisible” tech tree, the game
also suffers from a “wash, rinse, and repeat” mission design.
That is, at the start of each mission, you begin with almost nothing.
You have to scramble to gather resources, build defenses, and construct
units to defend and/or attack. Meanwhile, the computer throws wolves
(which eat archers and spearmen for breakfast), bandits (who can kill
several of your units with one of theirs), enemy forces (which can kill
several of your soldiers with one of theirs), time limits, and more at
you. Once you’ve managed to beat the level, the cut scene explains that
you’ve decided to move to another castle for the next mission (i.e.,
rinse away all your progress) where you start all over again (i.e.,
repeat).

Sometimes, the cut scenes make some very lame
excuses for the “rinse” part. For example, after fighting my
way through one map, my “character” and another decide that
they need to use their enemy’s castle because it’s better located and
will be easier to defend. Below is the castle they think will be easier
to defend:

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So I was playing “The Godfather” last night on my friend’s xBox. Besides the fact that the xBox controller is the most evil and insidious invention on the planet, the controls were pretty straightforward and easy to use (but they’re better on a PS2 controller, I’m sure). To start off with, the beginning cinematography is absolutely outstanding! Graphics, story, voice acting, all the elements needed for a great game are present right from the very start. The story starts off with (extremely minor spoiler) a brief tutourial that ends with a man being gunned down in front of his young kid. Guess who that kid grows up to be? That’s right, he’s our main character and I’ll bet he’ll want a little taste of revenge before it’s over.

To begin with, the world is HUGE, looking like something that came directly from Grand Theft Auto. Starting off you’ll create your own character from menus that look very reminescent of Tiger Woods golf. I didn’t mess with this too much and just hit “randomize” to continue on (God was he ugly lookin’)….but character creation is very in-depth and looks like it could take quite a while to perfect.

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To me, what makes an MMORPG fun is a combination of the following factors:

• The ability to tailor my character’s skill set (i.e., no rigidly-defined character types that prevent me from combining the skills I want to combine in one character)
• The ability to adjust a character’s skills if existing skills turn out to be uninteresting or useless to me
• The ability to play “solo” and still enjoy myself, with the option of greater reward for teaming up with other players
• Making PVP combat an opt-in feature
• The ability to own virtual property in-game, like a house, store, or similar place
• A way to conveniently sell loot and crafted items to other players, even when I’m not playing, and a relatively easy way for other players to find the items I’m selling and vice-versa
• A variety of equipment options that allow me to tailor my weapons and protection to the enemy I am dealing with
• The ability to craft items in the game, and the fact that some items are “rare” to obtain and/or create
• Regular additions to the in-game content (enemies, quests/missions, equipment, etc.)
• A mechanism for turning in-game money into real money within the game, and vice-versa (this includes allowing in-game items to be sold on eBay)
• A reasonably large “universe” in the game, featuring a variety of locations and “themes” (e.g., desert, polar, tropical, etc.)
• The ability to travel to previously-visited locations nearly instantly
• In-game activities, story lines, and other content that I can optionally choose to be part of
• Some “instanced” content, to eliminate the effect of other players “camping” or “farming” popular areas
• Gaining of skill through USE of the skill, not through anything related to “leveling”

Notice that the above list doesn’t include a number of things:

• Fancy 3D graphics and sound effects (UO has a very dated 2D look and I don’t mind that.)
• A musical soundtrack (This is one of the first things I turn off anyway.)
• In-game characters voiced by human beings (I can read just fine.)
• Prohibition of the sale of currency and items on eBay (or elsewhere)
• Extensive customization of character appearance (I honestly don’t care if my character doesn’t look “unique” so long as I can recognize which one’s mine.)
• In-game social events and locations, like discos or weddings (These are optional to me.)
• Official “groups” like guilds, super-groups, clans, or corporations (These often wind up being more trouble than they’re worth.)
• Support for audio chatting in the game (i.e., a “TeamSpeak” equivalent)
• Efforts to eliminate “farming”, “camping”, or other such acts (People are going to do this anyway. If you have “instanced” content then these activities won’t unnecessarily harm other players.)
• An assurance from the developers that no character can progress faster than any other (I don’t care if someone else’s character hits level 20 in 2 days while I only get to level 10 in the same time.  If I want to level as fast, I can create a character just like it.)

I have yet to find an MMO that offers all the things I’m looking for. Ultima Online and Eve Online come close, but don’t quite make it.  Earth & Beyond failed miserably.  City of Heroes and City of Villains fail even more miserably. World of Warcraft delivers on most of them.  Pirates of the Burning Sea delivers on several.

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Over the holiday weekend I had the good fortune to attend the Origins game convention in
downtown Columbus.  This annual event is kind of a massive
gathering of gaming enthusiasts from around the word, attracting some
10,000 visitors a year to Columbus.  The convention offers sessions
on the game industry itself (e.g., how to get a game published, how to
improve a game’s design, etc.), opportunities to play various games
(everything from Monopoly to computer games to Dungeons and Dragons, and
many more you’ve never heard of), and the chance to buy games and
game-related merchandise.  If you enjoy playing games, especially
the non-computer variety (though video games are represented there),
you’ll find something to interest you at Origins.

Waiting in Line for Badges

Waiting in Line for
Tickets

As for myself I went down after work on
Thursday, June 30.  I spent the better part of two hours in line
getting my convention badge and signing up for tickets to various events
I wanted to take part in.  I then spent 6pm to 10pm playing Car
Wars with other attendees at the Rogue Judges area in the
miniatures gaming room (Exhibit Hall C of the convention center). 
We had a good time.  The Rogue Judges gamemasters are a personable
bunch, who clearly enjoy the games they host, and who try to maintain a
delicate balance between adherence to the rules and a sense
of logic/fairness.  The unfortunate part of this game
experience, to me, was that a young boy who either wasn’t aware of the
rules or chose to ignore them won the game.  I’m pretty certain
that (intentionally or not) he was cheating a fair amount of the
game.   I noticed a couple of the other players calling him on
things he was doing, but he managed to “squeak by”
somehow.  He made maneuvers with his car that I didn’t think were
legal, managed somehow not to get destroyed in spite of having no armor
on one side of his car, and I’m pretty sure fired more than once in the
same round.  Still, as I said, my brother and I had a good time in
the game overall even considering this one player.  I want to make
it clear that I don’t hold Rogue Judges responsible for what the kid was
doing.  They had 16 players to cope with, all of whom needed their
assistance at different times, and there was no way they could keep
track of who had and hadn’t shot, who had and hadn’t turned,
etc.

Car Wars

Car Wars

Car Wars

On Friday, I played Injurius Games – Keep What You Kill
that Red Shirt Games
hosted.  The guys at Red Shirt are really a class act, in my
opinion.  They know the rules to the game, administer the rules
fairly and impartially, keep things moving, keep them fun, cater to new
players without making them feel like idiots, and generally uphold the
highest standards of “gamemastering”.  I have never
walked away from a Red Shirt game (and I’ve played several) feeling like
it was anything but a positive, fun experience.  That’s probably
why I’ve subsequently sought out and bought every game I’ve ever played
with their people during the last couple of years.  Friday evening
I played another round of Car Wars with the Rogue Judges crew. 
This time the game went perfectly, everyone played by the rules, and a
good time was had by all.  The only hitch in the whole game was the
amount of time it took the gamemasters to sort out a multi-car collision
and the resultant damage.  But given that it was a complicated
crash and they wanted to determine the outcome logically and fairly
(which I believe they did), it was a great experience.  Rogue
Judges seem to be another good bunch of GMs and I wouldn’t hesitate to
sign up for their games in the future.

Injurius Games Ready to Begin

Injurius Games Underway

Saturday my step-son Austin, my brother, and I
all went to Origins.  We took a brief walk through the vendor area
in Exhibit Hall D.  Austin enjoyed watching the live action RPG
chess game and battle demonstrations with foam weaponry, seeing all the
games and costumes, etc.  So did I.  Around noon, we took part
in the “Reaper Paint and Take” session, where you could
receive a free figure and paint.  Believe it or not, this was the
second or third time I’d ever tried to paint a figure, and those didn’t
really count because they were mostly one-color spray jobs.  I
think I did pretty well for a first attempt, painting a dragon hatching
from its egg. 

After the painting, we played Sudden Death -
Red Shirt Smash (a.k.a., Astrosmash) with the gang at Red Shirt
Games.  As mentioned earlier, it was a great experience as I
expected.  Austin, who had never played any miniatures game before,
loved it – in large part because the Red Shirt GM (Rob, I believe) and
other players were patient with him and taught him what he needed to
know.  We lost, but still had fun.

Silent Death

Silent Death

After dinner, we came back to check out
“Barbie’s Bad Hair Day”.  We got back too late for me to
actually take part in it, but I watched for a few minutes to get the
flavor of it.  The gist of the game is that Barbie’s hair
looks really bad, so she’s gone postal. She’s in the top of her dream
house with a rifle, ready to shoot anyone in the yard out front. 
In the yard are several groups of her fellow toys, including the stuffed
animals and the GI Joes.  The animals want to sneak a fashion
magazine into the house that tells her “bad hair” is in. 
The Joes, it appears, want to take her out military style.

On our
way out, we stopped to play a demonstration game of Mayfair’s Pirates
Cove, run by the folks at bigboxgames.com.  They
played a 10-minute video for us, showing the basic play of the game,
then let us sit with some other folks and play a game of it.  We
all agreed that it was a fun game to play.  At $37.46 plus $9
shipping, I’m not sure I’ll be buying it any time soon, though.  It
wasn’t much more strategic or detailed than something like Risk, and
didn’t strike me as being worth that kind of money.  Still, if I
find it cheaply somewhere (say $20-25) I would pick it up.

Sunday
I spent most of my time in the dealer room, picking up some bargain bin
games and miniatures, some not-really-bargain T-shirts and a polo shirt,
and some decently-priced computer games from Matrix Games.  After
that, we headed home and called it a day (and “a
convention”).

While in some ways I didn’t quite have as much
fun as I did at Origins 2004, overall I did have a good time
there.  I got to play Car Wars for the first time this year, and
played a couple of favorites from last year (Injurius Games and Silent
Death).  I ended up buying more shirts and miniatures this year
than actual games, though I did pick up two games (Spammers and
something else that was $1) as well as three video games (Starshatter,
Reach for the Stars, and one other).

As it always is with
“Origins weekend”, it was all over way too quickly to suit me,
but as always it was a good time.

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Basic Premise

In the distant
future, the emperor Injurius has decided to hold
gladatorial combat games in a manner similar to ancient Rome. Groups of
warriors enter an arena and fight for their lives. As warriors gain
battle experience by killing their opponents, they grow in skill and
ability, becoming more formidable.  When you play Injurius
Games you’re controlling the gladiators in one of these
battles.  This review will attempt to describe the game play at a
basic level (there is a lot more to the rules than I can cover here), so
that you can determine if this sounds like the right game for
you.

How it’s Played – At a High Level

I
played Injurius
Games at the last two Origins
conventions in Columbus, Ohio. My favorite variant is the
“keep what you kill” one, where you’re given one unpainted
miniature for each one of your opponents’ corresponding figures you kill
in the game.

Basic Injurius Games gameplay works
like this. Across a table, on which is configured a map with various
kinds of terrain, are groups of warriors, one for each player. There are
5 warriors in each group, every one with different weaponry and
abilities. There is the commander, who runs the show and spurs his men
on to victory. There is the sniper, able to inflict great damage from a
long distance, if he can hit you to inflict it (which isn’t easy). There
is the plasma gunner, able to shoot into areas and fire on enemies who
are hiding behind walls and the like. The mini gunner, whose weapon
fires fast and powerfully. Last, there is the lowly grunt, whose basic
skills make him useful, and whose grenades can make him deadly to groups
of his enemies.

At the beginning of the Injurius
Games, warriors are in their “starting boxes”. The
game master draws a card to decide which team is going to move, and
which warrior gets to move. The commander, if he hasn’t moved already,
can move on any of his team’s turns, in addition to the warrior who is
supposed to move that time around. The commander, when activated, gets a
certain number of “command points” he can use to improve his
(or his men’s) performance as needed during the game. This is the paper
equivalent of using his leadership skills to spur his men to fight
better.

Warriors who haven’t fought yet have the chance to do so
when their card comes up, or they can go into an “opportunity
fire” mode where they wait for an enemy to come into range. When
fire happens, the player doing the firing has to quickly calculate the
effects of “cover” from the terrain, bonuses due to battle
honors and power-ups, etc., to determine what it takes to hit the enemy.
The firing player rolls the dice to attempt to hit. If he does, the
player being fired upon rolls the dice to see if he manages to escape
damage from the fire. If not, the firing player rolls the amount of
damage dealt to his victim. A victim who receives too much damage dies
and is out of the game.

Also during Injurius Games
play is a chance that a “power up” will be placed on
the field. A power up is something like the same concept in a video
game. When a warrior steps on a randomly placed power up, he gains a
weapon, skill, or other improvement that makes him more formidable. That
is, unless he rolls a 12 and actually damages himself from then on. The
exact location of power ups is determined by a pair of die rolls that
determine where to place the item vertically and horizontally from the
rolling player(s).

When one warrior defeats another, he obtains a
battle honor. Battle honors, similar to power ups, enhance the warrior’s
stats, skills, and abilities. Needless to say, a warrior who has killed
even a few opponents in battle is likely to become quite formidable in a
hurry.

In the beginning rounds of the game, the teams on opposite
sides of the table are enemies in the Injurius Games.
Later, in the last turn, the game masters turn it into a free-for-all,
where anyone can shoot at the units of any other player. In the
“keep what you kill” games, this is where you’ll start
collecting (and losing) miniatures very quickly.

Injurius
Games Review

Injurius Games is a fun
combat game for anyone who doesn’t like extremely detailed combat rules
(like me). A game between 8 people, each with 5 warriors (one of each
type) will take about 4 hours to go through 6 turns. Smaller groups,
naturally, go faster.

The one element of Injurius
Games I find a bit annoying is the calculation of “to
hit” values on each shot. The calculation usually goes something
like this:

1. Determine the base “to hit” value for
   the weapon and distance.
2. If the warrior is a “Hero”
   level, subtract one from that “to hit” value.
3. If the
   warrior is a “Champion” level (like the commander), subtract
   two from the “to hit” value.
4. If the warrior moved
   before firing, add one to the “to hit” value.
5. If the
   enemy unit is behind any cover, determine the amount and adjust “to
   hit” upward accordingly.
6. If your warrior is damaged,
   determine if this affects “to hit” and adjust
   accordingly.

Most of the time, in the “keep what you
kill” scenarios, the calculation ends up being this: “OK, I
need a 5 to hit you. But I moved to get into firing position, so I need
a 6. But I’m a hero, so that goes back to a 5. But you’re behind partial
cover, so it goes back up to a 6. But my battle honor makes it a 5
again.” So you go through all that math and end up back at the
start again. Personally, I think I’d adjust the Injurius
Games character sheets so that the Hero and Champion figures
were already included. If a character gets a promotion/demotion during
battle, then adjust that figure. I’d also adjust the sheets to assume a
character is moving when he shoots, and give him a bonus for being
stationary, rather than assume he’s stationary and penalize him for
moving. Then the long-winded above thing would become something more
like “I need a 5 to hit you while I’m moving, but my battle honor
makes that a 4, except that you’re behind partial cover, so it’s a
5.” Still longer than I would like, but it would be faster and
easier to sort out.

Aside from that, I find Injurius
Games to be well balanced, not unnecessarily complex,
reasonably fast paced, and above all, fun. Kids and adults alike can
enjoy it and grasp the rules.

Definitely recommended. See Red Shirt Games to buy your
copy and miniatures.

Injurius
Games Ready to Start

Injurius Games
In Play (Yes, I’m getting my butt kicked by a girl…but a very nice
one!)

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An old friend comes back in new clothing…

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