I finished the second mission of chapter 3. The high point was capturing Strindberg, who, because he got beat by F.A.T.H.E.R.'s forces, for some reason decided to turn on the alliance and start attacking our ships. He wound up causing an oil spill around my secondary island in the process. What an incompetent dick! How did he wind up getting a second chance in the Global Trust? (I delivered him to Rufus Thorne, which should be the end of him, but somehow, I'm guessing he'll get an inexplicable third chance to screw things up).
That was just a sidequest though. The main mission had me build up the infrastructure to build high-end Global Trust warships. It went a whole lot smoother now that I had a robust infrastructure giving me basically unlimited tools and building materials, but I'm pretty sure I screwed myself for the last couple of mission, because I am virtually out of space to expand, so if missions three and four have any more serious teching up to do, I'm done for.
However, I think I'm going to leave that for another time. Anno 2070 is a game of growth and order, of building miniature electronic gardens and watching them flower over time. Twenty hours doesn't do it justice, but neither would 50, or 100. It's a weird thing I'm discovering on this journey of mine - a lot of my games are infinite time sinks. I started this project with the notion that I could "give my games their due," put in a solid 20 hours and rest secure in the knowledge that I hadn't wasted my money by buying them. Now, I think that may not be the biggest problem with my collection.
It turns out, I'm probably wasting the games. I have Recettear and Anno 2070 and Skyrim, so why exactly do I need a fourth game (obvious answer - Civilization)? Each one could be a hobby, an obsession, or a lifestyle. Is my time really so valuable that I can afford to play favorites among them, sprinkling my attention whimsically between games, never really getting the full experience of any of them, just so I can say that I own them? Am I really so bored? So jaded?
I don't think so, but I also couldn't say what I hoped to accomplish by buying them. Call it a species of lust, I guess. The things looked so appealing, and they were so easily attainable, that I had to go after them, but I never really meant for that to become a commitment.
Which is to say that, now, coming off the high of succeeding at Anno 2070's campaign mode, I fully intend to come back and visit it again, but I have more than 50 games yet to go, so it's actually quite like that another will turn my head (obvious answer - Civilization), and for all it's undeniable virtues, it is unlikely to be the one that tames my wandering heart.
It's bittersweet, but I must say "goodbye and good luck" to Anno 2070. I will always remember your excessively fiddly supply chain mechanics with fondness.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Anno 2070 - 15/20 hours
I don't think I'm going to finish campaign mode by hour 20. It's been five hours since my last post, and I am still not much closer to finishing the very same mission I was attempting at the end of hour 10. A large part of this is, of course, because I took a detour and played a random "easy" map for a couple of hours.
The economic crash that occurred last time I played campaign mode was simply too frustrating to endure. I needed to learn how to manage an economy from the ground up, without having to worry about arbitrary campaign goals. So, I did just that.
Turns out my problem was almost certainly a lack of patience. Or rather, a lack of understanding that patience is necessary. My first time through, I charged through the scenario like a bull (at least, as much as that's possible in a casually paced strategy game). As soon as an upgrade was available, I built it, and as a result, my high-level citizens and factories were eating up all of my basic resources, leading to chronic shortages. Those shortages made my people unhappy, and as a consequence, my economy repeatedly crashed.
So, you know, I had to stop doing that. I had to, instead, build a broad enough base so that when the expansion came, it would result in a more stable structure. Even if that meant passing up the opportunity to advance the quest as quickly as possible.
With that knowledge in hand, I restarted the campaign mode . . . and almost screwed myself, because it turns out that the mission requires you to reduce the pollution on your starting island (which, if you recall, was nuked by F.A.T.H.E.R.), a task that is mathematically impossible if you have to offset a robust industrial economy in addition to the island's natural starting deficit. Luckily, I noticed this while I was only a few points over the line, and thus was able to complete the scenario goal by bulldozing a few of my high-tech factories and then rebuilding them when the quest triggered.
I'm now optimistic about completing the mission, and I suspect that future missions in Chapter 4 might be a little easier (you keep the same island for every mission in a chapter, and thus I feel pretty confident that there are no more onerous building-style tasks than getting 1200 level 3 residents - the last three mission are likely to be purely military).
That said, I have not yet reached the point where Anno 2070's brand of city management is intuitive to me. The latest problem I've been having is a shortage of vegetables to make high-end health food, which is weird because I'd have thought the bottleneck would be rice, which I have to import from a heavily irradiated island. Why my stocks of vegetables should be empty, while my warehouse practically overflows with rice is a complete mystery.
Still, this sort of challenge is why I'm really enjoying Anno 2070. There's just something compellingly immersive (and charmingly nerdy) about having to worry about sources of raw materials to supply factories to achieve your political and economic goals. And it gives a real sense of accomplishment when you are able to sort out your issues and get things working smoothly.
Here's hoping there are no more nasty surprises in store for the last three missions of the campaign.
The economic crash that occurred last time I played campaign mode was simply too frustrating to endure. I needed to learn how to manage an economy from the ground up, without having to worry about arbitrary campaign goals. So, I did just that.
Turns out my problem was almost certainly a lack of patience. Or rather, a lack of understanding that patience is necessary. My first time through, I charged through the scenario like a bull (at least, as much as that's possible in a casually paced strategy game). As soon as an upgrade was available, I built it, and as a result, my high-level citizens and factories were eating up all of my basic resources, leading to chronic shortages. Those shortages made my people unhappy, and as a consequence, my economy repeatedly crashed.
So, you know, I had to stop doing that. I had to, instead, build a broad enough base so that when the expansion came, it would result in a more stable structure. Even if that meant passing up the opportunity to advance the quest as quickly as possible.
With that knowledge in hand, I restarted the campaign mode . . . and almost screwed myself, because it turns out that the mission requires you to reduce the pollution on your starting island (which, if you recall, was nuked by F.A.T.H.E.R.), a task that is mathematically impossible if you have to offset a robust industrial economy in addition to the island's natural starting deficit. Luckily, I noticed this while I was only a few points over the line, and thus was able to complete the scenario goal by bulldozing a few of my high-tech factories and then rebuilding them when the quest triggered.
I'm now optimistic about completing the mission, and I suspect that future missions in Chapter 4 might be a little easier (you keep the same island for every mission in a chapter, and thus I feel pretty confident that there are no more onerous building-style tasks than getting 1200 level 3 residents - the last three mission are likely to be purely military).
That said, I have not yet reached the point where Anno 2070's brand of city management is intuitive to me. The latest problem I've been having is a shortage of vegetables to make high-end health food, which is weird because I'd have thought the bottleneck would be rice, which I have to import from a heavily irradiated island. Why my stocks of vegetables should be empty, while my warehouse practically overflows with rice is a complete mystery.
Still, this sort of challenge is why I'm really enjoying Anno 2070. There's just something compellingly immersive (and charmingly nerdy) about having to worry about sources of raw materials to supply factories to achieve your political and economic goals. And it gives a real sense of accomplishment when you are able to sort out your issues and get things working smoothly.
Here's hoping there are no more nasty surprises in store for the last three missions of the campaign.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Anno 2070 - 10/20 hours
I'm still playing through the campaign, and I'm guessing I'm about halfway through the first mission of chapter 3, and it's kind of a rough one. F.A.T.H.E.R., the AI that is, apparently, the "highest authority" in S.A.A.T continues to be insane. I've tracked it down to its island refuge where it, for some reason, decided to nuke a bunch of other islands (destroying a few buildings, but leaving the trees unharmed). To stop the rogue AI, I have to build up my population until the third tier of workers.
It's a challenge that's stretching my novice city management skills to their limit. Basically, there is a complex interplay of resources, energy, credits, and building space that needs to be navigated to insure that my people have all the luxuries necessary to support a highly educated population. I keep running into shortages that, when I patch them, lead to shortages in other areas, which, upon correcting, lead to new shortages, and so on and so forth. I've got about 400 of the necessary 1200 eco engineers, but after building my second city center and a whole bunch of new houses, my economy suddenly collapsed, and I'm starting to worry that I may not be able to get it to recover.
Still, I guess that's the challenge of the game. If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth doing. (Or maybe it would, there is something oddly relaxing about playing a building game where everything goes right).
It's a little stressful, though, so I'm thinking of putting the campaign on hiatus and starting an open-ended game, so that I can explore the tech tree and resource chains in a situation with a little less pressure. I mean, this is towards the end of the campaign mode, so it may be that I'm too much of a newb to tackle it.
I'm liking the game, though. Exploring the maps, finding resources, and advancing your sci-fi technology are all fun and satisfying. More than enough to keep me going for the last 10 hours.
It's a challenge that's stretching my novice city management skills to their limit. Basically, there is a complex interplay of resources, energy, credits, and building space that needs to be navigated to insure that my people have all the luxuries necessary to support a highly educated population. I keep running into shortages that, when I patch them, lead to shortages in other areas, which, upon correcting, lead to new shortages, and so on and so forth. I've got about 400 of the necessary 1200 eco engineers, but after building my second city center and a whole bunch of new houses, my economy suddenly collapsed, and I'm starting to worry that I may not be able to get it to recover.
Still, I guess that's the challenge of the game. If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth doing. (Or maybe it would, there is something oddly relaxing about playing a building game where everything goes right).
It's a little stressful, though, so I'm thinking of putting the campaign on hiatus and starting an open-ended game, so that I can explore the tech tree and resource chains in a situation with a little less pressure. I mean, this is towards the end of the campaign mode, so it may be that I'm too much of a newb to tackle it.
I'm liking the game, though. Exploring the maps, finding resources, and advancing your sci-fi technology are all fun and satisfying. More than enough to keep me going for the last 10 hours.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Anno 2070 - 6/20 hours
I've been through two of the chapter 2 missions, and my impression of this game is growing more and more favorable. You can build bases underwater! I made the same damned mistake as when I first tried to settle an island (you don't start a base with the conventional build buttons, even if it's underwater), but it was nonetheless pretty cool.
I had my problems, though. A scripted event in the first campaign mission turned my fish into rotten fish and killed off my whole town. I had to start the mission over. I think the purpose of this was to teach me to use and rely on trade routes, but none of the other factions sold fish, and the game never told me that my underwater base's functional food could substitute in a pinch. Still, you live you learn.
I actually really like Anno 2070's production system - you harvest raw materials to make other materials, which can make other materials, which can go into special buildings and units. However, I'm definitely going to have a long way to go before I master the economy. Matching supply to demand is a major pain (the classic weakness of all centrally planned economic systems), and my credit income fluctuated unpredictably. While it seemed to generally grow alongside my population, it would then spike up and down for no discernible reason. What I think is going on is that my citizens happiness varies based on my current stockpiles of luxury goods, and that affects tax income, but I was never actually able to boost luxury production high enough to see my income stabilize. In fact, trying to do so wound up raising my expenses unacceptably.
It was only in retrospect that I realized I was probably going about it the wrong way. In Anno 2070, you are limited in where you can build your various types of facilities. Residential housing has to be within a certain distance of a city center. My income peaked at around the time I filled up all the available space around mine. But, instead of trying to build more luxuries, what I should have done is just build a second city center and increased my population of basic workers (advanced workers pay more taxes, but need more luxuries). Call it a failure of imagination. Because, up to this point, I'd only needed one city center, I'd gotten in the habit of thinking of them as a "one per island" building, but there's actually nothing in the rules (as far as I can tell) that says that. I'm going to chalk that up to an understandable rookie mistake.
I have a feeling, though, that I may also have underestimated the corporate faction. I dismissed them as a bunch of short-sighted goons, but I'm pretty sure they generate more income per citizen (actually I just checked the wiki, and it turns out their advantage is lower maintenance costs - which still would have helped my balance significantly).
I also got my first taste of combat in the second Chapter 2 mission (an AI, called F.A.T.H.E.R. gets infected by a computer virus, goes rogue, and takes over C.O.R.E - those scientist guys sure like their clever acronyms, though I couldn't tell you what either means). I'm pleased that it seems pretty basic, and thus won't necessarily require a great deal of sophisticated RTS tactics on my part, but actually building a warship required a huge amount of infrastructure and credits, so I'm a little worried that if I do poorly in battle, I may screw myself beyond my ability to recover.
Overall, I am hugely optimistic about this game. I just can't wait until I stop stumbling around blindly and actually get good (that'll probably take more than 20 hours, though - this game looks super deep).
I had my problems, though. A scripted event in the first campaign mission turned my fish into rotten fish and killed off my whole town. I had to start the mission over. I think the purpose of this was to teach me to use and rely on trade routes, but none of the other factions sold fish, and the game never told me that my underwater base's functional food could substitute in a pinch. Still, you live you learn.
I actually really like Anno 2070's production system - you harvest raw materials to make other materials, which can make other materials, which can go into special buildings and units. However, I'm definitely going to have a long way to go before I master the economy. Matching supply to demand is a major pain (the classic weakness of all centrally planned economic systems), and my credit income fluctuated unpredictably. While it seemed to generally grow alongside my population, it would then spike up and down for no discernible reason. What I think is going on is that my citizens happiness varies based on my current stockpiles of luxury goods, and that affects tax income, but I was never actually able to boost luxury production high enough to see my income stabilize. In fact, trying to do so wound up raising my expenses unacceptably.
It was only in retrospect that I realized I was probably going about it the wrong way. In Anno 2070, you are limited in where you can build your various types of facilities. Residential housing has to be within a certain distance of a city center. My income peaked at around the time I filled up all the available space around mine. But, instead of trying to build more luxuries, what I should have done is just build a second city center and increased my population of basic workers (advanced workers pay more taxes, but need more luxuries). Call it a failure of imagination. Because, up to this point, I'd only needed one city center, I'd gotten in the habit of thinking of them as a "one per island" building, but there's actually nothing in the rules (as far as I can tell) that says that. I'm going to chalk that up to an understandable rookie mistake.
I have a feeling, though, that I may also have underestimated the corporate faction. I dismissed them as a bunch of short-sighted goons, but I'm pretty sure they generate more income per citizen (actually I just checked the wiki, and it turns out their advantage is lower maintenance costs - which still would have helped my balance significantly).
I also got my first taste of combat in the second Chapter 2 mission (an AI, called F.A.T.H.E.R. gets infected by a computer virus, goes rogue, and takes over C.O.R.E - those scientist guys sure like their clever acronyms, though I couldn't tell you what either means). I'm pleased that it seems pretty basic, and thus won't necessarily require a great deal of sophisticated RTS tactics on my part, but actually building a warship required a huge amount of infrastructure and credits, so I'm a little worried that if I do poorly in battle, I may screw myself beyond my ability to recover.
Overall, I am hugely optimistic about this game. I just can't wait until I stop stumbling around blindly and actually get good (that'll probably take more than 20 hours, though - this game looks super deep).
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Anno 2070 - 2/20 hours
I've now finished the first chapter of the campaign, and so far it has convinced me that I will probably really like this game . . . and also that I may moderately dislike campaign mode.
It's not awful or anything, it's just that so far, I've only seen one map, and the quests have been pretty bland. Various people asking me to move my flagship to a particular location or to build X number of buildings. Yet there are hints of the game's depth to be seen - I've had to build faction specific buildings and set up short supply chains. That small taste has whetted my appetite to see what the game can do when everything is unlocked.
I think I'm going to stick with the campaign for now, though. It looks like playing an open-ended game is going to require that I absorb a lot of new concepts, and I'd prefer to have them spoon-fed to me one at a time. Not that the campaign works great as a tutorial (the first time I played, back in June, I had to look up on the internet how to build a warehouse, because the game didn't tell me that it was an exception to the normal construction menu). Still, it narrows down my inevitable searches by taking away the whole "where do I even begin" problem.
The plot of the campaign is bare bones. I'm some kind of corporate stooge who starts out working for the world's most incompetent corporate executive, Thor Strindberg. Not only does Strindberg insist on using oil and coal power, despite the premise of the game being out of control climate change forcing humanity to take to the seas (though, to be fair, this appears to be a wider policy of the corporate faction), but he can't even do "pragmatic in the short term, careless about externalities" right. He deliberately ignores his chief engineer's warnings about overloading a hydroelectric dam, insists on running a new part without proper testing, and then tries to pin the blame on the engineer when it fails. And when I do a halfway decent job cleaning up the mess, he tries to throw me under the bus too. When that fails to appease Rufus Thorne, the CEO, he swears revenge as if, somehow, I had anything at all to do with his downfall.
I don't get this character. Lying would be sleazy, yet understandable, but he must know that neither I nor the engineer did anything but follow his orders, so continuing to insist on his innocence after the CEO has stopped listening borders on the delusional.
The third and fourth missions of the campaign have me meeting up with a couple of new factions. In the third, a tanker ship collides with an oil platform, and I have to call upon the help of the Eden Initiative to clean it up. These guys seem moderately on the ball, using wind power and saving dolphins and whatnot, though you'd have to work pretty hard to be a bigger asshole than Thor Strindberg. Even Rufus Thorne looks good by comparison - he, at least, understands that a major ecological and humanitarian disaster is bad for business, even if he still inexplicably insists on sticking with the corporation's two year plan.
The fourth mission introduces me to what I can only assume is a third faction, SAAT. I can't say for sure, because I didn't get any new buildings from them, but they appear to be a scientist-type group. I had to work for their head honcho, Salman Devii, in order to find a long lost Ark. It turns out it sunk to the bottom of the sea, and though this mission has all the same boring "click on a particular area of the map" objectives of the previous missions, I still kind of liked it because it introduced submarines, and it turns out there is a whole sub-surface map to explore that I didn't even suspect existed. I'm pretty excited about the potential sci-fi city management vistas this new layer will open up.
The only thing I don't get so far is the Arks. They're obviously pretty important to the setting, but I'm not sure I understand their technological niche. They're huge, mobile general purpose logistics platforms that can submerge and travel under the waves, but it seems like a fleet of ordinary, purpose-built ships would be both cheaper and more efficient. And even if the Ark did have some sort of economic role, why would you make it submersible? What possible purpose could that serve?
It's not that big a deal, though. I get that it's real purpose is to serve as a home base/shop for my island settlements. I'm hoping that, as time goes on, I'll be able to customize it, because it's kind of a bummer to have this thing on the map that I'm not personally invested in. It seems likely - the Ark has customization slots - I'm just not yet sure how it's done.
It's not awful or anything, it's just that so far, I've only seen one map, and the quests have been pretty bland. Various people asking me to move my flagship to a particular location or to build X number of buildings. Yet there are hints of the game's depth to be seen - I've had to build faction specific buildings and set up short supply chains. That small taste has whetted my appetite to see what the game can do when everything is unlocked.
I think I'm going to stick with the campaign for now, though. It looks like playing an open-ended game is going to require that I absorb a lot of new concepts, and I'd prefer to have them spoon-fed to me one at a time. Not that the campaign works great as a tutorial (the first time I played, back in June, I had to look up on the internet how to build a warehouse, because the game didn't tell me that it was an exception to the normal construction menu). Still, it narrows down my inevitable searches by taking away the whole "where do I even begin" problem.
The plot of the campaign is bare bones. I'm some kind of corporate stooge who starts out working for the world's most incompetent corporate executive, Thor Strindberg. Not only does Strindberg insist on using oil and coal power, despite the premise of the game being out of control climate change forcing humanity to take to the seas (though, to be fair, this appears to be a wider policy of the corporate faction), but he can't even do "pragmatic in the short term, careless about externalities" right. He deliberately ignores his chief engineer's warnings about overloading a hydroelectric dam, insists on running a new part without proper testing, and then tries to pin the blame on the engineer when it fails. And when I do a halfway decent job cleaning up the mess, he tries to throw me under the bus too. When that fails to appease Rufus Thorne, the CEO, he swears revenge as if, somehow, I had anything at all to do with his downfall.
I don't get this character. Lying would be sleazy, yet understandable, but he must know that neither I nor the engineer did anything but follow his orders, so continuing to insist on his innocence after the CEO has stopped listening borders on the delusional.
The third and fourth missions of the campaign have me meeting up with a couple of new factions. In the third, a tanker ship collides with an oil platform, and I have to call upon the help of the Eden Initiative to clean it up. These guys seem moderately on the ball, using wind power and saving dolphins and whatnot, though you'd have to work pretty hard to be a bigger asshole than Thor Strindberg. Even Rufus Thorne looks good by comparison - he, at least, understands that a major ecological and humanitarian disaster is bad for business, even if he still inexplicably insists on sticking with the corporation's two year plan.
The fourth mission introduces me to what I can only assume is a third faction, SAAT. I can't say for sure, because I didn't get any new buildings from them, but they appear to be a scientist-type group. I had to work for their head honcho, Salman Devii, in order to find a long lost Ark. It turns out it sunk to the bottom of the sea, and though this mission has all the same boring "click on a particular area of the map" objectives of the previous missions, I still kind of liked it because it introduced submarines, and it turns out there is a whole sub-surface map to explore that I didn't even suspect existed. I'm pretty excited about the potential sci-fi city management vistas this new layer will open up.
The only thing I don't get so far is the Arks. They're obviously pretty important to the setting, but I'm not sure I understand their technological niche. They're huge, mobile general purpose logistics platforms that can submerge and travel under the waves, but it seems like a fleet of ordinary, purpose-built ships would be both cheaper and more efficient. And even if the Ark did have some sort of economic role, why would you make it submersible? What possible purpose could that serve?
It's not that big a deal, though. I get that it's real purpose is to serve as a home base/shop for my island settlements. I'm hoping that, as time goes on, I'll be able to customize it, because it's kind of a bummer to have this thing on the map that I'm not personally invested in. It seems likely - the Ark has customization slots - I'm just not yet sure how it's done.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Anno 2070 - Initial Thoughts
About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
2070. Our world has changed. The rising level of the ocean has harmed the coastal cities and climate change has made large stretches of land inhospitable.
The latest in the award-winning strategy series, Anno 2070™ offers a new world full of challenges, where you will need to master resources, diplomacy, and trade in the most comprehensive economic management system in the Anno series.
Build your society of the future, colonize islands, and create sprawling megacities with multitudes of buildings, vehicles, and resources to manage. Engineer production chains such as Robot Factories, Oil Refineries, and Diamond Mines, and trade with a variety of goods and commodities.
Previous Play Time
2 hours
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This
I thought it looked like a sci-fi Sim City, so it was kind of a no-brainer to go on my wishlist. Then, when it went on deep discount during the Steam Summer Sale, I had to go for it. Truth be told, though, I wasn't doing all that much "thinking" when I bought it. The sale was right before my birthday, so I was like, "well, it's not too bad to get myself a little present." And it wouldn't have been, if I hadn't reused that excuse to the point of absurdity.
Prior Experience
I'd done a couple of the campaign missions, in order to gradually learn the game's mechanics. I found it pretty fun, but ultimately I stopped because I also bought like a dozen other games during the 2014 Steam Summer Sale, and I was overwhelmed with choice (historical note - this is the last game I played before starting this blog).
Expectations
City building games are usually an exception to my general dislike of RTS games, because building up my base is my favorite part of the genre. However, Anno 2070 allows you to build military units in addition to the normal city-sim type stuff, so I'll admit to being a little worried that I may be in for a bumpy ride here (a big reason I tend to dislike RTS's is because I get attached to my buildings and units, and hate seeing the enemy blow them up - I'd probably be a much happier gamer overall if I didn't always bring so much emotion into the games I play). On the other hand, the campaign missions I've already played seemed pretty casual, so I'm guessing that the RTS stuff is going to be more like a spice, and that if I can master the game's base building aspects, I should be all right. Plus, there are custom maps, so if I get to a point where advancing in the campaign requires too much combat for my tastes, I can always just start up a more peaceful map.
My hopes here are high. I like building things and seeing my creations grow. So, basically, all Anno 2070 has to do is avoid screwing that up.
2070. Our world has changed. The rising level of the ocean has harmed the coastal cities and climate change has made large stretches of land inhospitable.
The latest in the award-winning strategy series, Anno 2070™ offers a new world full of challenges, where you will need to master resources, diplomacy, and trade in the most comprehensive economic management system in the Anno series.
Build your society of the future, colonize islands, and create sprawling megacities with multitudes of buildings, vehicles, and resources to manage. Engineer production chains such as Robot Factories, Oil Refineries, and Diamond Mines, and trade with a variety of goods and commodities.
Previous Play Time
2 hours
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This
I thought it looked like a sci-fi Sim City, so it was kind of a no-brainer to go on my wishlist. Then, when it went on deep discount during the Steam Summer Sale, I had to go for it. Truth be told, though, I wasn't doing all that much "thinking" when I bought it. The sale was right before my birthday, so I was like, "well, it's not too bad to get myself a little present." And it wouldn't have been, if I hadn't reused that excuse to the point of absurdity.
Prior Experience
I'd done a couple of the campaign missions, in order to gradually learn the game's mechanics. I found it pretty fun, but ultimately I stopped because I also bought like a dozen other games during the 2014 Steam Summer Sale, and I was overwhelmed with choice (historical note - this is the last game I played before starting this blog).
Expectations
City building games are usually an exception to my general dislike of RTS games, because building up my base is my favorite part of the genre. However, Anno 2070 allows you to build military units in addition to the normal city-sim type stuff, so I'll admit to being a little worried that I may be in for a bumpy ride here (a big reason I tend to dislike RTS's is because I get attached to my buildings and units, and hate seeing the enemy blow them up - I'd probably be a much happier gamer overall if I didn't always bring so much emotion into the games I play). On the other hand, the campaign missions I've already played seemed pretty casual, so I'm guessing that the RTS stuff is going to be more like a spice, and that if I can master the game's base building aspects, I should be all right. Plus, there are custom maps, so if I get to a point where advancing in the campaign requires too much combat for my tastes, I can always just start up a more peaceful map.
My hopes here are high. I like building things and seeing my creations grow. So, basically, all Anno 2070 has to do is avoid screwing that up.
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition - 20/20 hours
In the last five hours, I defeated a Gaping Dragon and reached a new area, Blight Town. Unfortunately, I subsequently stalled out on my advancement, and was unable to get to Blight Town's bonfire. I think my main problem, aside from the game's punishing difficulty, is that my character's build is simply not very good. I chose the Wanderer class and am still using my starting scimitar (buffed up to +5). I also foolishly decided to dabble in sorcery, miracles, and pyromancy (because I was unsure which one would help me the most). I wound up wasting a bunch of stat increases on Faith and Intelligence, and as a result, I don't think I had enough dexterity, endurance, and vigor to survive in Blight Town.
My next move would be to grind for souls and gain a few more levels (I'm currently at 36) and stock up on poison-curing items before heading back into Blight Town and just plugging away until I get it done. However, I don't think I'll be continuing Dark Souls at this time.
It's not just because this game is frustrating, though if there were more checkpoints, so I didn't have to walk so far every time I died, I might be more inclined to keep it up. Rather, the reason I'm stopping is because it's a frustrating game . . . that does not run very well on my computer. I think I'll probably, one day, get the console version so I can play it with a decent framerate and start a character who is not hopelessly sabotaged by poor stat choices.
Dark Souls has really made me question what it means for a game to be "fun." It would be misleading to say that I enjoyed it, but it would be flat out false to say that I didn't enjoy it. Much of the time, I felt like the game was punishing me, and depending on my mood, that provoked in me either anger or despair. Yet, when I was "in the zone," playing it felt really good, so much so that I barely minded the back-tracking or the stacked odds. So, do I judge Dark Souls by the highs or the lows? It threw my emotions into turmoil, and there were times when I dreaded starting it up. But beating the Bell Gargoyles or the Capra Demon put a huge smile on my face.
I'm tempted to judge it by the little things - the menus and inventory system, for example, are awful. There are two layers of menus you have to go through to change your equipment, but the game will let you move while the first layer is up, and I can't count how many times I blundered into an enemy while still in the menu and thus had to take a few unnecessary hits before I realized what was going on and exited. You also pick up a huge amount of junk that I never figured out how to get rid of. And so much of the game is completely unexplained - I never learned if being hollow actually hurt me, or what was up with the Covenant I joined.
So, I might say that Dark Souls is a game that needs a lot more polish to be truly great (I'm curious how Dark Souls 2 fares in this regard - if it were Dark Souls with improved quality of life, I may well fall in love with it), but I kind of feel like maybe I'm selling it short. Dark Souls feels like a much older game than it really is - like it is a relic from a time before things like "balance" or "learning curves" or "player experience" were well understood, and game designers just threw whatever they felt like up on the screen and trusted that players would figure out a way to get past it. It feels primitive, and raw, and even though it's a newer game, I kind of want to grandfather it in, and say that its roughness is no impediment to it being a great game because it's "old school."
I think that means Dark Souls is definitely a great game. Of the games I've played so far, only Antichamber has provoked stronger emotions. In a way, I'm grateful that a game could stir my heart so forcefully, but I'm not so grateful that I'm eager to continue. I think I miss being able to relax while playing a game.
My next move would be to grind for souls and gain a few more levels (I'm currently at 36) and stock up on poison-curing items before heading back into Blight Town and just plugging away until I get it done. However, I don't think I'll be continuing Dark Souls at this time.
It's not just because this game is frustrating, though if there were more checkpoints, so I didn't have to walk so far every time I died, I might be more inclined to keep it up. Rather, the reason I'm stopping is because it's a frustrating game . . . that does not run very well on my computer. I think I'll probably, one day, get the console version so I can play it with a decent framerate and start a character who is not hopelessly sabotaged by poor stat choices.
Dark Souls has really made me question what it means for a game to be "fun." It would be misleading to say that I enjoyed it, but it would be flat out false to say that I didn't enjoy it. Much of the time, I felt like the game was punishing me, and depending on my mood, that provoked in me either anger or despair. Yet, when I was "in the zone," playing it felt really good, so much so that I barely minded the back-tracking or the stacked odds. So, do I judge Dark Souls by the highs or the lows? It threw my emotions into turmoil, and there were times when I dreaded starting it up. But beating the Bell Gargoyles or the Capra Demon put a huge smile on my face.
I'm tempted to judge it by the little things - the menus and inventory system, for example, are awful. There are two layers of menus you have to go through to change your equipment, but the game will let you move while the first layer is up, and I can't count how many times I blundered into an enemy while still in the menu and thus had to take a few unnecessary hits before I realized what was going on and exited. You also pick up a huge amount of junk that I never figured out how to get rid of. And so much of the game is completely unexplained - I never learned if being hollow actually hurt me, or what was up with the Covenant I joined.
So, I might say that Dark Souls is a game that needs a lot more polish to be truly great (I'm curious how Dark Souls 2 fares in this regard - if it were Dark Souls with improved quality of life, I may well fall in love with it), but I kind of feel like maybe I'm selling it short. Dark Souls feels like a much older game than it really is - like it is a relic from a time before things like "balance" or "learning curves" or "player experience" were well understood, and game designers just threw whatever they felt like up on the screen and trusted that players would figure out a way to get past it. It feels primitive, and raw, and even though it's a newer game, I kind of want to grandfather it in, and say that its roughness is no impediment to it being a great game because it's "old school."
I think that means Dark Souls is definitely a great game. Of the games I've played so far, only Antichamber has provoked stronger emotions. In a way, I'm grateful that a game could stir my heart so forcefully, but I'm not so grateful that I'm eager to continue. I think I miss being able to relax while playing a game.
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