I’m guessing by now you’ve read about the whole Gamespot/Eidos brouhaha. Sorta hard not to. Reading through all the different takes on the situation is pretty freaking exhausting, and frankly rather pointless at the moment. Practically everything you read is based on conjecture and gossip, which is then spun further and picked up by someone else and turned into more questionable content.

Like most Internet Outrages Of Monstrous Proportions the torch and pitchfork wielding mob (or should we call them a lynch mob?) will soon disperse, the original transgression that they rallied against forgotten. Why, it just seems like yesterday the Jade Raymond comic had everyone ready to storm the gates, and before that…I don’t know, Jeff Minter freaking out about Space Giraffe ratings? Jack Thompson? Has Derek Smart made any comments lately?

The basis of this current situation of course stems from the appearance that a reviewer got canned because the publisher–who was spending mucho amounts of cash on advertising at the site—did not quite appreciate the average score their game got. In turn you have editors of every conceivable gaming publication going to Yellow Alert, raising their shields, and telling everyone that advertising revenue has nothing to do with the way they treat games. Any such suggestion that it happens that way would of course be birthed from the fevered imagination of gamers who probably also see black helicopters and wear tinfoil hats. Sane folks know it’s not true.

Anyone else believe that?

Look, for the most part I don’t think for a second that the actual reviews are fudged based on a ratio of how much ad revenue that the game’s publisher is putting into a site/publication’s coffers (note I said for the most part) but money does affect the way the game is handled in a number of other ways: “exclusive” first reviews, extensive previews, cover/frontpage stories, and so forth. I promise you that if an indie game came out that was the greatest game ever created, one that raised the dead and healed the sick, if they weren’t spending tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising you still wouldn’t hear about it. (As if you hear about indie gaming today!) You would hear about Crappy Sequel XVII with a million dollar marketing budget, even if it had no redeeming qualities, though.

The problem is that gaming publications are far too entwined with their advertisers. I don’t know when exactly everything went off track, but at some point they sold their soul to the marketers. At this point it’s a lot like lobbyists and the government, which isn’t something any industry should aspire to become.

How do other industries do it? Book reviews, movie reviews, automobile reviews, whatever kind of review? For the most part diversification seems to be the key. You don’t tie keeping your lights on with the people trying to sell the product you’re covering.

Maybe this fiasco will start getting people to reevaluate how their revenue models work. This could be a turning point, one for the better. And if not, well, there are a blogs springing up every day dedicated to gaming. Blogs freed from worrying about who’s going to sponsor their bandwidth this month.

In a time when everyone is a critic is losing your reputation over some banner ads really worth it?

I don’t own Rock Band, and chances are I will never. Rhythm games are just not my thing, and as far as I’m aware, aren’t much fun for anyone else I game with. To be fair who knows, maybe it’s a really fun genre, but I’m in no hurry to find out.

I do understand the lure of Rock Band, though. I suppose with the right kind of crowd it could be a fun little party game; knock back a few cold ones and jump around like an idiot to Poison while hammering away on a plastic guitar or drum set. Hell, I have ex-girlfriends who would probably go out and buy a console solely for that pleasure.

The key is obviously the group dynamic. I imagine it falls rather flat if you’re being a hermit. Likewise, I don’t know if it includes online play, but if it does and everyone is off rocking out at their own places, I’m guessing you really lose out on the experience. It would seem that the social aspect is probably far more important than the actual gameplay.

As a tabletop gamer I can understand the importance of the group. That’s why I never really got the thrill of playing board games online, whether through VASSAL or by some other means. The game itself may not change, but there is something drastically different with the experience. It’s like a kiss from your aunt that you have to see every Christmas and a kiss from the hot neighbor who models lingerie in her spare time. Technically they’re the same, lips pressing on your flesh, but radically different in terms of what you experience. Online social gaming is the aunt, face to face play the hot neighbor chick.

So why don’t we do more hotseat strategy gaming?

I don’t even remember the last time I played something in hotseat mode. I think maybe it was Heroes of Might and Magic II or III.

I can’t blame it on the old standby that I don’t have the time, because I have no problem spending an entire day role-playing, or board gaming. I can’t blame it on no opponents since the same folks I’m spending all that time with gaming have similar computer gaming interests.

One problem is for whatever reason I have never been able to devote the same amount of time to computer gaming as I do to other forms of gaming. Not in terms of finding the time, but just finding the desire to sit at the computer for any length of time. Strangely I used to run D&D groups from about five in the afternoon until two or three in the morning and was completely fine with that, but spending more than an hour or two on one computer game rarely occurs. Yes, there are those exceptions that will lock my ass in my desk chair until the wee hours of the morning, but those have been few and far between. Spending a day board gaming though, no matter how average the game, is common.

Funny how some of the strengths of computer gaming are no set up times, no lost counters, and a program to handle all your bookkeeping needs, and yet on game day we’d rather pull out a boardgame and set it up, scrounge for counters, and pass the calculator around to figure out the tax base of the Kingdom of Ansbuch. Why isn’t hotseat computer gaming more popular?

Am I alone? Does anyone else get together with their gaming buddies and fire up a hotseat game?

Added an ‘Army Group Kitchen Table’ category tag to facilitate finding the posts.

If you’ve missed any in the past here’s what we have so far:

Operation Weserubung: The Invasion Of Norway

Blackshirt: The Italian Invasion Of Egypt 1940

Cowboys - The Way Of The Gun

Last Night On Earth

Panzer Tactics DS

Brit blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun had an interesting post today concerning the possibility of striking members of the WGA slumming turning to the world of gaming to keep those mortgage payments timely. Even before the current strike the idea of Hollywood’s “professional” writers joining forces with the world of digital gaming has been a periodic topic of conversation, and I’ve always had some problems with the idea.

To begin, why in the name of Nolan Bushnell are movie and television writers considered to be the Holy Grail for digital game scripting? Has anyone watched the stuff they put out in theaters or on television? Yeah, there are a lot of cringe worthy games in terms of dialogue and plotting, but there are just as many—if not even far more—examples on both the big and small screens.

All I can figure is that because those writers work in a visual medium, and digital gaming is also visual, that’s why we have the idea that they would be so brilliant in games. Yet wouldn’t it make more sense to primarily look for writers in the world of literature as Valve did? For literary writers to be successful they need to master characterization, plotting, themes, and other elements that when done right can turn an average story into something masterful. Exactly the problem facing most digital games, whose trade is in relatively vapid stories. Dress up the stories though with decent writing though and presto! It becomes greater than the sum of its part.

Ultimately though I see no reason why we even need to look for outside talent. Who better understands the medium than those who already work in the industry? It’s not just that a well told narrative is needed, it’s the fact that someone needs to spin that narrative while considering the fact that the player will be an agent of change. It’s a lot like running a tabletop RPG. As a GM you cannot simply create the greatest epic tale ever told, you need to realize that your players will be doing their best to throw some kinks in your carefully laid plans, intentionally or not. Veteran GMs know how to roll with the player’s actions, novices freeze up because they don’t know how to deal with the party killing Important Plot NPC #26, thus gumming up the narrative. I imagine bringing in outsiders would be the same as newbie GMs. So let’s not just write off everyone within the industry as poor story tellers, or script writers, but instead let’s just search for more appropriate talent within the developers.

Then there is the basic question how important really is story? Do gamers truly care about it? If they did shouldn’t interactive fiction be a tad more popular? Would we not be discussing how Zork XII sold four million copies in the first week instead of a game best known for online teabagging? It sometimes seems that for some the future of gaming is interactive movies/stories. To those I say no thanks, I’ve already played Dragon’s Lair back in the day and wasn’t too impressed. That’s not to say that I don’t want to see narrative in games; I just want the game to come first, and narrative second. A transparent narrative, if you will.

Finally, I’m always a tad suspicious whenever Hollywood starts to eye the game industry. In every case the motivator has been money, and when a creative process is driven by greed it always suffers. Notice no one ever talks about jumping ship from movies to pen and paper RPGs? And then there’s the fact that while at the moment the WGA has no say about their writers writing for the game industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if that loophole is closed up in the future. What would then happen if you had a team of WGA writers working on a multi-million dollar AAA title and the WGA went on strike?

We saw The Mist this past Friday. Excellent holiday fare, I highly recommend bringing the whole family for the uplifting ending.

The ending…wow, that was seriously messed up. Someone failed a couple of SAN checks, that’s for sure.

All right, so last week I was awash with cartoon cash (as in financial gain made by cartooning, not I was drawing my own money…though not a bad idea…and okay, maybe not awash…more like slightly damp…) and finally got around to picking up Call of Duty 4 (which is now my SOTY). I got it at my local Target, and it went sorta like this…

[Please imagine wavy flashback images taking us back to that day]

I pulled into the parking lot, dodging the idiot in the Benz who apparently thought he was in England and was cruising down the wrong side of the aisle, and parked in front of the store. Walked in, went to the electronics department. Told the guy behind the counter I wished to purchase Call of Duty 4 for the 360. Followed him as he unlocked the cabinet and handed me the game. Walked back to the counter and paid for the game. Left the store.

Total time from pulling in until pulling out? Maybe a little over five minutes–if that.

Now let’s discuss the last time I was in a Gamestop, a store that is dedicated to selling digital gaming products. I repeat, dedicated. They don’t sell towels, microwave ovens, roach spray, or even power tools. Just games and gaming systems.

I don’t recall what exactly I was looking for so let’s just call it Awesome Game. First, I checked the EB Games/Gamestop/Babbage’s/Software ETC/WhatevertheHellthey’recallingitthisweek site and saw that it was supposedly in stock. I then proceeded to the local shop.

Dear readers, you may wish to interject that I should have also called the shop before beginning my trek at this point. I did not call them, and there are two reasons for this. The first is that the store is literally about a mile away, so if I end up wasting my time it’s not that major of a deal. The second reason is it doesn’t matter. You get some idiot on the phone who can’t be bothered doing his job, and so any response he gives is suspect.

“But you said you had it in stock.”

“Umm, well, I guess someone bought the last copy before you got here.”

“I called you from within the store. You never stopped playing the Guitar Hero demo while supposedly looking for the game I was asking about.”

“Umm, yeah, well, hmm. Hey, you want to pre-order something?”

I hit the store right after they open and do a quick scan of the shelves. No Awesome Game. I ask the guy behind the counter who has a manager tag. He’s also wearing a Sprint shirt, not a Gamestop shirt. He looks it up on his computer which tells him that he has two copies in inventory. Behind the counter are about half a dozen boxes filled with stock that has never been shelved.

He asks if I found it on the shelf. No, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking for it at the counter, now would I? He then proceeds to search for Awesome Game (of which the computer says they have two copies). The Sprint/Gamestop manager searches cabinets, tears apart the boxes, looks in back. Spends a good twenty minutes doing this. To be fair, this somewhat impresses me because I’ve been in a Gamestop before where the counter guy was looking through the new shipment, shipping manifest in hand, and I was the only customer in the store and he refused to even check the manifest in his hand to see if they had just gotten the game. The definition of excellent customer service? You have someone standing before you willing to fork over money but it’s too much trouble.

Eventually the guy came up with a copy of Awesome Game and I made the purchase. Total time from walking in until walking out? A good thirty minutes.

About the only time I’ve ever seen good customer service is when they have someone from district working. In fact, I can recall being politely served one time, and quite shocked, made mention of it to the guy ringing my purchase up. He told me that he was from corporate and that they had just fired every single employee at that location. What other business do you know that needs periodic purges just to reach something akin to being considered civilized?

Where’s the problem? Poor training? A corrupt managerial system? How is it that a store who only has one specialty manages to be eternally FUBARed? I know this is not the sole store that behaves like this. Please share any Gamestop tales of woe with the group. You’ll feel better.

Pilgrim Cthulhu and myself hope everyone in the States has a great holiday! Remember, gaming is the cure for those tryptophan blues!!

Back on Friday or Saturday for a tale of two stores!

While I am not much of a television watcher I do tend to keep it on for background noise (it also helps drown out the whispering voices telling me to pick up the power tools and…scratch all that). The other day I was busy doing something productive like assessing my retirement mutual fund portfolio when my ears picked up the theme song to the show ‘House’ emanating from my telly. Strangely, it was like 6:48 in the evening, and not time for the show ‘House’. Egad, did my house get trapped in a time-space continuum distortion? And I thought the chances of that happening again were pretty remote.

Looking up it turned out to be a commercial for Assassin’s Creed. But with the ‘House’ theme music. Or so I thought. But that couldn’t be it, could it? Sure, the music was actually doing a nice job fitting in with the commercial, but using a composition that folks already know from a television show seemed a little odd. Imagine a Bioshock commercial with the theme song from ‘What’s Happening!!’ It may fit perfectly, but everyone is going to be thinking Rerun, not Big Daddies.

Turns out though that it is indeed the theme song from ‘House’. Go figure. Now I wonder if there’s a cheat mode that turns you into a misanthropic cripple with a sword cane? That would be pretty sweet…

Panzer Tactics DS

Innovation is obviously severely overrated. Consider the buzz generated in the grog community when news of Panzer Tactics for the Nintendo DS first hit many moons ago. “It looks like Panzer General!” And then a few bits of actual gameplay information leaked, leading to a chorus of “It seems to play like Panzer General!” Suddenly forty year old gamers who previously wouldn’t have been caught dead with a system that could also play Pokemon were taking an active interest, entirely due to the fact that someone was reimagining a decade-old classic beer and pretzels wargame.

It would be nice to say that Panzer Tactics is really not Panzer General 2007. There’s something annoying about the fact that if a light wargame features hexes and strength points then it must be like Panzer General. Why can’t they be like The Perfect General? But for gamers all over the world Panzer General has been forever burned into their consciousness as digital BAP personified, and thus every other digital BAP since then must be compared to it.

And in this case…well, yeah, it is pretty much Panzer General 2007. But it’s not simply an exact copy ported to a handheld system for on the go wargaming. Remember when John Travolta’s character in Pulp Fiction was talking to Samuel Jackson’s hitman about the differences between Europe and the United States? The little differences? That’s what you’ll notice between Panzer Tactics and Panzer General. The little differences.

No question at first glance any veteran of the original Panzer General series will feel right at home. You command a core army that gains experience and carries through the campaign, while auxiliary units (read: cannon fodder) are provided to you on a per scenario basis. What the units actually represent (Divisions? Corps? Companies?) is never provided, and while the size of the maps will vary in terms of what they represent, unit statistics remain constant providing no hints. Units are rated for various combat roles, experience, movement, fuel, and ammo. Staying power is the familiar strength/hit point scheme.

Controlling these units is as easy as tapping on the unit (you can pretty much play entirely by using the stylus, which is quite nice), which highlights hexes the unit can reach. Tap or drag to move your units, and then if there are any targets in range after movement (you can move and then fight, but cannot fight and then move) make an attack. Other possible actions during a turn include resupply, purchasing new units, and rebuilding damaged units. All of these consume fame points; fame points are earned at the end of a victorious scenario based on your performance and within scenarios by taking objective hexes.

So far Panzer Tactics sounds like an exact clone of Panzer General, right? Well, let’s talk about the little differences now.

Like Panzer General the ultimate enemy is time. Each scenario has a turn limit, usually quite ample unless the player purposely turns it into a recreation of the Somme, and how quickly the player wins the scenario impacts the fame points added to his running tally. Unlike Panzer General the player is also faced with another loss trigger besides running out of time, that being the loss of core units. Scenarios will dictate how many core units you’re allowed to lose, and regardless of how well you’re pushing your panzers forward, lose that many core units and you’re kaput.

In Panzer Tactics each scenario will have a primary objective and a secondary objective. In a nice change of pace these objectives are not always simply taking certain hexes, but can include such conditions as destroying certain enemy units. Completing primary objectives will win the scenario, but secondary objectives usually provide some sort of bonus, although what the bonus will be is never spelled out until the objective has been achieved. You may immediately earn fame points, or find that in the next scenario your supply costs are cut in half. Secondary objectives are almost always worthwhile to pursue.

Units are the usual suspects of a ETO game, and are impressively diverse. Panzer Tactics definitely doesn’t cheapen your experience by providing only a handful of unit types to command or go up against. Two interesting units added to the mix are Officers and Commandos.

Officers are not units per se, but attachments to core units that provide the unit they are attached to, and units within a certain radius, a unique boost to certain characteristics. While extremely expensive to purchase, Officers in the proper location at the proper time can make a huge difference.

Countering Officers are Commandos. Commandos are able to assassinate enemy Officers. Additionally, they can demoralize a target, reducing their combat effectiveness, or sabotage a unit immediately causing that unit to be out of supply. While sounding like great units to wreak havoc with there is a catch to them. They can only perform one of those three missions each time they leave your headquarter hex, and in order to ready their next action they must return to HQ. Like Officers, the appropriate use of a Commando unit at the suitable time can easily turn the tide of battle.

Oh, another neat unit idea are special abilities and attacks, which are earned through experience. These allow units to break the game rules, adding a little more chaotic flavor to the unit mix.

The meat of Panzer Tactics are the campaigns. There are three campaigns (German, Soviet, Western Allied) that can be played in any order, although each one is progressively more difficult. The first campaign, the German, takes the player through the Heer’s high water mark, while the Soviet and Allied campaigns begin soon after. Besides the campaign there are tutorial training scenarios, multiplayer scenarios (untried), and also individual campaign scenarios that are unlocked for single play by campaign progression. What’s unfortunately missing is a skirmish/random scenario generator.

Scenario maps look nice, and within the confines of what the game has to work with, are fairly representative of the battlefields they’re supposed to be. By no means is this Google Earth, but cities and terrain can be found in the proper places, so it’s not like you’re battling over some generic mishmash of terrain that’s supposed to Belgium.

Overall Panzer Tactics looks and sounds good. Since the developer is European players are spared crap like big eyed tank crewmen and exaggerated units for a more realistic approach. There are some problems with differentiating between types of similar units due to the tiny screen, but there’s no easy way around that. Music is appropriately martial in nature, and thankfully there are a few tunes so you’re not stuck listening to an endless loop (hello Puzzle Quest!).

The scenarios that make up the game are an interesting lot, with plenty of challenge to be found thanks to the varied objectives each one brings to the table. For example, in the Crete scenario the player begins with a set auxiliary force and no core units. Until the Germans are able to take their first objective, the Maleme airfield, your core units (and in fact, additional units in general) cannot be brought into the scenario. So, just like a game of chess, the fate of the entire scenario hinges on how well the player performs their initial moves. Can the airfield be secured with a handful of paratroops and support units before the British mount a counteroffensive?

The AI in Panzer Tactics is pleasantly intelligent. It will pick appropriate targets, particularly favoring low hanging fruit such as your helpless trucks moving infantry and artillery. The AI will pull injured units out of the fight to rebuild their strength, and will recapture lost objective hexes if they are left open. That’s not to say it won’t pull a boneheaded move at times, such as advancing a unit out of a objective hex and leaving it wide open. Although to be fair this only seems to happen with secondary objectives, and never primary.

A typical scenario provides quite a bit of gameplay, with some scenarios lasting a good two hours or more, depending on how carefully you enjoy strategizing. Even when replaying a scenario and having a plan of action in place don’t expect to breeze through it on a coffee break. In an era of five hour first person shooters Panzer Tactics provides welcome gaming longevity at the expense of battery power. Expect to charge your unit on a daily basis while Panzer Tactics is nestled inside.

Besides sucking the battery dry the problems of Panzer Tactics are rather negligible. It’s a little too easy to accidentally complete a unit’s turn when in reality you were still deciding who to attack. While no fan of constant pop-ups, in this case having a pop-up to verify if you’re done with a unit would save some grief. It would also be nice to have a little more information on some of the mechanics. As it stands when you resupply or rebuild it costs a number of fame points, although there is no way of knowing how much it will cost. Having this more transparent would be helpful, particularly since the manual can only be described as adequate. Finally, there is no advance after combat (nor does it appear that anyone ever retreats due to combat). Since each turn counts against the player it’s rather annoying to clear out an objective hex but have to wait another turn to actually move into the space.

Panzer Tactics is a great addition to any strategy gamer’s library. Is it enough of a killer app to pick up a DS if you don’t already own one? Depends on how much you like the Panzer General style of play. Of course there are also many other excellent DS strategy games out there, and more on the way. You can find a discussion on this over at Troy Goodfellow’s blog. And hey, portable strategy gaming that can fit in your pocket should be a train everyone would want to ride.

Hopefully Panzer Tactics will do well and we’re looking at the start of a brand new series. But hey, next time, how about something we haven’t seen before? Ancient Tactics or Napoleon Tactics sound intriguing to anyone else?

Genre indie gaming essentially is the art of keeping alive that which has been lost in the commercial marketplace, yes? So today I was thinking about two particular genres that have benefited (and really, survived!) because of the indie world: “classic style” CRPGs and wargames.

When both genres were viable mainstream products they were so due to certain recognizable associations. For CRPGs to thrive they needed either a strong, already established brand such as the Ultima series, or to be associated with The World’s Most Popular Role-Playing Game. Wargames pretty much needed to be WWII, with widely recognizable battles portrayed. I’m looking at you Battle of the Bulge.

When these genres were still found on the shelves we would bemoan these narrow choices, although deep down I think everyone realized that we were looking at a necessary evil. Publishers didn’t want to gamble with a game of small, obscure banana wars or a CRPG universe based on some pen and paper game that exists as ten Xeroxed copies floating around the con circuit. Once in a while the big publishers would throw the designers a bone and we’d get something original like Arcanum. Of course since there was never an Arcanum 2 I’m guessing that the public proved the publishers right and the original Arcanum didn’t sell that well. Remember, a person is smart, people are stupid.

Enter indie gaming, a world freed from the constraints of the big corporate machines! No silly ESRB, no bean counters, no need for hundred man teams or selling a million copies to break even! A designer’s utopia; if you design it, they will come.

So why are we still seeing the same ol’, same ol’?

Quick, name the last computer wargame on the Great Northern War! How many Thirty Years War games are there? In the CRPG scene how many aren’t fantasy?

Why is it that in the world of board wargames and pen and paper role-playing there is an absolutely stunning array of flavors covering ever conceivable topic, and yet in the world of indie computer gaming hardly anyone actually takes risk when it comes to game design? Are designers afraid that they’ll design the greatest King William’s War game and only fifteen people will buy it? Or are consumers really only interested in Tiger tanks and magic elven blades that glow in the dark?

I’m thinking it’s a little bit of both. Game design is a little bit like getting up before the class for show and tell and hoping no one laughs at what you think is the kewlest Victorian French ottoman you’ve ever seen. And when it turns out that maybe no one else appreciates that antique footstool you feel a little lonely standing there. Likewise, maybe the class doesn’t care about seeing furniture and would prefer the standard frog, or your dad’s handgun that he never locks up.

Designers: Damn the bottom line! Remember the SAS motto: Who Dares Wins. Go ahead and make some funky wargames and CRPGs that aren’t processed by a cookie-cutter.

Consumers: Embrace the new! Remember the old Life commercial. Be like Mikey.

C’mon, let’s start seeing games we haven’t already played a thousand times already!