Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons

Game: Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons
Developer: id Software
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1990
Stephen's Rating: 6/10

This is the first set of games in the Commander Keen series. This series is comprised of three games which tell one continuous story; Marooned on Mars, The Earth Explodes, and Keen Must Die!

Basic Plot

You play the role of 8 year old Billy Blaze on his adventures through space and time where he assumes the role of Commander Keen.

The story involves Keen travelling to Mars where an evil alien race called the Vorticons steal parts to his ship which he has to retrieve. In The Earth Explodes he returns to Earth but the Vortican mothership is there waiting for him. Keen has to find and deactivate a series of Vorticon cannons which are aimed at some of Earth's most important landmarks. In Keen Must Die! he travels to the Vorticon homeworld to confront the Grand Intellect who is directing the Vorticons to attack Earth.

Shooting the ray gun.

Gameplay

Commander Keen was a side scrolling platform game common of the era. Interaction involves moving left and right, jumping, and a big part of the first game is obtaining a pogo stick which is used for higher jumps and is kept for the remainder of the series.

Keen can obtain ray guns to attack enemies. He loses a life if he touches an enemy. In the second and third games moving platforms, switches, and powerups are added to the game features.

The game has two main views. When you are playing a level it is a 2D platform scrolling view. When traveling between levels there is a top down map-orientated view.

Using the pogo stick.

Positives

This series was one of the first to bring the look and feel of the Nintendo Entertainment System to the DOS PC. The 2D side scrolling game engine was popular at the time.

It is a well polished game and has a surprisngly solid story considering.

Negatives

This game didn't create anything new, it only provided to DOS gamers what those that had Nintendo units already had.

Memorable Moments

I played this entire series WELL after it came out when I was at university.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Game: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Developer: EA Los Angeles
Platform: PC & PS3
Release Year: 2008
Stephen's Rating: 3/10

Basic Plot

The game is set in an alternative universe where World War II never happened. In previous games the Allies went back in time and killed Adolf Hitler thus preventing the war. Prior to this game the Soviets go back and kill Albert Einstein and prevent the Allies from obtaining nuclear weaponry.

During this game the Empire of the Rising Sun rises up to become a third power on Earth. This plunges the world into a three way war between the Allies, the Soviets, and the Empire.

Gameplay
 
Red Alert 3 is a real time strategy game set in the alternative reality of the Command and Conquer universe.

The game has three playable campaigns (one for each faction) which follow roughly the same path but from the different faction perspectives.

Each faction requires resources to build units, and units have a variety of upgrades which can specialize them into different areas. There was a real focus on naval units in this game compared to its predecessors.

The single player campaign can be played as a two player co-operative game and there is extenstive skirmish multiplayer support.

The visuals are sort of cartoonish and bright coloured. There are cut scenes with real actors. They've tried to put "hot chicks" in the game which is a childish attempt to gain ratings.

Positives

None. It's not a terrible game, but it really isn't a very good one either. I never got around to play multiplayer, so I can't comment on that. I can imagine it would have been a lot better than the campaign.

Negatives

Terrible voice acting and jarring cut scenes with real footage of people dressed in poorly made costuomes. Was too frustrated/bored to finish the campaign. Completely outshadowed by other real time strategy games such as StarCraft and Age of Mythology.

Memorable Moments

None.

Farm Town

Game: Farm Town
Developer: Slashkey
Platform: Flash
Release Year: 2009
Stephen's Rating: 5/10

Farm Town is a multiplayer Flash game where players build and maintain a farm. I played this game in late 2009 so will review it from the perspective of how it was then (I'm sure it has changed a lot since then).

Basic Plot

The scenario is that you have a farm, and you can grow crops and sell them for money. There is no objective other than building the farm the way you want. Selling crops and making money, as well as gaining experience levels allows you to build bigger farms and gain access to different crops and items.

Gameplay

Within the game you have a top down isometric view of your avatar. You can travel between several areas including your own farm, your friends' farms, and a tradehouse where you can sell your goods or find other people to work your farm.

On your farm you started with an area of plain ground. You have to hoe the ground to make it ready to plant crops and then plant seeds for the crops you want. You then have to wait real world time in order for the crops to finish growing. Once they are ready you have two options for harvesting; you can do it yourself or you can get a random person or a friend to harvest them for you. The benefit to getting someone else to do it is they get bonus money for themselves in the process.

A player avatar walking through some crops.

Planting and harvesting crops required clicking on tiles one at a time which meant it was a pretty click-intenstive experience. Later on you could buy items (tractors etc) which meant you could place more tiles of seeds or harvest more crops at once.

There were a huge variety of vanity items which didn't have any functional value but which you could use to make your farm look just how you wanted it (including fences, rivers, statues, flags, houses, etc).

Positives

It was surprisingly satisfying to "work the farm" even with the limited graphics. It was ideal for me when I was in Sydney and only had access to a low spec laptop in my spare time. This and Zynga Poker were the bread and butter of my spare time.

You could export a full view of your farm to your Facebook wall.

Negatives

Too much clicking. There is no real point to the game, and not enough player interaction. The game heavily rewarded you for having a lot of in-game friends (forcing you to promote the game to your Facebook friends if you wanted the rewards) which was frustrating as I missed out on some content due to me not wanting to spam people with game requests.

Memorable Moments

Pineapple was the best crop. I used to LOVE when someone invited me to harvest their crops and I saw they had pineapples...

Unreal

Game: Unreal
Developer: Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1998
Stephen's Rating: 5/10

Unreal is a 3D first person shooter which was released in the same era as Quake II.

Basic Plot

You play the role of a human prisoner being transferred by spaceship to a prison planet. Enroute the ship is somehow re-directed and crash lands on the an uncharted planet called Na Pali. The planet is the home of the Nali, a primitive four armed species who are being enslaved by the Skaarj, an advanced reptilian race. The Skaarj have come to mine the planet for tarydium and are enslaving the Nali to get it.

The Sjaarj board the prison ship and kill everyone inside, except you. Your journey takes you across the planet as you uncover the injustices the Skaarj are inflicted on the Nali. You also uncover the remnants of humans from the prison ship through electronic journals, although you never meet another living human in the game.

The player must find the teleported which leads to the Skaarj mothership, board it, take out the energy core, and then kill the queen.

Gameplay

Unreal is a traditional first person shooter set in a science fiction scenario. I don't remember much about it and can't find any easily accessible explanations of the game mechanics.

Positives

Unreal pushed the boundaries of 3D graphics at the time. It was the first to render detailed outdoor environments.The music is good too.

Negatives

Didn't really grab me. One of the major drawbacks to early first person shooters was the lack of good character and story.

Memorable Moments

None.

Colonial Line Wars

Game: Colonial Line Wars
Developer: Lithe
Platform: PC (as a custom map for Starcraft II)
Release Year: 2010
Stephen's Rating: 7/10

 

Colonial Line Wars used to be my favourite custom map on StarCraft II. Then they released a patch which ruined the game and now no-one plays it. So, I'm going to review it as I knew it - the awesome game that it was.

Premise

Two competing teams have arrived on a planet to extract resources. They go head to head to compete for resources in order to wipe each other out.

Gameplay

The game involves two teams of three players, at each end of a large map. Between the two teams are three canyons with three "resource checkpoints" along them. Players build buildings at the end of these canyons and every 30 seconds one unit will spawn from each building and begin walking down the canyon toward the enemy base. Units engage each other automatically (no direct control is necessary) leaving the player free to focus on the strategy of which units to build to counter those of his opponent.

Resources are obtained at regular intervals as well. The amount of money you get depends on two main factors. Firstly, the more checkpoints that your team controls (i.e. that your team's units are in front of, or have touched last) the more money you get. Secondly, players can spend money investing in one of the three canyons (or lanes). If you have invested more in a lane you recieve higher income from it. Therefore the goal is to try and invest in a lane which your team has strong control and territory within, and to stop the opposing team from doing the same. There is also a balance between investing in your future economy and building units to keep up with the enemy.

Units are broken up into tiers and have to be researched and the research centre. This takes time and costs money to do, so the timing is important (when your team is ahead). Tier 1 includes basic units such as marines, zerglings, zealots, reapers, and hydralisks. Tier 2 contains a larger variety of more powerful units, and tier 3 contains the elite units such as void rays and siege tanks. Each player also recieves 1 gas which can be spend on one tier 4 unit such as a carrier, battlecruiser, archon, infestor, or collossus.

Players can also spend money on abilities which are on a cooldown. These are the wraith run which sends a wraith down one lane who drops bombs to help your forces, and spore salvo which dropped acid on any enemy army within your vision. Each player also had one plea for help which destroyed all the units in a lane.

The game became about balancing whether to tech up, invest in a lane, or build more forces. In choosing units you worked to counter the units of your opponent. For example; if your opponent was simply massing marines you might choose hydralisks to counter or try and tech up to teir 4 and get a collossus to ruin them in the late game.

Team work could make or break a game. Because each player had to take time and resources to research new units, you could split up the research between your team mates to be more efficient and share units with each other's lanes. This is how we won a lot of our games, by working together.

Positives

This game was excellent if you wanted to focus more on economy and unit composition rather than micro management of units. It is more relaxed but just as engaging as the original game.

Negatives

They released a patch which ruined everything. The game is terrible now, and no-one plays it

One thing which bothered me was that a smaller team tended to have an income advantage and win, so if someone left the game it would ruin the game for everyonen else (almost always).

Memorable Moments

At one stage we had a strategy of massing marines. Sometimes we'd have half a dozen or more solid ranks of marines and doing this we'd win a surprising number of times.

Neverwinter Nights

Game: Neverwinter Nights
Developer: BioWare
Platform: PC
Release Year: 2002
Stephen's Rating: 6/10

Neverwinter Nights was BioWare's first foray into 3D role playing games and is the next game set in the D&D world of Faerun after the Icewind Dale series.

Basic Plot

The city of Neverwinter has fallen to a plague. The city is in turmoil. You play the role of a new recruit to the city watch who is sent by Lady Aribeth to collect reagents for a cure to the plague. Upon completing the cure, Desthar's minions storm the castle and he steals the cure. Desthar is sentenced to death and Aribeth's lover Fenthick is sentenced to hang, despite knowing nothing about Desthar's treachery.

The player then embarks on a quest to track down the cult who is spreading the Wailing Death plague. The journey takes them to Luskan, and eventually into the Source Stone pocket world to battle Morag. Depending on how the player handles the game, Aribeth may or may not join the cult and turn against you (becoming a fallen paladin).

Gameplay

Neverwinter Nights is a top down third person role playing game. The game world roughly follows the mechanics introduced in Icewind Dale including feats and skills. The character races and classes are based on the D&D world.

The player travels the world completing quests, fighting enemies, gaining levels and choosing skills and feats depending on their character class. The original story is broken into four chapters.

Positives

The game was groundbreaking in terms of putting an RPG in a 3D world. I found it quite jarring compared to the beauty of the Baldur's Gate series, but it had to start somewhere.

The game hung together pretty well when you consider the sum of its parts. It was satisfying to play, especially in the latter stages of the game.

Negatives

I found the camera quite irritating at times, and had to fiddle with the settings a lot before I found a mode I liked. 

The first (and quite large) section of the game is in the city of Neverwinter. This whole part of the game is arduous and painful. The first time I tackled this game I actually gave up because it was so boring. It involves completing some predictable quest in each of the four quarters of the city. The city itself is bleak and uninteresting, and the characters predictable and cliche. The game picked up a lot after this area but in terms of capturing the audience early on, this game failed miserably.

Unusually this game is actually superceded by its expansion packs. Each of them tell a better story and are more enjoyable to play than the original game.

Not unusual for an RPG, the story is pretty predictable and cliche. The characters and their dialogue can be quite painful to endure.

Memorable Moments

I had a friend who created his own level, and had his character battle a character he'd created in a previous BioWare game duel to the death.

Ricky Ponting Cricket 2005

Game: Ricky Ponting Cricket 2005
Developer: Swordfish Studios
Platform: PC (and others)
Release Year: 2005
Stephen's Rating: 6/10

Basic Plot

There is no plot. There are different game modes where you play games of cricket.

Gameplay

Ricky Ponting Cricket 2005 (also known as Brian Lara Cricket 2005 outside of Australia and New Zealand) is an action based cricket simulator. The player plays cricket matches and is directly controls players in batting and bowling, and is able to make decisions such as the position of fielders during the game.

Players could use pre-existing teams and players but could also create their own custom players who gained experience and could improve aspects of their bowling, batting, or fielding (eventually becoming uber players).

There were a number of game modes including individual limited overs or test matches, or playing entire tournaments or test series.

You could play two player on the same computer using either one keyboard or a keyboard and game controller (which we used). This added a whole new dimension to the game.

Positives

Unlike other cricket games I've played it was intuitive and easy to pick up. Batting and bowling were both very satisfying. Custom players was a nice touch. I created one for myself, my dad, and my best friend.

Negatives

I hated the way only Ricky Ponting was actually named in the game. When you played actual teams in the game (like India or England) they renamed all the players to be similar but different to the actual players and they looked different too. It was pretty frustrating and annoying because the names they chose were kind of... bad. They did it for licensing reasons.

My biggest qualm was the lack of variety. You could only hit the ball in one of 8 directions and bowling wasn't as varied and interesting as it could have been. Once I figured it out I found the game quite boring and repetitive.

Memorable Moments

I remember having some 10 over one on one competitions with some friends. The game is completely different than against the AI, we ended up mostly bowling full tosses which were well wide or ground grubbers which bounced many times before reaching the batsman. Hilarious.

I created custom players for myself (leg spin bowler), my dad (medium pace bowler) and my best friend (opening batter).