Populous: The Beginning [8] – Levels 14 and 15

January 9, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I played through levels 14 and 15 a few days ago, but I didn’t get a chance to write about it, so here goes.

Attacked From All Sides

Level 14, Attacked From All Sides, had the theme of me being in an extremely bad position, with the three other tribes basically surrounding me. I started out on a small piece of low ground attached to a large plateau occupied by the Matak.

That’s a nice plateau you have there…

Suffice to say, I would not have lasted long without taking some early risks. I trained up a few preachers after quickly building a temple. As soon as I had a couple ready, I took the entire population of my village and attacked the Matak. They didn’t have a chance to train anything dangerous yet, so I killed their shaman and destroyed the village. In a few minutes, I went from a horrible position to probably my favorite position – being an a high plateau with no one nearby.

I wasn’t left alone for long, though. As soon as I started building up my village, the air raids from the other two tribes started. I built up a few towers on key locations and then started creating a flying fire warrior army and distributing balloons throughout my village. Soon enough, nothing could touch me. I kept expanding the plateau with spells and building more huts and defenses until I got tired of it.

I tried with a few actual assaults with my army, but it turns out I suck at micromanagement in this game, so I resorted to my old methods. My defense was solid, so I put my shaman in a balloon and started obliterating everything with spells. As usual, it took me over an hour, but I won the level without much difficulty.

Incarcerated

Level 15, Incarcerated, is considered the most difficult level in Populous by a lot of the fans. Honestly, I don’t share this opinion, probably because of my playing style. I have no issues with figuring out the intended way of beating the level and I play patiently on the regular levels, but on the other hand, I’m bad at micromanagement in large battles.

In this case, I lost on my first attempt because I came up about 30 seconds to short, but on my second try, I beat it easily.

The prison is a special building. I haven’t seen the later levels yet, but I think you only get to see it here.

Basically, my shaman was imprisoned by the enemy tribe, so had to use what little of my people I had to free her and get my revenge. I trained a nice mix of preachers, warriors and fire warriors, built a total of three boats and started ferrying my army to the three guard towers protecting the beach where the prison was.

I actually increased the size of my army while destroying the towers thanks to my preachers and then I started landing on the beach, waiting for everyone to regroup on a single location. Once most of the army was there, I destroyed the few remaining enemy forces there and freed my shaman.

This canceled the timer, so I could freely pray at a nearby obelisk and get a shot of Volcano. All that was left was to climb on top of a nearby hill and cast Volcano in the middle of the enemy village. Level complete!

Now comes the hard part. The next four levels I can pick freely from, but all of them are much harder than anything I managed to beat up to now.

Grandia [1] – Finally

January 8, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

After I got distracted by Crash Bandicoot (in a really good way), it was finally time to start up Grandia. This is one of my favorite PlayStation RPGs, after the Final Fantasy series. Actually, I’d probably put it above Final Fantasy VIII in many areas.

Every time I see this screen, I can hear the music in my head.

Grandia was originally released on the Sega Saturn, I believe, which I never owned or even saw in real life. It got re-released on the PlayStation two years later, and one year later, I bought it. Since I bought all of my PlayStation games in Germany, this one was in German to. However, the voice acting remained English throughout most of the game, with the exception of the animated sequences.

Voice acting?

Yup, this game had voice acting. It was one of the rare PlayStation JRPGs that had it. It wasn’t very good voice acting, but I didn’t know better back then so I loved every word of it. These days, I still love it, but mostly for nostalgia’s sake.

The Beginning

The game starts in Parm, a town on the shore of the old continent. The main protagonist Justin and his little friend Sue are playing with some kids. Well, they’re dueling, actually. The kid, called Gantz, issued a challenge to Justin – to find four legendary treasures. If Justin fails to do this before dusk, Sue will have to marry Gantz, which she doesn’t like at all.

If he lived in the modern times of the real world, Justin would probably be a nerd.

I basically had to scour through the city to try to find the four items, but there was no real time limit. Sue got the apron (Legendary Armor) and then the two of them got the iron pot and the pot lid (Warrior’s Helm and the Shield of Light). After a while, I also got the wooden sword (Spirit Sword).

Obviously, these are kids we’re talking about here, which is something I love about the game – it does not take itself seriously even for a moment. Another thing I love is the coffee joke. Apparently, in the world of Grandia, coffee is what alcohol is in the real world, and more. Kids hate the stuff and “only adults can appreciate the taste of it”. If you drink too much of it, you get drunk or something. There are people who constantly drink to much, people who drink in secret, etc. Coffee is bad, basically.

Marma Road

After the events in Parm, Justin went to visit the local museum, where the curator gave him back his spirit stone. The spirit stone is something Justin’s dad left him, so he gave it to the curator so he could test it. He didn’t discover anything other than that the stone is harder than diamond.

After a short talk, the curator gave Justin and Sue a pass to a local archaeological dig at the Sult Ruins. To get there, I had to walk the Marna road. Before that, though, it was time for dinner with mom.

Meal Time

This is another great thing about the game. At the end of each day, or when the party is supposed to take a break, determined by the story, everyone gathers around the table or the camp fire and talks about the day. It really adds charm to the game.

Whenever it’s time to take a break, everyone sits to have a meal together.

Anyway, I got to Marna road and explored the area entirely. I didn’t find much, other than some gold and herbs, but I gained a few levels, which means I finally did some battling. The great things just keep coming, so here’s another one.

No Random Battles

Yup. There are no random battles in Grandia. Monsters do randomly appear on the map, but you see them at all times, so you decide when to attack and when to avoid them. Of course, if you keep avoiding them, you’ll probably end up ambushed, but it’s still your choice. If you’re good, you can even ambush them.

The Rah-Rah Cheer has voice acting to, same as almost every other move. Also, the Rah-Rah Cheer is awesome.

There’s also movement and placement in battle, which sort of reminds me of Chrono Trigger from the SNES era. Depending on your placement and the placement of enemies, it absolutely matters which actions you pick. You can hit multiple enemies at once, avoid getting hit yourself, or even counter or cancel an enemies attack.

Marna Road Explored

Eventually, I explored the entire area and gained a level or two. Mostly I’ve been fighting bugs, spiders and some sort of centipede enemy. While doing this, I refreshed my memory about the various moves and mechanics available. I got to the Sult Ruins and saved my game.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back – 100% Completed

January 5, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

As I promised, today, after about 15 years, I can finally say I’ve accomplished all the goals in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. It took me a few days of persistence and it probably did some damage to my nerves, but I did it.

The most difficult level? I’m surprised to say it was Un-Bearable. It contained the last clear gem I got and I found what I needed to do by pure accident. I kept missing about 20 boxes at the end of the level and I was sure I didn’t miss any forking paths or anything of the sort. On one of my many attempts, it just so happened that, on the point where the big bear falls through the wooden planks,very few of the planks got broken. At that point, I was sure I had to now jump over the gap and go back to find some hidden passage.

That save slot looks so nice I’d like to frame it and put it on my wall.

I failed to jump over, but I managed to fall in. THAT was the secret passage. You actually have to jump into the hole. About ten lives later, I managed to get through it to, and even found the two sneakily hidden extra life crates at the only checkpoint in the area. Finally, I got the last gem.

My reward? An extra ending scene where Coco, Crash and Nitrus Brio use a cannon powered by all the gems to destroy the Cortex Vortex. Well, I got that, a nice “100 %” on my save slot image, and the satisfaction of completely clearing one of my most fondly remembered games.

I’ve 100% cleared Crash Bandicoot 2 and all I got was this scene.

What now? I’ll move on to another one. I also might write up a short guide on all the gems,or at least on how to get those I personally found the most difficult to find or get.

The Witcher [24] – Completed

January 3, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

As expected, Chapter V of the Witcher felt far more linear and shorter than the earlier chapters. It was followed by a relatively quick epilogue and that was it.

I started out at the Dike, having to fight my way to the Old Town, where I met king Foltest and was taken to his palace. Once there, I was told I needed to free his daughter from the curse again and find some way of ending the conflict between the Scoia’tael and the Order of the Flaming Rose, which turned Vizima into a war zone.

While I was there, I managed to miss the last gambling quest. The gambler was the king, but when he offered me a match, I declined, hoping I could save my game first. Sadly, after the conversation, he wouldn’t talk to me any more. I guess I deserved it for trying to “cheat”.

I went back to the Old Town, where I cleared the area and met Shani and Kalkstein again. After that, I had to go out to the swamp graveyard. This was the large area of the chapter, with several smaller locations to explore and outlying areas to visit. I spent about an hour there, solving various quests, including the one which involved saving the princess again.

That one was a bit confusing. I got locked in the crypt with her, so I had to either kill her or somehow free her from her curse. I didn’t want to kill her, so I opted for the other choice, but I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do. I though I need to somehow hide from her so I could leave combat and then meditate at one of the two campfires there, but this didn’t work. Eventually, I let her chase me around her sarcophagus for a bit and then the game finally revealed what I needed to do.

Why couldn’t I have just blown the candles out with Aard?

After leading her around long enough, one of the candles on her sarcophagus went out. After four more candles, it was finally over. I have to say, I did not like this mechanic. It wasn’t very obvious and it felt very clunky. Still, I did what I needed to do, so the mayor let me and the princess out of the crypt.

The second major quest I did in the swamp revolved around me gathering all the pieces I needed to craft the legendary witcher’s armor I found out about in the previous chapter. I had to bring all the pieces to the blacksmith at the Old Town, which got me what I’m guessing is the best armor in the game. It reduced all damage I received by a fifth and had three potion slots.

Raven’s Armor doesn’t just look awesome, it IS awesome!

Eventually, I cleared everything I could and went to the old manor, where the king sent me. This is where I found out the Salamandra laboratory was, with Azar Javed hiding inside. I met Yaevinn there, so he followed me in. After along trek through the catacombs bellow, I finally reached Javed and was able to fight him. He fell really fast, so it was a bit of a letdown. The monsters he threw at me before I could reach him didn’t fall nearly as fast, though, so there was definitely plenty of challenge.

Once all of that was over, I found out the leader of the Order of the Flaming Rose was behind everything. I got back to the city, which ended Chapter V and started the Epilogue. I fought through the streets, met some old friends along the way and finally got to the Order’s castle, where Jacques de Aldesberg was waiting. Before I could fight him, the teleported both of us to some icy area in the future.

Apparently, some sort of major cataclysm, called the White Frost was coming, so Jacques’ intentions were to create a new breed of human which could survive it. Of course, his intended results weren’t exactly what most people would agree with, so he definitely didn’t turn out to be a good guy, just a misguided crazy guy.

The icy area actually looks cool. I wish there was an actual chapter there.

What followed was the game and Jacques prolonging the inevitable. Instead of me just having the final showdown, I had to fight random battles on the long way to Jacques for about half an hour. It wasn’t hard or challenging, it was just tedious, so it kind off took away from the ending and the game. Eventually I got to him, beat him, and the game was won.

Oh, and it’s possible Jacques might be Alvin all grown up. The same amulet I gave Alvin was on Jacques body, except it looked aged, and Triss already said it’s possible Alvin could actually teleport through time. The game didn’t confirm it, but it’s a definite possibility.

In any case, the game is won.

Also, the final movie looks awesome. I wish there was more of that. In fact, I wish there was a full-length movie.

The Witcher [23] – Wrapping Up Chapter IV

January 2, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I finally got back to the Witcher, after a two-week break. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bored with the game or anything, I just didn’t get the chance to play it. Today, I finally decided to wrap up Chapter IV.

The Heat of the Day and the Witcher

I started out with the quest to free the two wraiths from their curse. In case you don’t remember, a jealous girl killed her sister, after which the sister’s boyfriend killed the girl. The event turned both into wraiths. I spoke to Abigail who told me to gather the pieces of a broken magical mirror one of the girls, Alina, owned. Apparently, the mirror is the reason she transformed into a wraith upon her death.

The wraith quest was weird, but I guess I enjoyed it?

In order to get the pieces, I had to do a pretty dull quest which involved visiting five locations in “The Fields” area, killing the noonwraith there and getting the piece. Once I was done, I asked the blacksmith to fix the mirror, which involved a waiting period.

The Witcher’s Ripples

While waiting, I went to deal with the Lady of the Lake and her quest to negotiate peace between the villagers and the fish people. Both sides offered three gifts for the Lady, so I had to pick the right one from each side. Eventually, I figured out it was the alabaster figurine and the gold bracelet. The Lady gave me a Ruby I placed on the Altar of Dagon, which summoned the creature so I could kill it. It was an easy fight, so that quest was now done to.

The mirror was now fixed, so I brought it to Alina, but it didn’t work. I went to ask the hermit for advice, but he just sent me back to Abigail. The witch suggested I tried a poem, so I asked Dandelion to compose one. This finally worked and that quest was also done.

I reported what happened to Julian, who tanked me and sent me to the Fisher King who was apparently asking for me. As I expected, the Fisher King just sent me back to the Lady of the Lake. She finally gave me a reward for everything I did. Geralt was knighted and got an awesome silver sword to play with.

This might be the best silver sword I’ll get in the game.l

On my way back, I was confronted by Berengar, who admited betraying the witchers and basically doing lots and lots of bad stuff. I figured this was the one choice I had that wasn’t morally ambiguous so I decided to kill him. It turned out I was wrong. I found a letter on his body, which indicated he was actually extremely conflicted about what he was doing. I also found about 800 oren and some alchemical recipes, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Once I got back to the shore, I met a military leader of the Order of the Eternal Flame who informed me the order was there to capture the elven refugees. The elves’ backup arrived, though, so they are now cornered in the village, with the villagers, including Alvin as their hostages.

This was finally a situation where I had to pick sides, so I opted for the side that wasn’t overly religious or fanatical – the elves. I get that this is still another ambiguous choice and I get that there’s a downside for picking both sides, but I just really don’t like fanaticism, so the elves felt more suitable. In any case, there was a big battle, during which Alvin teleported to some unknown place. Afterwards, I got back to the Fisher King’s hut and got a ride back to Vizima, with Dandelion as company.

I think I might miss the openness of the village.

During all of this, I got to level 31. As expected, once I got to 30, the amount of talents I received changed. I’m now getting one bronze, two silver and one gold talent point. I decided to prioritize building up my primary attributes, after which I’ll start building up weapon skills. As usual, signs will be the last think I’ll invest in. Sadly, since I’m now entering the last chapter, I don’t think Geralt will get much stronger than he is right now. On the plus side, he’s really, really strong, so I’m not worried about the difficulty.

Populous: The Beginning [7] – Levels 12 and 13

January 1, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

Continuing my tradition of two levels per submission, I’ve completed levels twelve and thirteen of Populous: The Beginning. There were no gimmicks to it this time. I just had to conquer everything.

An Easy Target

Level twelve, named “An Easy Target” was all about fighting all three of the tribes at the same time. It took me two attempts to beat this level.

On my first try, I though I might trick a game by defeating a tribe early. The yellow Chumara was just a Land Bridge away from me, so I converted all the wildlings I could, trained some warriors and crossed over before they could build anything up properly. I ended up nearly destroying them, but it turned out they were supposed to be the buffer between me and the other two tribes, so It didn’t really work out, once the Dakini and the Matak started sending boat raids over.

On my second attempt, I used the classical approach. I built up my village and prepared my defenses. One the mana from braves started pouring in, I ended up creating a strong perimeter around my island with Land Bridge and eventually turned it into a plateau. I then created a single, narrow passage to the top, which I covered with a bunch of towers.

In the meantime, the Dakini and the Matak destroyed the Chumare, after which they increased the amount of raids directed at me, but also started to attack each other. I decided to increase the hostilities between them by sneaking my shaman in and connecting their respective peninsulas with Land Bridge. This ended up being pure genius, because from that point on, they pretty much ignored me, sending only small squads of warriors which I could easily convert to my side.

Once I improved the connection between the two tribes, I pretty much got ignored by the both of them.

Eventually, I reached maximum population and just used my shaman and a group of fire warriors to whittle down the two tribes, piece by piece. This took me a long time, but it was also very fun to play god for a bit, so I enjoyed it, a lot.

This level granted me a useless building, the Spy Training Hut, and two very useful spells – Tornado and Erode.

Aerial Bombardment

Level thirteen, named “Aerial Bombardment” was finally the moment I got the Balloon Hut, which allows me to build, you guessed it, balloons. These are extremely useful for my shaman to navigate around, and will, combined with fire warriors, probably make up the core of my forces on future levels.

As usual, I started building up my defenses while converting wildlings to my side. Again, I used Land Bridge to create a high plateau and eventually created a huge area for my village. I made it a point to train fire warriors early, since all the raids I had to face were air raids, which can easily be deflected by well placed ranged attackers.

I can’t wait to learn Volcano permanently. It’s an awesome spell.

I used the balloons the enemy tribes delivered to me via their failed raids to bring my shaman to the two vaults of knowledge and soon learned both the Balloon Hut plans as well as the Earthquake spell without really having to fight anyone.

At this point, nothing could really hurt me, so I ended up doing the same thing I did on the last level. I built up my village to a huge size and just used my shaman and his spells to destroy the enemy. This time, it was even easier, since I had balloons at my disposal.

The level was done in about an hour.

By the way, I was playing the last several levels on my laptop, at home, which allowed me to play in Direct3D, meaning I could finally play in a higher resolution. There’s an issue, though. A lot of the screenshots look glitched because of Direct3D, so I can never be sure I got the right screen.

Crash Bandicoot 2 – Cortex Strikes Back, Completed!

December 31, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

Well, it’s the last day of the year and I managed to squeeze in one more game before it’s over. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is completed.

I’m not done with the game, though. Even though I beat the last boss and gathered all the crystals, I still have loads of gems to collect. Luckily, the game gives a convenient “percentage completed” statistic, which now tells me I’m at 73% overall. I was in the higher sixties when I beat the last boss, so I did make some progress towards 100% completion, but it will still take a while. As a kid, I never managed to reach 100%, partially because I was a kid and partially because I didn’t have Internet access so I couldn’t “cheat” my way through by reading guides. I’ll try not to cheat my way through this time as well, but I make no promises. If it gets too dull, or I get stuck, I’ll find a guide.

As I said, I’m at 73%

I love the look and feel of the game. It aged really, really well and the graphics don’t look outdated at all, thanks to a great, timeless style. Most of the levels, I’ve enjoyed, but some of the last few got a bit annoying. The levels which contained bees got a bit tedious towards the end, but by the two most annoying levels were definitely the two where you used a jetpack to fly through a space station – “Rock It” and “Pack Attack“. These two were simply too different compared to the rest of the game. It was disorienting and annoying to play through them. I do get why they exist, though. The last boss uses the same control scheme, so the game had to get me used to it. I’d prefer if Cortex just didn’t use this mechanic, though.

In any case, Neo Cortex was defeated and everything was well and dandy, but as I said, I still have a whole bunch of gems to collect, which I’m guessing will allow me to destroy the Cortex Vortex and beat the third mad scientist, whose name I forgot. As of now, I got close to half of the grey gems, I think; as well as one of the several colored gems. I also managed to find two of the five secret levels.

And what about the Cortex Vortex? It’s still up there.

I’ll make use of the plethora of spare moments on train rides I have to complete the collection. The PSP is a great gadget for stuff like that, and Crash Bandicoot is an excellent series for short sessions. Well, the first three games of the series are.

Populous: The Beginning [6] – Levels ten and eleven

December 31, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

I didn’t get a lot of chances to play over the last few days, but I managed to squeeze in two more levels of Populous: The Beginning.

From the Depths

Level 10, named “From the Depths”, I actually managed to fail, several times, mostly due to carelessness and lack of attention. The level starts out with your village being sunk by a barrage of spells from the enemy shaman. You’re supposed to react in time to gather your shaman and some soldiers and escape via a boat. On my first try, I was distracted when the level loaded, so I died outright. Since there’s no way to resurrect your shaman, that was an automatic failure.

On my second try, I managed to get a bunch of soldiers to a boat, and even managed to build another boat in time, so I had a sizable force. Once I escaped, I could then pray at a nearby totem pole, which raises a whole new village from the depths, with a bunch of prebuilt buildings and even some savages to convert. This time, I was safe, so I started building up and opted to go for the “take your time and build up huge numbers tactic”. Obviously, I didn’t notice there was a time limit for the level, after which the island sinks back to the bottom of the sea, so this was my second failure.

On my third try, I was mostly aware of everything, managed to squeeze in three boats in total and had a relatively huge force ready for some payback. I filled a bunch of boats with warriors, fire warriors and preachers, including my shaman, and attacked the enemy village. A couple of enemy fire warriors hit my shaman and threw him into the ocean. Again, since there was no resurrection on this level, it was another automatic failure, simply because I forgot to use spells.

On my last try, I finally used the swarm spell to disable the fire warriors and managed to pray at the enemy village totem pole, which sunk most of their village into the sea. I killed of the stragglers and that was it.

Treacherous Souls

Level 11, named “Treacherous Souls” was more of a classical level. I had two tribes to fight, and each of them had a new spell I could learn. One of them was Hypnotize, which is where the name for the level comes from. I used the patient approach for this level, which is my preferred tactic in Populous: The Beginning. I connected the hills around my village with Land Bridge and eventually created a huge, well defended mesa which the AI would only attack from one or two directions. I covered these choke points with towers, which basically put me into a completely safe position.

Very little can break through this defense line.

Once I decided I was ready, I trained a sizable force of preachers, warriors and fire warriors, ordered them to guard my shaman and slowly started creating Land Bridge access to the enemy villages. Thanks to my fire warriors and the high ground, I could easily destroy any army the enemy tribes could throw at me. I attacked the weaker tribe first, which got me the Swamp spell. I then used my new spell to destroy the remaining tribe and that was it. It took me a long time, but the level was easily beaten.

One thing is for sure, though. I’m definitely appreciating the ability to save in multiple slots, at any time and almost instantly. The fact that the PlayStation version of Populous: The Beginning had only one slot, and it took five to ten minutes to save basically meant you had to do the whole level in one go, and nearly perfectly. With fast and instant saves, It’s easier to take risks and you feel less discouraged if you lose.

Crash Bandicoot 2 – Cortex Strikes Back

December 30, 2012 by Nikola·1 Comment

OK, full disclosure here. Sonic wasn’t my Mario, not really. He never stuck around long enough to become my Mario. Crash was actually my Mario. I met him a bit later, but we hung around for a long, long time.

You see, the only mainstream console I owned in my early years was a Genesis (or Mega Drive II over here in Europe). The console was expensive and way above my budget, and so were the games. This is why I only ever owned a single 6 in 1 cartridge and Sonic was the only high-profile platformer I ever got to play on the console. To make things worse, I didn’t even have the console for more than a year. It brook relatively soon and I wasn’t able to fix it.

In the late nineties, though, I got a PlayStation and that one stuck around for a long, long time. The first two games I got were Rascal and ReBoot and both were complete crap, but soon after, I got Crash Bandicoot 2 on a discount. I loved that game and played it to the point of my disc becoming unreadable.

Cortex is the big-headed, comical baddie of the game.

So after completing Final Fantasy IX, I started sorting through my PlayStation backups (legal, I swear) and stumbled upon this one. I really, really intended to play Grandia next, but when I saw Crash, I just felt the urge, so I copied it to my PSP and started it up. It’s still just as fun as it ever was. I played through a big part of it in my very first session, but this time, I’d like to write a bit about something I noticed in the design of the game.

First of all, I should probably say there’s a hidden intro level you can get access to if you decide not to skip the starting sequence. This intro level really shows how a game can teach the player how to play, without using tutorials. The game uses this method mostly abandoned in modern games through its entirety, but the intro level really paints a clear picture. Well, it will be more of a series of pictures, with subtext, but you know what I mean.

How Crash Bandicoot 2 handles tutorials

Your sister, Coco, wants you to go get her a battery. Immediately, you see two crates. One of them should be jumped on, while the other can be smashed from any side, as indicated by their markings. You can figure this out now, but you don’t have to. It’s all OK.

The first two crates.

Next up, you see your first pit, but it isn’t a danger yet. You can fall in, but you can also practice jumping over it. In the background, you can see a crate containing your first protective mask.

The pit and the mask.

Now that you got the mask, you see your first enemy. You might not figure out it can hurt you, but that’s OK, because the mask will save you, once. If the enemy hurts you, you’ll see it’s bad, mask or no mask. In the background, you can see your first surprise crate, which has special goodies – an extra life, in this case.

The first enemy and the first surprise crate.

Here comes the first real pit. This one is obviously way deeper than the last one, so I hope you figured out your jumping by now. Actually, If you haven’t you’re still stuck in your first hole, so it’s all good.

The first real pit.

Wow, this crate bounces me around when I jump on top of it! WOW! This other crate gives fruit if I hit it from the bottom to! Oh, wait, I could’ve hit that other crate from the top to get fruit to. Shame I just destroyed it from the side. Oh well…

The first “up” crate and the second “special” crate.

And that’s it. That was the first intro level and it taught you all the basic mechanics without any explanation, reading, pushing through annoying conversations or anything of the sort. The same thing happens throughout the game. Sure, your main goal is explained to you through the story, but the mechanics are left for you to figure out, with the game designed in a way that subtly guides you into figuring it out.

I’m sad to say that it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen such design. It’s only recently that I started appreciating this, though, mostly thanks to egoraptor, a known youtube gamer and his Sequelitis series, especially the Megaman episode.

In short, Crash is a beautifully designed classic platformer, which I greatly enjoyed as a kid and intend to enjoy just as much now.

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri

December 28, 2012 by Nikola·0 Comments

Alpha Centauri is another game I decided to buy now that it’s discounted on GOG.com. I actually bought it closer to the start of the holiday sales, but I didn’t get a chance to play it until a few days ago. Why? Because I didn’t have the time. The better question is, why did I finally have the time for it?

I fixed my laptop!

You see, I started working a few months ago, which means I had to move to a nearby city and take my PC with me. The problem was, when I was back home for the weekend, I didn’t have a computer that was able to play games. I had my laptop, but it malfunctioned ages ago. If you tried to run a game on it, it would simply lock up and go black. It did this, until recently.

I got an idea last week. I extracted the bios from the GPU and then modified the speeds and voltages in various operation modes. This basically reduced the power of the GPU by over a half, but as I hoped, it also eliminated the malfunction. I couldn’t play any modern games on it, but it was now finally good enough for the classics.

Let’s Play Alpha Centauri

Thanks to the fact that I finally owned it, as well as the fact that one of the YouTube channels I’ve been following, quill18, who has been doing a Let’s Play of the game as of recently, I decided that this amazing game will be the first one for me to play during the holidays. It ended up being the only one, but I have no regrets.

The final score was one for the records, since it was the first actual record.

I dare to say that Alpha Centauri is the best 4x game out there right now, which is amazing considering it was released well over a decade ago. It simply has it all – complexity, strategy, options, an amazing encyclopedia of data you can read through and an amazing amount of quality science fiction. It’s actual science fiction to, not just unresearched fiction that takes place in the future.

The University

I played as Academician Provost Zakharov of the university faction. My intention was to play purely scientifically, but over the course of the game, I got dragged into several wars. I eliminated a faction and dragged two more close to extinction, but ended up getting the transcendence victory.

Zakharov is my favorite faction leader, with some great quotes, though most of the quotes in Alpha Centauri are amazing and thought-provoking, especially considering the game’s release year.

This is is where my second game was when I had to end my session.

My next game was taking place in the expansion, Alpha Centauri: Alien Crossfire, which I haven’t played at all up until now, but I didn’t get a chance to complete that one, due to lack of time. I played as the Morganites and managed to eliminate the Progenitors early. Other than that, not much of note happened. I tried using specialized cities this time, but I don’t think it’s a good strategy when it comes to tile improvements. You could specialize in buildings, but each city needs to have a good amount of every resource to support its formers and defenses, so tile specialization seems out of the question.

Short lived…

Sadly, once this issue on my laptop was fixed, another issue was discovered. My hard drive, or possibly even my motherboard seems to be dying. It gave me some trouble while I was home and yesterday, my brother in law told me over the phone that it won’t boot and is instead just beeping during the POST screen.

I think I’m going to have to invest some money into an extra PC. I really don’t need a laptop, so a PC is definitely a better option. It can be cheap to, since I already have a high performance machine. As I said, if it’s good enough for the classics, it’s good enough for me. Alpha Centauri shall be played again.

Blogging Games

I play games and write about it.