just looking for something to complain about

I was amused by something I noticed in the controversy regarding the new Medal of Honor game...

On Sunday, Dr Fox said that it was "shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers".

"At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands," he said.

"It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product."

An Electronic Arts spokesman said the game "does not allow players to kill British soldiers".

"No British troops feature in the game," he said.

Which is more offensive, allowing players to shoot British troops, or taking such an American-centric view of the situation that you didn't bother putting the British there to begin with? :)

in the distant future of hello kitty there is only war

Something Awful did a take on Warhammer 40K. Being Something Awful, it is going to be a bit rude. But it's still funny, especially if you know just enough about the blasted game to get the references but not to actually care.

darn my lack of bilinguality

Rounding up some interesting Japanese-only download titles:

A new version of the Maid Strategy Game, adding a new Alice character and 'collaborative play'.

As before, there's a demo here:


---

Entitled 'Condemnatory Iron Maiden' this appears to have something to do with Nazi-reminiscent military folk and Battle Maids with large weapons. Beyond that, I have NO IDEA. But I wish I did!



(As usual with DLsite links, this particular game is not adult, but there is plenty of adult stuff on the site.)

a further explanation

There are games workshops even in small towns in England. They're much easier to find than RPGs. And for the aficionadoes, there are smaller producers. Unfortunately, these guys have quit producing their metal figures (which is causing SOMEONE in this house to go on a buying spree trying to obtain them before they're all gone) However:



I hope you can see why I consider these things WAY cooler than Warhammer.

What do you MEAN it's not awesome?

Oh, Wizards of the Coast, still trying to recapture the power of Magic...

Each huge booster pack contains:

* 1 visible, non-random Huge miniature—pre-painted, fully assembled, durable plastic
* 4 hidden random miniatures—pre-painted, fully assembled, durable plastic

As my other half said, "What were they smoking when they decided to sell random assortments of D&D monsters? If I'm running a game I want 10 of X, 5 of y and 1 of z, not two kobolds and an intellect devourer."

Although apparently they've been selling minis for a while, and we've completely failed to notice, so something's not working too well in their strategy.

My other half buys minis. I generally don't. I don't wargame, and when we want them for more roleplaying purposes, I just print out little foldy paper things and use those. It's much easier to come up with something that looks right for the character or situation that way.

But to the best of my knowledge, an awful lot of mini-buying is the fun of modding and painting the figures to make your own cool stuff... *shrug* I dunno.

one day only!

On sale on Amazon - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

Special one-day half-price sale. Fantasy turn-based-strategy with multiplayer and stuff. Not really my thing, but someone reading this might care. :)

made of fail?

It's not every day you see a PC game with a review score of 1.5/10 on Gamespot!

Life Is Short: Fight, Maidens!

A doujin 3d RTS where all your attack units are... maids. Or other cute girl things.

Game trailer/preview viewable here.

Of course, as it's all in Japanese, good luck figuring out how to play...



Downloadable Demo

(No, this isn't hentai, but the site that sells it also sells H.)

more economic fallout

Parent company shuts down WizKidGames (HeroClix, among other things.)

I own a reasonable handful of HeroClix, partly through osmosis... Much like with Magic back in the day, if you go to a certain kind of gaming convention, you will meet hardcore collectors of these games who have TONS of the 'commons' that they don't really want and will gladly give them to you for cheap or even free. Especially if it tempts you into buying some rares.

I was never hugely into it, partly because I *suck* at wargaming and don't find it fun. So while I found the concept of the clicky figures really cool, it was hard to get past my hatred of losing.

Deep Quest

How to make even a free (game giveaway) game too boring to play: Loop the same ten seconds of music constantly without variation. Especially in a game that requires an awful lot of staring at the screen impatiently waiting for something to happen.

I'm not really a huge fan of strategy games, although I did like Westward, which put more emphasis on building your 'economy' and interrelating the bits of it, less on combat. Also, its characters had personality, and it was entertaining watching them run around.

Deep Quest's 3d is ugly, at least on my machine. The units are identical and soulless. I can't easily tell one thing from another onscreen, and often units that have been set the same task overlap perfectly, causing one to 'disappear'. The game seems to have a focus on combat, but at least in the first few tutorial levels, that means having to build a lot of fighters who are standing around doing nothing at all and looking as bored as you feel.

Feedback also could be a lot better... it's not as clear as it should be whether or not a building is actually carrying out a task, nor is it made sufficiently clear when you click on an action whether or not you can carry it out. It's easy to miss the small quiet display which is nowhere near where you clicked that points out that actually, you need more crystals/lava/housing.

It's close to fun, but for me, it misses the mark.

War of the Worlds

Comic book version, readable online.

My other half has the WotW PC strategy game around somewhere, which obviously has a slightly different plot, in order to make a decent fight out of it. And uses the Jeff Wayne music, which I'm quite fond of, but in small repeating loop format as someone plays a strategy game for days can get irritating...

let loose the blocks of war!

http://www.brikwars.com/rules/2005/cover.htm