Holy Crap

This 'blogging' thing is serious business. Or it can be, if you're dedicated to it. Clearly I am not, having posted now only 18 times in - what - 20 months? And not once in the past 8 of those months. My last post said that I would soon be blogging about the demo for Darkest of Days. Well, I lied.

You know what has happened in these last 8 blogless months? I discovered sport. Or rather, I discovered that I really, really like sport. In particular that I like American Football. I didn't know that. Did you? No? Me neither. My passing interest in America's Most Violent Pastime has gone, replaced by a fervent passion. I like my favourite player to such a point that my heart flutters when I see a picture of him. Man crush.



Eli Manning! Wooo!

I love him.

The Week Behind

The Krynn rule massive tracts of the cosmos. I can’t tell you exactly how much, because I don’t know – that’s just how damn big their empire is. My piddling little ships couldn’t reach the far side of Krynn space if they tried.

The Krynn have already assimilated many of the major races of the galaxy. Among these are the Drengin, a malevolent race of green hairy beasts whose nation pastime is techno-gladiator arena brawls. They believe that it is their manifest destiny to rule the stars, and their conviction is stronger than that of those puny human “Americans” of four centuries previous. Turns out that the Krynn are just as unwilling to take this lying down as the “Native Americans”, and rather more technologically advanced.

And here we are, the Terran Alliance, a weakling race of pacifistic technologists and do-gooders who like to steer away from conflict and make friends with all xeno lifeforms – however pungent and repulsive their respective odours may be. Our relative weakness has forced us to form an alliance with like-minded species, namely the Iconian Refuge and Arcean Empire. Together we suck slightly less profoundly.

That’s Galactic Civilizations II. If you were not taking short, gasping breaths and shuddering in orgasmic ecstasy as you read that then you and I are obviously of radically different species. If your pulse quickened slightly, there may still be hope for you. So don’t despair! Instead, download the demo here.

I couldn’t possibly tell you about my week without talking about The Sims (That’s true for most weeks). Sim-me is a father of three, a Star News Anchor, and acclaimed science-fiction author. He is best known for shamelessly stealing the names and plots of real-world novels and making oodles of cash for it. No-one seems to mind.

And… well, that’s it, really. I’m not trying to make his life more interesting than it would be, so it isn’t. It’s mundane, and writing about mundanity isn’t a good way to be interesting. In fact, it’s a good way to be mundane.

I’m just installing the Darkest of Days demo. Shall blog about it soon.

Working title, I should stress.

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death!

The only grumble I have with Empire: Total War is the Road to Independence campaign. It serves as the game's tutorial, and it does that job well. However, if you want to play as the United States you'll have to play through the tutorial.

It's not there that my grumble lies. I'm quite alright with playing through a tutorial. I bloody well wouldn't play it again, but I can tolerate a single playthrough of a couple of short scenarios. The problem I have is with the third Chapter in the series of four (the fourth being the Grand Campaign), the War of Independence itself.

Beginning with the Battle of Bunker Hill (which you don't have to win; historically, British forces won a Pyrrhic victory and were forced to withdraw), you start with just the city of Boston and similarly small coffers.

All of the British cities are heavily defended, and the maximum military your fledgling nation can support at this early stage is barely enough to even take another city. Should you attempt to conquer neighbouring provinces regardless of this, the British will likely take the city of Boston while it's lightly defended. Drat.

It's probably not as hard as I'm making out. After all, it's very likely that I'm just as bad at Total War as I am at every other game.

I don't have any screenshots of Empire, so here's a picture of my desk instead: