January 2012 ~ The Control Room

Monday 30 January 2012

The Best Game Ever

Posted by The Control Room on 09:10

Yes, this post is about the best game ever, or at least the best game in my opinion. You see, since 2000 my parents have played this game and it was eventually passed down to me and my sister who treasure it just as my parents still do. It is a game of strategy, of power and, most importantly, gods.

Welcome to Zeus!

Master of Olympus: Zeus is an old strategy, city building game from twelve years ago. It may be old and not compatible with Windows 7 (I found a way to work it though), but it's a lot of fun.

You are a Greek ruler, making your way through various adventures and quests as you attempt to conquer your enemies and build a great and mighty city. You may think that's easy or perhaps even basic, but it really all depends on the difficulty level you play, which ranges from light hearted fun to incredibly hard and near impossible to complete. Unless you're playing Sandbox there are goals to complete in each chapter and if you're on the max difficulty level then you're in for one heck of a challenge.

Before I start telling you how amazing the game is and what-not, I shall first tell you how to make it work on Windows 7. Forget the dodgy torrents and downloads, just buy the expansion Master of Olympus: Atlantis (Poseidon) and install it after installing Zeus. That way, they game will work. If you don't want to play the expansion you don't have to so fear not!

Basic Building

When you first build your city it is important to remember that your citizens will NEED the following:
Food
Fleece
Olive Oil
Water
Hospital
Maintenance guy
Tax man

People arriving

Without these things your houses will never grow and your city will die. Trust me, it gets scary when you're people rebel. The tutorial takes you through everything at a good speed that prevents you from getting bored with it so feel free to jump straight in. Just don't forget that you need an Agora to distribute goods, a granary to store food and storehouses for everything else. There's a lot of different food to grow so you should never be stuck for choice. With the tax man, be sure to build a palace first, otherwise you can't collect taxes and won't make any money.

The other thing your people will need is access to cultural venues. These are things like the theatre, gymnasium and college. Your people want access to the arts so don't deny them. Leave the stadium though, that's for elite housing.

Normal Housing

When your people are growing and your city is stable, think about building some elite housing. This builds your army thus allowing you to go to war with neighbouring cities. Elite housing requires:

Food
Fleece
Olive Oil
Wine
Armour
Horses
Water
Hospital
Maintenance guy
Tax man

The elite housing requires an incredibly beautiful area for them to be built in with fish ponds and flower gardens, otherwise you can't lay the foundations of the house. Be sure that they have access to all cultural facilities including the stadium - they will want to watch the Olympic games.

Army housing

The World Map

The world map will show you who your allies are, who you control and your enemies. It will also show you how they are currently feeling about you which can let you know if they may be planning an invasion or perhaps wish to give you a gift. The world map also allows you to look at trading options so that you can trade with allies and vassals.

Trade is really important as it is a source of income for you, and you might be able to import some items that you really need as not every adventure allows you to have fleece and such. You can set up trading posts and piers that will allow trade with other cities.

The world map will also let you conquer enemies or allies. You can also raid them for goods. It will allow you to select your army and attack. If you win, they pay tribute, if you lose then they become very angry indeed.

Gods and Heroes

Sometimes, monsters will attack your city or you may get the occasional god who really hates you. In the case of monsters you'll need heroes to fight them off. Should you be attacked, build the heroes hall and fulfil their demands in order to summon them to the city. Once they are summoned they will defeat the monster for you and you can go on living your life without the threat of Hydra's and Gorgons. In the case of gods it's a little more difficult. You're always going to have a god that hates you, and there's not much you can do about it. If a god attacks it's best to have built a temple to one of the gods that like you because then the god you worship should emerge and attack the evil god who wishes to destroy your city. Your heroes won't touch the gods because they're clever.

Herakles and the Hydra

When you build a temple the god that your worship will be able to offer you perks. Some will give you food, others will bring people to your city. Some provide an army, some healing and others are just there to help you when you're running low on drachma.

Temple to Ares

Master of Olympus: Atlantis (Poseidon)

The expansion pack is focused on the inhabitants of Atlantis. They're modern, have Hippodromes (horse racing), science and weirdly shaped lands. Throw in a few extra heroes and bring Atlas in as a god and BAM, you have the expansion. I like it, but it certainly isn't as awesome as the original.

I've played this game for a long time, and I've given you guys the basics. It taught me a lot about Ancient Greece in both culture and mythology, which really helped me when I took Classics A-Level and will help me in my Classics course at University. It's not intentionally educational, I reckon it was made by some classics nerds like myself. In this game you have to think, you have to use strategy and most importantly, you must not annoy your neighbours or the gods.

Give it a go, I think you'll like it.

Valhalla

Thursday 26 January 2012

Guild Wars 2

Posted by The Control Room on 14:54

Hey guys, it has been forever since I last posted. I missed it, what with the insane amount of exams *cough-retakes-cough* I had to do and the sudden absence of teachers and....I’m making excuses. Allow me to get down on my knees and grovel my way back into your forgiving hearts.

So, tonight’s post. You’re probably thinking ‘dude shut up and tell me something interesting.’

I’ve been busy being a studious, good teenager and it is boring, and means I’m somewhat behind on my gaming. I began a post about my poor attempts at Halo and decided that it wasn’t what you wanted to hear from my first post after such a long time.

Looking back through our posts I laughed at some of the things we’d done, some I miss and some I still don’t understand what we were thinking. But hey it’s a new year...for me. So new ideas, new games and many more posts.

Has anyone ever played Guild Wars?

Well, tonight is all about Guild Wars 2, wait until you see it. Not only does this MMO RPG have a new storyline but its producers claim that it is responsive to player actions. How many MMO’s can claim that?

The new game has technology based on physics. Yes I mean Havoc, the new state of the art physical simulation technology. All the best new games have it these days; Halo III, Assassins Creed: Revelations... (You know I just noticed that we have never done a post on Darksiders or Halo or Gears of War or Saints Row...forgive us) The game also has 3D environments and a little extra enhancement of animation.

There are 5 races and 8 professions to choose from.

RACES

Human

Charr

Asura

Norn

Sylvari

PROFESSIONS

Scholars have light armour

Elementalist – May switch between attunements: Earth, Air, Fire or Water where other professions allow switches between weapons. Earth focuses on defense, Air is for focusing on target damage, Fire focuses on area damage and Water is for healing or movement restrictions like snares.

Necromancer – We all know what Necromancers do but for those who don’t, Necromancers have power over the dead. They can summon minions, namely the dead, to fight for them or generally do their bidding. They have a ‘Life Force’ which builds up as people die around them which can be used instead of hit points.)

Mesmer – Basically an illusionist (A rose by another name....). Mesmers can create illusions of doppelgangers which can be used in many ways including sacrifice for effects.

Adventurers have medium strength armour

Ranger – May use ranged and melee weapons, traps and spirits. They are focused on quick movement and defence. Can have an animal companion equipped with special skills depending on the animal.

Thief – May use ranged and melee weapons and are able to use pistols. In combat uses stealth, shadowstepping and traps. Can steal other people weapons and instead of a cooldown period Thiefs can use some of their initiative.

Engineer – Can use pistols and rifles and a number of gadgets for offence, control and healing even grenades and flamethrowers.

Soldiers have strong armour.

Warrior – Can use a mixture of ranged and melee weaponry which range in uses. They can assist allies and have a special ability which allows them to increase damage to foes when the bar is full.

Guardian – Use Courage, Justice and Resolve to assist allies in attack. Can create wards and summon enchanted weapons.

Players must be able to use strategy as they are able to choose 10 of a number of abilities from a skill pool. A step on from the first Guild Wars has the 10 slots with predefined functions such as healing, a mixture of profession and weapon, undefined and elite. Guild Wars 2 focuses on quality over quantity of skills so instead of being Jack of all trades you get to be a master of few.

Guild Wars 2 is set 250 years after the first game and whilst characters are not transferable, achievements and honours will be recorded in the Hall of Monuments, which also appears in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, monuments allow the players access to exclusive titles, items, and animal companions.

A Bit of Plot

The game is set in Tyria. 5 elder dragons have awoken since Guild Wars, spreading destruction and corrupting citiszens. Humans have been at war with the Charr and are weakening as a result. The Charr have finally won back the remains of their homeland, Ascalon, from the humans. The Nords are being forced to migrate south by the rise of the Jormag. Asura, a technologically advanced race have had no choice but to build permanent homes above ground for the dragons to awaken. Sylvari, a 25 year young race, have settled in Tyria near the Asura, they have an unexplained connection to the elder dragons.

Cantha have been isolated by a xenophobic climate reinforced by the undead navy of Zhaitan, an elder dragon, whose reawakening caused The Battle Islands to cease to exist because of the tidal wave from the emerging of the old Kingdom of Orr. Elona are another continent has been cut off. Another battle goes on between Palawa Joko's Mordant Crescent and Kralkatorrik in the Crystal Desert, as well as occasional reports from Order of Whispers spies

Basically the whole world is in turmoil and everyone is at war or dead.

Your character must reunite the Destiny’s Edge guild whose eventual reassembly mimic the world as a whole as it unifies to create an army strong enough to defeat Zhaitan.

Sounds pretty epic doesn’t it? Considering it is a MMO I think it has an impressive storyline and could prove to be a thrilling adventure.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

To Play or not to play?

Posted by The Control Room on 02:13

I had this written up and posted on Saturday, but the blog decided to rebel and deleted the post from the face of the Earth. It's the problem with owning a computer programmed to think by itself - it tends to do what it pleases when it likes. Anyway, my deepest apologies for how late this re-post is - I will be having words with my laptop.

This weekend, I had the plan of giving you all a DC Universe Online post. I thought it would be a pretty fun post, another MMORPG for you all to sink your teeth into. Not only this, but it would be an adventure for me too as I had never played it. So, I loaded it up onto my PS3 (just for a change) and after a quick installation I started the game and loaded it up. However, I reached the start screen and the patch note bar came up. I saw this as no big deal, it looked fine to me, but lo and behold, it's still patching and it's been nearly two days. Yes, I had to turn my PS3 off at night, but it's seriously slow (another good thing about still using the junk that is AOL) and I reckon you guys won't be seeing anything on DC Universe until next week. That and I owe you another update with my adventures in Skyrim. Thing is, I had to think on my feet for this post. It was late at night, everything was going wrong and I needed a game - fast. What did I happen upon first I hear you ask. Well, it was my 3DS and Super Pokemon Rumble was inside.

Our post for today will be focused on Super Pokemon Rumble and just how awesome it is. I have to say, it's one of the best Pokemon games that they've made, just because it's so different from the classic ones. Don;t get me wrong, I think the classic Pokemon games are fantastic, but this is a welcome break as we Pokemon fans wait for the next addition to the series.

Instead of being a Pokemon trainer, you are collecting wind up Pokemon toys. There are toys to collect from all five generations of Pokemon and so it will be difficult to collect every single one. To see Pokemon from such different generations working together in battle is almost weird as it's something that I, at least, would never have imagined seeing. Anyway, when you begin the game you get a walk through sequence so that you can get a feel for how the game works and collect a few more Pokemon toys (some of the toys you defeat lay on the floor for you to collect) before you enter the wide world of Pokemon toys. Once this level is completed, you find a place called Toy Town where a Lilipup is there to greet you. He gives you a tour of the little town and tells you how everything works before letting you go on with your adventure. He also tells you that the fountain in the middle of the town will revive your defeated toys (which was a relief to me). Once Lilipup is finished you are free to leave and explore the world.

Outside Toy Town are little areas with huge poles outside. These areas are filled with different Pokemon to battle and collect as well as a Master Pokemon at the end (usually an evolved form of the most common Pokemon in the zone). It's a quick and fun game to play, and every level contains different Pokemon to battle as well as it being possible to collect all the Pokemon in that zone. Once a zone is completed the red lights on top of each pole turn green, signalling that you've completed that level. Don't worry, it's possible to go back in and grab any forgotten Pokemon. In between zones you're able to go back to Toy Town and revive your defeated toys so that you can go onto the next zone without worrying about how many Pokemon you have left.

Once you have completed each zone in the area you will be able to challenge the Battle Royale where you fight around a hundred low level Pokemon and two higher level ones. The Battle Royale is an enjoyable aspect of the game and unlocks the ability to battle Pokemon toys with your friends over Streetpass (or even strangers) which just adds a whole new element to Super Pokemon Rumble. Once you've defeated the Battle Royale you can move onto the next area and complete all the zones there before challenging the next Battle Royale.

For those of you wondering if this game just circles in the loop of completing zones and battling, then I can assure you that there's a storyline too. Shortly after you complete the first set of zones someone will steal the magic of the fountain. Whilst you're still able to use the fountain to revive yourself, the magic is running out and it's up to you to find out just who did it. I can't tell you who stole it because I'm not there yet, but I'm on the hunt.

Battle Royale

Super Pokemon Rumble isn't a hardcore game that requires strategy and thought, if anything it's something fun for an evening when you're feeling a little tired and don;t want to concentrate too much. It's the perfect game for those nights, or days, which ever you feel. Collecting the Pokemon toys is fun, mainly because they have pretty much every Pokemon in existence to collect and the Battle Royale (especially against friends) adds an element of excitement to the gameplay.

As I haven't finished the game yet, my rating could quite possible change, but for now I give it a 7/10, purely for its simplicity.

Valhalla