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  • Steam vs. Impulse

    I am a user of both Steam (http://store.steampowered.com) and Impulse (http://www.impulsedriven.com), so I thought I would compare and contrast them. It is nice that we have some competition and choice among digital game distribution for the PC, as opposed to the consoles, where the manufacturer has a lock on the services.

    Steam, from tremendous game maker Valve, has got a tremendous selection of games, particularly very popular, mainstream titles. Impulse, from user interface wizards and game publisher Stardock, doesn’t have nearly as large a catalog, but does sell a number of big-name titles and, because it is the underdog, it tries a little harder. I have purchased a number of games from each and have had only good luck with both.

    Steam has particularly annoying copy protection, which in normal mode launches Steam and signs you in over the network every time you want to run a Steam game. This is not a terrible burden, but it is a delay and could be problematic if your network connection is lousy. Apparently there is some sort of offline mode, but I haven’t tried it, so I can’t comment on it. Steam also installs your games inside its folder, which is bad if you’re looking to see if the game included a PDF manual or you are adding 3rd party mods (Oblivion, anyone?).

    Impulse, on the other hand, verifies that you are legit when it installs the game, then never seems to bother you again. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t check in over the network or anything else. Impulse puts the game in the usual place (Program Files or wherever you install games). So for ease of use, Impulse is two steps ahead of Steam.

    Both system give you several tremendous advantages over buying games on physical media. First, you can install the game easily if you get a new machine or on your laptop for travel and you don’t need the DVD in the drive (which is a practice that should be banned). I hear that some games have an installation limit, but it is normally pretty generous, like 5. Now that doesn’t mean you can (or should, at least) play the same game simultaneously on more than one computer, and I presume Steam would prevent that, but I imagine Impulse wouldn’t prevent it (though the game itself might). With both of these approaches, you don’t have to worry about losing or damaging your media, but you do need to remember your password and must worry about the company’s financial solvency. In addition, you don’t get a printed manual with the games, but that’s becoming the norm anyway, and much to our loss.

    The biggest problem with both of these digital distribution systems is that they tend to charge full price for the games, while stores like Amazon and Walmart often discount games, even shortly after release. For a long time, you could be assured of paying MSRP at both Steam and Impulse, but that has become much better in the last year or two. Because of competition, both have sales every week, and sometimes, they are tremendous sales, like when I got Oblivion GOTY Deluxe for less than $8. The other great thing these companies do is put together game packs, like the whole id or THQ or Eid0s catalog, and sell it for a huge discount. Even if you only play a couple of the games, it is worth the price.

    So both Steam and Impulse have pluses and minuses. I would say that if a game were the same price on both stores, I’d buy the Impulse one because of the constant checking in with Steam, but both are worthy sources of games. If you only have a Steam account, give Impulse a try, and vice versa.

  • Evochron Legends

    Since I love the X series of open-ended space combat/trading/etc. games, I should like the Evochron series, right?

    Sadly, no. I have tried several of the incarnations of Evochron, including buying the latest incarnation, Evochron Legends, on Impulse. Evochron is a space game, like X3, where you start in a one-person space ship and try to build wealth by trading, mining, fighting, etc. I didn’t find the graphics, particularly the cockpit, to be very appealing, but they were fine. The flying around is good, and Evochron adds something important that X3 lacks: landing on planets. Not that you can do anything on the planet, but you can land in cities on planets. The same trading and mission interface is used, so there isn’t any difference between a planet and a space station other than you have atmospheric effects on the planets.

    As usual, with these games, you start off mining and trading to upgrade your ship and weapons. It doesn’t look like you can have multiple ships and automated traders, as you can in X3, but perhaps that comes later. You can configure your hull as you like, so you can concentrate on fighting or trading or something in between.

    The problems I had with Evochron are somewhat related: you are thrown into a dangerous and unforgiving universe with very little idea what to do. The plot, if you can call it that, seems pretty weak and doesn’t provide any training to help you survive. Preparing for combat is essentially impossible. I didn’t see any places where you could practice against drones or weak enemies. Instead, you prepare your ship the best you can, take a mission to a hostile sector, and get your ass kicked right away. Gee, that was fun – shall I try again? I think not. That was when I quit. I’m sure the Evochron defenders will scream that I should try again a few times and I’d get the hang of it, but, frankly, I have too many fun games to play to spend time punishing myself on one that wasn’t any fun at all. And the navigation system was just plain stupid: fast travel (I forget the buzzword used in the game. Warp?) to a planet and burn up in the atmosphere! How about having the stupid nav computer drop out of warp slightly before the big heavy round thing we are approaching? C’mon, have we stepped backwards in computer capability?

    So that’s the bottom line of Evochron Legends – an open-ended challenge in a harsh universe without all the fun.

  • More on the X series games from Egosoft – Voice Acting

    So I posted a glowing article about the X series games, which I really do love and have great fun playing. But they do have faults. The most glaring fault is the voice acting. X2:The Threat had lots of voice acting and it was terrible, but (I think) done in a tongue-in-cheek style that knew it was terrible. X3:Reunion had even worse voice acting (the worst of any game I’ve played, I think), but it didn’t detract enough that I worried about it. X3:Terran Conflict continues the lousy voice acting, but due to a bug that played station announcements over half the “mission accomplished” speeches, I didn’t have to/get to hear it. No big deal.

    Why do X series games have such dreadful voice acting? Well, Egosoft is a small, independent developer that can’t hire big name talent. And, I think, they get their buddies to do it for cheap or free. And, they are in Germany, so their buddies have German accents. But, frankly, the games are fun enough that all of that is okay. And the best news: the real baddies, the Xenon and Khaak, don’t talk at all, so you don’t have to worry about bad acting there.

  • X3:Terran Conflict

    The X series of games from Egosoft are some of the best space combat/building/trading games you can play. They are exciting, fun, have a plot that you can follow or ignore, and are very open ended. I started with X2:The Threat, then played X3:Reunion, and am still playing X3:Terran Conflict. In all these games, you start out with a wimpy ship and knowledge of one sector in space, as well as a mission to help somebody or another. Over time, you acquire more powerful ships, explore many star systems, and save the universe in various ways. How you get those better ships and what kind they are is up to you. You can fight and destroy enemies to the various races, thus getting bounties and fulfilling missions; you can trade cargo, eventually building up a trade empire with trader ships working for you; you can capture enemy ships and use them or sell them; or you can build factories and complexes of factories to make and sell goods to others. Or you can do all of the above, which is what I enjoy. One of the great things about the X series is that you can have many ships, including fighters, fast scouts, battleships, carriers, corvettes, and more, and you can fly each of them, depending on your style or your need at the moment. The enemy, too, has a variety of ships, so you will need to match their firepower.

    The fighting in the X series is usually done in a fighter or Corvette, with you aiming and pulling the trigger. The weapons vary from projectile launchers to plasma throwers to other types of energy weapons, each of which has a range and a travel speed to the target. You can use assisted aiming (once you have bought it) to help you hit fast moving and maneuvering ships. You choose which weapons to activate at any time, so you can choose lots of damage to destroy a ship or mostly shield damage to convince the other pilot to bail out (so you can take the ship as salvage!). The fighting is the most fun part of the game, in my opinion, but there are others that really like the empire building or trading aspects more.

    The X series has the most amazing forums with great people there willing to help with troubles in a mission or give suggestions for places to trade. It is by far the best user community I’ve seen. Egosoft is also pretty amazing – they continue to update their games a year or more after it is out. Their games are available on Steam and the most amazing thing is that I could enter my X3:TC serial number from the disk version into Steam and now I have the Steam version and all the achievements available! I don’t know of anyone else who has done that for their customers.

    I have uploaded two videos to show how beautiful a game X3:TC is, but I have somewhat failed. As an experiment, I set the bitrate lower on my Hauppauge HD PVR, and the videos are quite muddy and indistinct. Darn. But you can still get an idea of the beauty of the game. These are 1080p videos, so please view them at full screen if you have a good computer.

    In the first video, I jump from Argon Prime to Kingdom End and fly around a bit. I fly near a station to give you an idea of the size, and I’m in a pretty good sized corvette class ship.

    In the second video, I give a tour of some of my fleet in Argon Prime. First I fly my little scout near a couple of corvettes, then to my transport, which is huge; then over to my destroyer, also quite large; and finally to my carrier, which currently holds 43 fighters and scouts. At the end, I order the carrier to launch a fighter and fly around with it to show how attractive it is.

    Overall, I really enjoy the X games, and X3:TC is the best of the bunch. Get it and have a great flight!

  • Warpgate HD for iPad

    Warpgate HD is a nifty space game for iPad. It was the first game I bought when I got the iPad and it has been lots of fun. The game is filled with exploration of many star systems and wars between six factions that control various regions. By the end, you will work for and betray each faction at least once. You start off with a small ship with minimal weapons, shields, and cargo space, then you fight and trade your way to a big, studly battleship with powerful weapons and shields and enough cargo space. You can also set up mines on various asteroids.

    Navigating around the attractive 2D but drawn in 3D space is normally done in a zoomed out view, as shown below. Tapping sets your destination, and zooming and rotating are very intuitive with multitouch controls. The warpgate shown in the image is the travel mechanism between systems.

    You can also zoom in and see details of your ship and others. Some pirates are visible in this view. The green arrow lines show the path to your destination.

    In battle mode, fighting pirates here, you can use your weapons by tapping on them. Here I have 10 weapons (which is a lot). You can also recharge your shields and select targets by tapping.

    There are lots of systems and many missions. You collect cargo from destroyed enemies and can trade among planets and space stations. There are many grammatical and spelling errors throughout the game, which is disappointing, but does not detract from game play too much. Overall, a fun game for any iPad owners that like space games.

  • Witcher – Another really fun game

    I thoroughly enjoyed Witcher Enhanced Edition when I played it a couple years ago. It is an RPG with seamless battles and lots of action, including fighting (fist fighting competitions), loving (sexy time!), and killing of many, many creatures and people. The plot was fine, but forgettable, but it kept the game moving. You play a “Witcher” a badass, but sterile warrior whose job is to right wrongs and screw all the eligible women. You have a number of powers that you attain by increasing your level, but the actual killing will be done with your swords. Yes, swords, plural. It turns out your regular sword is good for killing people and animals, but you need a silver sword to kill monsters. You also choose a “style” based on the number and abilities of the enemy you’re fighting. And while you are fighting, it is important to carefully time follow-up attacks to maximize their damage (it isn’t too hard, so don’t be overly concerned). All these choices have to be managed during the battles and they turn out to make the fighting really fun. It never got old chopping enemies’ heads off. The game is quite violent and graphic, but it really connects you with the action more than most other RPGs (Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights) do. This is a game where you can’t just play on autopilot, because skill and timing matter and are woven well into the gameplay.

    Witcher is also quite the bargain these days. It is often on sale, and I see it is only $20 on Steam. Well worth it!

  • Why I quit Eve Online

    Full disclosure: I changed the title of this post. I didn’t really hate Eve Online, but decided I didn’t want to play it, so I quit it.

    I really wanted to like Eve Online. I really did! I was about done with my free trial sometime back and was thinking about starting the paid subscription. I had joined a corporation with a couple of nice guys from Ireland and was progressing through the ranks and through missions nicely. I had just earned enough rank to buy a cruiser, if I remember. Then I decided it wasn’t for me, gave all my stuff to my corporation buddies, and left the game and never looked back. Here’s why:

    Eve Online is a massive multiplayer space game, which immediately sounds awesome. But it is also an RPG.That means hits are calculated based on dice rolls rather than your dogfighting skills. In fact, there is no dogfighting at all. But that was OK – I like RPGs. Essentially, you can choose targets, and select an orbit distance so the computer approaches to that distance and then stays that far away. And you reload when your guns are empty. The computer takes care of all the aiming and fighting. But that’s okay, it’s an RPG. I could live with that.

    Your ship has a shield, which protects the hull, then when the shield is gone, it has armor, which also protects the hull, then when that’s gone, hits eat into your hull. If your hull goes to zero, your ship explodes and your escape capsule flies off. Your capsule can be shot down, in which case, you’d better have a recent clone in storage or else you lose a lot of abilities. Insurance can help replace your ship, but not what was in the hold or mounted to the hardpoints. You can go reclaim your wreck to recover some gear if you can defeat whatever killed you in the first place.

    Eve Online looks pretty. The graphics are on par with most other space games (perhaps X3 is prettier, perhaps not). To get between areas within a system, you warp, which is very fast travel, and it is disconcerting when the game would warp you right through the space station you just left, for example. You don’t land on planets, but on stations near planets and moons. The stations have shops, repair bays, corporations, and assigners of missions. To travel between systems, you use jump gates that connect neighboring systems. And the whole universe is one live universe, though parts of it are “instanced,” so many of the other ships flying around and perhaps shooting at you are people, not NPCs.

    For the missions, you generally have to go somewhere, fight a wave of baddies, take an accelerator gate to a nearby area, fight more baddies, repeat a few times, then go report in to get your reward. If you are part of a team, you and your buddies go through this together, which is fun. If your ship is damaged, you can escape (sometimes – the enemy may prevent you from warping away!), but then you have to start the whole chain of gates over, though the baddies don’t respawn for a while.

    The reason I dropped Eve Online and never looked back was the travel time. The time it takes to navigate to the next acceleration gate in a mission just got tedious. It turns out that as you get bigger and better ships, they get slower, so the problem gets worse. My destroyer was slower than my smaller frigate, while my cruiser was slower than my destroyer. I realized that it would only get worse and never better as I progressed to bigger, “better” ships. So I quit cold turkey. If they ever change that hierarchy, I would be happy to try again, because I did have fun, for a while, but until then, I don’t like having my time wasted for me.

  • Star Trek Online Battle

    In this Star Trek Online battle, my ship, the USS Ampere, is protecting a damaged ship from waves of alien attacks. Since my ship is a science vessel, it doesn’t have very powerful weapons, but does have good shields, so my hull is well protected. You can see that the battle is generally turning and worrying about firing arcs. The enemies are not very tough in this battle, so they don’t do too much damage. Against the last battleship, I call in a “photonic fleet” of helpers that take the heat off me as we weaken the enemy’s shields and I pump quantum torpedoes into it. This is an HD video, so be sure to view it full screen and at 1080p resolution if your machine can handle it.

  • Big videos

    Well, right after I uploaded the Star Trek Online navigation video to YouTube, I started uploading a longer Star Trek Online space battle video. This one was about 1GB and 10 minutes. It took several hours to upload, for which we can blame the pathetic ISP monopolies in the USA, but even once it was uploaded, it has been “processing” for hours. I can’t imaging it takes that long to convert to all the YouTube resolutions. I suspect that because it is more than a couple minutes, YouTube staff need to review it for copyright violations, since a 10 minute video is probably more likely to be ripped from somewhere than a one minute video of a crazy cat. Too bad the assumption can’t be that I own the copyright and it can be reviewed later if there is any doubt. Or maybe it really does take that long to process. Anyway, I will post it to the site once the upload and processing finish.

  • Star Trek Online Sector Map Navigation

    This video shows sector map navigation in Star Trek Online. My ship, the USS Ampere, is in the galactic map sort of near DS9 and Bajor. I turn around an enter the Rolor Nebula, an area with randomly generated missions that you can repeat over and over again (and must if you want to rise in the Diplomatic Corps ranks). Once in the nebula, I head over to an anomaly, which in this case is something to scan. Then you see the scanning mini-game where I match the waveform of the scan and get bonus materials. Note: This is an HD video (1920×1080) if you go full-screen and choose 1080p in the video size options.