Monthly Archives: January 2014

Open Panzer – Huertgen Forest Walkthrough

Great name, good game. Open Panzer, the web browser reincarnation of Panzer General, is on iOS and its scenarios are challenging even for the seasoned war gamer. One of the toughest is Huertgen Forest from the Big Red One campaign. It is essentially impossible to win as a single scenario, so this walkthrough assumes you have reached this point in your campaign, and that you have built a battalion of core units with a good mix of infantry and artillery.

open_panzer_03

The simple strategy is to break the weakest point in the German line. That is, attack the middle, break-through and then flank the rest of the German defenses. The West and East points in the line are well-defended with obstacles, artillery and flak. It is almost impossible to take these points head-on and have enough men left for the other objectives, especially when the barbed wires fire at you (still not sure why).

To start, place your core units in the center and Southeast. Hopefully, you will have several infantry units supported by 2-3 mobile artillery. From there, move North toward the first main objective in the Eastern part of the map. This first objective in the East should be taken rather easily.

In the West, avoid the roads in the forest or you will be ambushed. Instead, swing the two tank platoons and the infantry around to the center of the map avoiding the forest in the west. Concentrate all of your non-core units to the center of the map. Push through the woods, take the center objective and fight off the armored counter-attack.

This is what you DON'T want to do. Avoid frontal in the West or you will be bogged and ambushed.

This is what you DON’T want to do. Avoid frontal in the West or you will be bogged and ambushed.

Avoid engaging your aircraft in support of your troops early on. The line is well-defended with flak and other anti-aircraft units. Instead, use your bombers and fighters to the north or northeast. There are light air defenses in these areas and you can easily weaken the troops guarding the objectives. Once the flak guns are destroyed at the line, then it’s easy pickings for your airmen.

Once the central and western objectives are taken, send 2-3 infantry to the Northwestern objective supported by 1-2 artillery. Destroy the artillery and flak guns and it should be easy to overwhelm the enemy infantry. Once the Northeast objective is taken, swing south and take the West objective from the rear.

At the same time send the rest of your troops north. There are 4 enemy units guarding this objective, but they have only a mortar for support. Still, it will take several reinforcements to defeat this garrison. Once near completion, move your units East and take both of the objectives in the Northeast. If you were smart with your aircraft and artillery, it won’t be very difficult to sweep up the remaining enemy resistance.

Mop up

Mop up

Get Even Trailer – Get Next Gen!

The new trailer for Get Even is out and the visuals are impressive – like a photo-real painting or a scene from a movie.  The game, about memories vs reality and so on, uses some fancy scanning technology to create the “realistic” world.  The trailer only shows the inside of a dark, gray and abandoned warehouse or school, so it’s not clear if the realism extends to the outdoors when it’s sunny and the birds are chirping.  As the game explores a Rashomon-like memory and POV theme, it also blends the single player vs multiplayer format.  Another player can join a solo-player’s game as an AI character.  Now, the ability to possess someone mid-game and control the way s/he interfaces with the single game player is definitely next gen, perhaps more so than the enhanced visuals.  Go next gen!

H-Hour World’s Elite Trailer – is it that game?

I need a good realistic tactical shooter. Seriously, I need it like I need a double-shot espresso with my bagel. As much as I love COD and Halo, there hasn’t been a game that’s filled the void after Ghost Recon got the “change-isn’t-always-better” makeover. Full Spectrum Warrior had potential but was a bust.  So was SOCOM.  I’m hoping H-Hour: World’s Elite will be that game. Based on the SOF Studios’s site, it is. Based on the pre-alpha trailer, I’m not sure. Check it out below.

It is pre-alpha, and the trailer does everything but Inception-implants to make sure we know what, but the hybrid first/third person shooter doesn’t look all that spectacular. But I will trust the developer here, and believe their marketing when they say “Reality is a theme of H-Hour”. Teamwork counts. Bullets kill. You don’t regenerate like The Wolverine. If you carry more, you’re slower. And so on. I love it!

Franz Kafka Videogame – swinging at the absurd

Independent game development is about hits and misses, and once in a while, swinging at wild pitches.  A game about a turn-of-the-century German-language writer who wrote weird trip-out stuff is swinging at a wild pitch – a crazy, in-the-dirt, Nuke LaLoosh wild pitch.  The trailer for the Franz Kafka Videogame is out and though the game itself doesn’t look super trippy, it does have an interesting look.

It reminds me of Monty Python animation, but less absurd, which is one of the themes the trailer promises the game will explore.  Mif2000’s previous game, Hamlet, got some great reviews.  So high expectations for Kafka!

I haven’t read Kafka since a GE class in college.  The only thing I remember about Metamorphosis is that a guy turns into a cockroach, everyone detests him and he eventually withers away and dies.  Well, come to think, Gregor Samsa’s experience sounds very similar to many companies in the video game industry, so perhaps this pitch isn’t all that wild after all.  But I hope the game is a success and mif2000 isn’t one of these Samsa developers, because hit or miss, they do some edgy stuff and would love to see them do the unexpected for years to come.

kafka_01

Alien: Isolation Announcement Trailer – let the geek battles begin!

The Alien vs Aliens debate has ignited countless geek battles over the years.  It’s a topic as inflammatory in geekdom as “Who’s the best Doctor Who?”  On one hand, you have the survival thriller.  One Alien and a crew of terrified but healthy walking-incubators picked off one by one in the dark.

Then there’s Aliens, the action flick with the who’s-who in action flicks: the bungling officer, the hardcore sergeant, the a-hole, the prophet heroine and the pre-Michelle Rodriguez Michelle Rodriguez character with balls bigger than the boys.   And lot more Aliens, lot more bullets and a flamethrower.  Which is better?  It’s like Star Wars vs Star Trek – it’ll never be resolved without acid bloodletting.

Amanda Ripley then...

Amanda Ripley then…

At the end of Alien, Ripley drifts in space and takes a long nap.  At the beginning of Aliens, she wakes up and discovers, among other things, that decades have passed and her toddler daughter, Amanda, had passed away from old age (cancer, actually, in the book).

...Amanda Ripley now.

…Amanda Ripley now.

Alien: Isolation, a new game out later this year, takes place between Alien and Aliens.  Fifteen years after Alien, Amanda embarks on a mission to find out what happened to her mother, who we already know is drifting in space.  She finds herself on a planet infested with Aliens and tries to survive.  Check out the announcement trailer released today.

Based on the trailer, Isolation looks more like Alien than Aliens.  It’s a survival FPS.  It’s dark, not a lot of light, scary things crawling about and you have to use your wits, not just bullets, to make it out.  It’s not procedural like Daylight, but the storyline is more intriguing, almost good enough to be a movie in itself.  It at least seems creepier and offers better gameplay than the disappointing Aliens: Colonial Marines.  If Isolation does indeed turn out to be a better game than Colonial Marines, it will no doubt add more arsenal to the pro-Alien backers in future geek battles.

Another hot geek debate

Another hot geek debate

Daylight Trailer: Don’t Look Back – Procedural Boring?

Everything about Zombie Studios’ Daylight screams cliché except that it’s procedurally-generated.  The PC/PS4 game takes place in an abandoned hospital where no-doubt some crazy hell happened years ago, probably had insanity within its walls like a mother who lost a child or suffered some other traumatic event.

It’s also an amnesia story.  The protagonist (you) wake up without memory, and must use the light of a phone to try and escape.  There’s probably a twist like the protagonist is a reincarnation of a patient or something.

And, oh…ghosts pop out in the dark.  Don’t believe me?  Check out the new trailer out today.

If this is the premise of a movie, I’m not sure I would watch it.  Unless it was procedurally-generated.  If things changed every time I watched it, I’d check it out just for the novelty factor.  And that’s Daylight’s most intriguing draw.  It promises no two experiences are alike.  Places change.  Events change.  Everything changes every time.  This could be really awesome, or really lame.  After all, a boring cliché game is still a boring cliché game even if the door is on the left side rather than the right side.  Isn’t it?

Boo!

Boo!

The official site says it’s “best played alone in the dark”.  That statement alone is a red flag.  Why do the marketing folks have to tell me how and when to play it?  I remember playing Resident Evil mid-day with friends and it still scared us.  I might pee a little if a ghost jumps me, but if I’m sitting alone in the dark playing a dark game, I’ll probably whiz even if the cutest puppy in the world popped out.

Procedural games seem to be the cool thing so I’ll check it out, but the trailer doesn’t leave me praying for Daylight.

daylight_02

Best New-Old Video Games of 2014

2014 is the year of the horse, and the year that old games with makeovers could very well gallop ahead of the noobs.  Here are some of the product extensions coming this year.

January

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

metal_gear_rising_revengeance

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

February

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

castlevania

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Fable Anniversary

March

Dark Souls II

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

Rambo The Video Game

rambo_tree

South Park: The Stick of Truth

April

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

May

World of Tanks Xbox

33z5ste

Lego The Hobbit

June

Ultra Street Fighter IV

August

Star Wars Attack Squadrons

October

The Sims 4

TBA

Carmageddon: Reincarnation

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Final Fantasy XV

Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers

Kingdom Hearts III

Mario Kart 8

Mega Man V

Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty

Tropico 5

Warhammer 40,000

Wolfenstein: The New Order

wolfenstein

Dark District Review – good old sci-fi western freemium

Some of the best sci-fi are essentially westerns.  Star Wars, Star Trek, Mad Max, and of course, the Riddick trilogy, are examples of sci-fi classics that, at its core, are wild-west gunslingers.  Dark District, Kabam’s new iOS free-to-play, is a sci-fi western.

The planet, Tenebri, is a resource-rich mining town.  It has become completely lawless except for a few (including you) who must survive, raise a posse, and drive out the no-goods bent on controlling the planet’s wealth and power.  Sounds similar to a Kickstarter project, RimWorld, and several other games and fiction, but it’s still an intriguing premise.

And oh, there’s no sun, that’s why it’s dark.

dark_district_04

Like most FTPs, you need a lot of patience, or real money.  At the root of the game’s economy are two resources, alloy and hexium.  You need one or the other to build anything, including your army.  There’s a per-level cap on resource-collecting buildings, so there’s quite a bit of waiting before you can progress in the game.   I would say more waiting than similar games, such as Kingdom Age or Battle Nations.

To move faster, resources can be purchased with credits.  50 credits can be bought for $4.99.  1600 credits are $99.99.  One credit will buy you 10,000 alloy or hexium.

dark_district_02

Completion of missions like upgrading buildings or researching technology provides lump-sum rewards.  The extra resources for doing basic tasks are nice, but the missions could be more challenging.  For example, in Creative Assembly’s Total War, you’re not rewarded for upgrading a building.  You are asked to conquer a barbarian-infested city.  Now, that’s deserving of an award.

The battles are where Dark District shines above other similar FTPs.  So far, there are three classes of vehicles: tanks, air and mechs.  You need a good combination for victory.  The mechs can take the damage, but they don’t have the firepower of an upgraded air unit.  So I put the mechs in front, and had the choppers provide the firepower from behind.  With a tap of the finger, you control where the units are deployed, how many and what they attack.  You only battle the enemy’s towers, not his army.  It’s pretty fun, though repetitive, and few and far between since all units used in the attack, whether destroyed or not, must be rebuilt.  Do the victors not know how to find their way home?

dark_district_01

The solo campaign doesn’t give you much story or variety.  There’s a chain of warlords and their minions that must be defeated in all-too linear fashion.  A total of 50 opponents broken up into 5 districts.  In addition to increasing in difficulty, every district gives you a new mug shot.  But besides a different pic, there isn’t anything interesting about them.  Some kind of backstory would be cool, but they don’t even have names.

dark_district_03

There’s a PVP, too, and an alliance system, which isn’t anything new or special.

I dig Dark District’s premise.  It might make an interesting movie or graphic novel.  As for the game, I might give it a few more days, but there’s isn’t enough variety or intriguing gameplay for me to take out my wallet.