tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32644003098038640052024-03-14T02:38:11.790-07:00Talking to MyselfDavid Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-4425470289947015402011-05-31T10:46:00.001-07:002011-05-31T11:55:08.811-07:00Assisted by Friendly NativesWe acquired our new apartment in Offenburg this week and started exploring the area around it. The good news here is that Offenburg is bigger than Kehl, and correspondingly more civilized as we define it. The stores are larger and have a better assortment of goods to choose from, plus being a little further from the French border it has fewer Tobacco stores and Casinos.<br /><br />Anyways, none of that is as important as what I am about to tell you.<br /><br />We were exploring the nearby stores and stepped into a local pet shop. It had the usual assortment of dog/cat products, fish, and the customary small furry animals section. Since that is always a favorite of mine, we headed over to check them out and were rewarded by a nice assortment of gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, etc.. and some really cute soft bunnies. It was good to see gerbils and long-haired hamsters, which were kind of scarce at the pet stores back in LA, apparently having been ousted by the less cute and more spazzy dwarf hamsters and short-hairs that were there instead.<br /><br />Ok, all that is well and fine, but it was only then that we made our key discovery: They had a chipmunk for sale! That's right, the same little stripey tree squirrel that you see all over the states in the wild was here for sale as a household pet. And, giving him a little pat, he seemed completely ok with that idea. Cool!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijNsQ68WsRtPZUqmWx_XBzdinuX1cqJr9snLVLA2-_N24WU14QpOC-Kj8MBcO0vcqjkInngKcLf2ZW8TODGsBNlROnE7f4a0C0sIKJDLtvPOOuSyfYrThDFo7gdtUFAdkS3xMqNfTdBPu2/s1600/Chipmunk.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 319px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijNsQ68WsRtPZUqmWx_XBzdinuX1cqJr9snLVLA2-_N24WU14QpOC-Kj8MBcO0vcqjkInngKcLf2ZW8TODGsBNlROnE7f4a0C0sIKJDLtvPOOuSyfYrThDFo7gdtUFAdkS3xMqNfTdBPu2/s320/Chipmunk.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612950858036902770" border="0" /></a>A little research later turned up that apparently they are kind of a tough pet to actually have the right environment for. Quite energetic, they require a lot of room and not much noise. They seem to largely like the same sort of space and environment a chinchilla does. Not for us clearly, but still cool nevertheless.<br /><br />All right, that doesn't segue at all into my real point for the day, so I'll just abruptly switch over to it in an awkward fashion instead. One of the things that I have noticed since I arrived here, is that the locals have been pretty darn helpful in getting us set up. That's great you might think, but trust me, when it is a struggle to do stuff like buy trash bags or order a pizza you <span style="font-weight: bold;">really</span> appreciate any help you can get. So with that in mind, I just thought I'd share a couple folks who have made my life easier since I got here. It'll let you put some faces to the names, and it will give me a brief moment to once again say Thanks All!<br /><br /><br />First up - Vladimir<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinlURwh40SCBcaz_fNKLR3WE7-Oy8sUrTUNaGiCy4zIZiRD-bbIMg2YObHuJrrTagNX2bE02-9OveO6xU7hTedvJlrsIzvk8XHI82jJz4CCDuOELeaqHcSC6V7zHhqE3mXVnfINBKQ8At9/s1600/Vladimir.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinlURwh40SCBcaz_fNKLR3WE7-Oy8sUrTUNaGiCy4zIZiRD-bbIMg2YObHuJrrTagNX2bE02-9OveO6xU7hTedvJlrsIzvk8XHI82jJz4CCDuOELeaqHcSC6V7zHhqE3mXVnfINBKQ8At9/s320/Vladimir.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612942026402537138" border="0" /></a><br />Vladimir was the guy who originally convinced me to come to Germany. He's kind of a 'zany adventure' type and engages in pastimes like random trips to Spain and sleeping in train stations. He won't blink at getting up obscenely early in the morning to help out after a 3am bender. He tromped across the countryside with me to negotiate for my used car in Russian. We're off to France for more misadventures next week so pray for our safe return. :)<br /><br /><br />Next Stop - Mathias<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8D-q2nI-iWsIYnTHiSMaSNhxngYElcrdfCC_q4UN2PTqQ475iklI9S5m0R_Sv0-cIwFXGuz92Ib9lAy6vV9gR8q5V4l6nBH-bHz3TIh0GrpelalSRI1TRBCOnpcrvXhyphenhyphenyeQ-u82BUuame/s1600/Mathias.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8D-q2nI-iWsIYnTHiSMaSNhxngYElcrdfCC_q4UN2PTqQ475iklI9S5m0R_Sv0-cIwFXGuz92Ib9lAy6vV9gR8q5V4l6nBH-bHz3TIh0GrpelalSRI1TRBCOnpcrvXhyphenhyphenyeQ-u82BUuame/s320/Mathias.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612943806393963714" border="0" /></a>Mathias is another programmer in my special projects group and sits next to me. He's a thoughtful and effective coder and has a quiet sense of humor that makes for a very pleasant work environment. Now when I first arrived in Germany, being the well-prepared guy that I was, I came equipped with several adaptors to allow me to use my US electronics here in Germany. Now that was a great idea except for one small detail. All the stupid adaptors had their plugs sticking straight out of the adaptor. Perhaps 20 years ago that would have been fine, but these days all German outlets are recessed to provide grounding. None of my stuff would work, and several trips to local electronics stores (who largely had English speaking workers) couldn't solve it. Mathias thought about it, checked the French stores (he lives in Strasbourg), and then when these didn't turn up a solution, took an old extension cord and hand-modified it to fit one of my adaptors! Yahoo! That was some cool stuff.<br /><br /><br />Here's Cay (pronounced "Ky")<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnxnesyhXzCfEapuGJBzi97AaLINBH0cJBWFdLHYPLj_8SNoMQxFLpVFXSPBDyFqFiUh48MutATywL_VrqKMbfTnquuM5TEFiNB0EDodyA8BFA6I3pYP1IEDi_PgssFHqP-AIbO6yUQ6O/s1600/Cay.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnxnesyhXzCfEapuGJBzi97AaLINBH0cJBWFdLHYPLj_8SNoMQxFLpVFXSPBDyFqFiUh48MutATywL_VrqKMbfTnquuM5TEFiNB0EDodyA8BFA6I3pYP1IEDi_PgssFHqP-AIbO6yUQ6O/s320/Cay.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612945890617029026" border="0" /></a>Cay's the fellow who ended up with me working for him (instead of Vladimir) since his group needed someone more senior to build stuff. His English is great (he spent several years in England) and he'll happily translate menus, explain German cultural norms, figure out directions, and scratch his head at what he has decided are my 'list of food rules'. We joke a fair bit about who eats what and why, and he's willing to eat those green grubs on pizza. Oh, and recently he helped me find and arrange for my soon-to-be-installed high speed cable internet connection. Much kudos for that one!<br /><br />Finally, my local guardian angel - Sanja<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhddzbBcTrr7sVMwbgrl2g_qV69k93Q8kUCu-cLhZIuNumDEgLxd202LBVM-M19WE-0HHNER2BwwH6i0qw3l88v6_EBuSz-Kj-RX3DImwgjpUMSXQbWQan2tqVWaHPkTFP6AJJCvjP3-ISG/s1600/Sanja+2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhddzbBcTrr7sVMwbgrl2g_qV69k93Q8kUCu-cLhZIuNumDEgLxd202LBVM-M19WE-0HHNER2BwwH6i0qw3l88v6_EBuSz-Kj-RX3DImwgjpUMSXQbWQan2tqVWaHPkTFP6AJJCvjP3-ISG/s320/Sanja+2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612948650961947154" border="0" /></a>Sanja is the office manager at work - that person that just gets stuff done and makes everything magically happen. I'm not sure what prompted her to take me under her wing and help out, but to whichever deity was responsible - Thank you! She arranged for our temporary housing, chaufered me around town and translated for me to fill out the dazzling array of German legal paperwork. She actually found and negotiated the rental of our new apartment! She showed me where to buy groceries, acquire bus tickets, use trains, set up utilities, search for cars, order lunch, get to work in the morning, and more absolutely useful stuff than I could even vaguely begin to count. She says its because she is an immigrant herself, with her family having come from Croatia (when she was 5). I think she speaks 4 languages fleuntly, has 2 kids basically the same age as ours, and is just amazingly useful. I have no idea how we would have survived without her help. I hope any of you moving to a foreign country get a local Sanja equivalent to help you out too!David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-28999057747418880242011-05-24T13:47:00.000-07:002011-05-25T11:10:48.637-07:00Germany is Mighty German<div>Ok, clearly we're not in Kansas anymore.<br /></div><br /><div>Every single day from the time I get out of bed until the time I go to sleep, it is altogether clear that we are not in America.<br /></div><br /><div>Sure, the giant obvious stuff you would expect. The locals all speak in German. The television is in German. The cereal, the toilet paper, the books, the maps, the .. anyways you get the idea. Everything is in German, and considering my German language capabilities rival that of a five year old child, that's kind of a daunting place to start.<br /></div><br /><div>Still, it is not actually terrible. I am learning, and I feel like I'm doing so at a reasonable rate. At least until I try to talk on the phone. German phones kick my ass. I'm never sure how many digits to dial. I know you're supposed to put a zero on the front (usually), but when they give you 12-15 digits of phone number, the actual location where you're supposed to put that zero can be anywhere from the first to the ninth number. We've got a phone in our house but it laughs at me. I can call the local pizza place with it, and not much else. For anything more complicated I have to use my disposable cell phone. It works exactly like you'd expect. You dial zero and ALL of whatever the horrible garble of digits are that compose the phone number, and it magically calls the right person. Maybe someday I will master the German phone, but that someday has not yet come.<br /></div><br /><div>Oh, and for bonus aggravation when I first moved in here my house phone used to ring every night at 1 am. Since every phone call I ever answered was a wrong number I wondered who would be calling me at such an hour. It turns out the sadistic soul in question was the actual phone, which apparently had a built in alarm clock that was set to 1 am. I eventually figured this out, but only after an embarrassing number of having to tromp downstairs at 1 am to make the darn phone be quiet. Cursed device!</div><br /><div>If you have been reading Stephanie's blog you've probably already seen our excursions to the local sights, confusing shopping experiences, and amazingly small Everything. If you haven't though, go read it now. Lots of good stuff there, and unlike this, it has nice pictures. Enjoy: <a href="http://americanparisadventures.blogspot.com/">http://americanparisadventures.blogspot.com/</a><br /><br />However, while the wife and kids have the advantage of time and a car to do their exploring with, I do have the advantage of spending day in and day out with a bunch of actual Germans, and apparently, of eating a lot more German food.</div><br /><div>One of the things I decided to make a point of when I came, was that I was going to go out of my way to just try new stuff. We're here for new experiences after all, let's eat some weird new things and see what is good. I started this from my very first trip over, through London, where I made a point of eating some of the British food while waiting for my next flight. My advice to any who may follow in my path: Don't bother. I swear the English are the only people in the world who can screw up a simple biscuit, ham, and egg. I don't know how they did it, but I'm going to try hard not to give them the opportunity to do it again!</div><br /><div>So, escaping the clutches of the evil proper-English-speaking food mutilators, I arrived in Germany and commenced trying out the local cuisine. On my first night one of my co-workers showed up to escort me to my hotel and then took me out for pizza. It turns out there is a lot of pizza in Germany. Its one of the easiest foods to find here, mostly because it is largely made by the Turkish people who seem to have an awful lot of local eating establishments. The pizza is pretty ordinary by American standards, so its safe to eat. Just make sure never to order it with Pepperoni. It turns out this translates to 'scary large green peppers' which are plopped on top of the pizza in question like some giant green grub. Avoid it if you can. </div><br /><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxv5nfNLk7Q3B6AQdkAHSnpACAAyd0qICQLVe5Ay6Hb1vhKJRv8J-HliMw4oQd1zYr3FCUUcSzCsGrMsQ9teNm9nBgNVN5wpE-MvAB9BIx72HJdBAaEWVPk1GvG8VaCtIzBmx2Ia9y33-j/s1600/peperoni.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 274px; float: left; height: 233px;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610407337587955522" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxv5nfNLk7Q3B6AQdkAHSnpACAAyd0qICQLVe5Ay6Hb1vhKJRv8J-HliMw4oQd1zYr3FCUUcSzCsGrMsQ9teNm9nBgNVN5wpE-MvAB9BIx72HJdBAaEWVPk1GvG8VaCtIzBmx2Ia9y33-j/s320/peperoni.jpg" border="0" /></a>Your best bet of course is anything 'mit Käse' (cheese), or 'schinken' (ham). For some reason Germans are really big on ham, and it shows up everywhere. They eat it breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a whole range of products. Germany is a terrible place to be a pig. Cows on the other hand, must like it just fine here, since they seem to be eaten far far less. Pizza doesn't come with sausage or beef, pretty much ever. Though you can get some reasonable looking salami that does a decent pepperoni (our style) imitation if you have the urge.</div>Anyways, there are an awful lot of Turkish places around. Usually selling both pizza and döner kebaps which are big meaty gyros like you'd see in the US. Not bad and fairly cost effective for a quick meal out.<br /><br /><div>Now one place Germany has clearly got the US beat is its ubiquitous snack food store. Instead of a Starbuck's on every corner (which for all I know, they might have in bigger cities), Germany has a bakery on every corner. Although small bakeries exist (frequently with woefully inadequate stocks and only open for some gruesomely stifled amount of time), the bulk of the bakery locations seem to be dominated by two chains - Dreher's and Armbruster. Each of these sells a variety of bread and pastries that are pretty good. I've spent some time sampling the contents just in the interests of science of course! </div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiMCq4MWP1NdGpHjy7vgpbrLo4vVGAZVEfMm04aRlLpEmxHjJww-CEUXjCMR-VpvDMYC3SozKcYG_eOM90ic1TIfufnVViU0c_lzT7RX-ZtxT8x6V6yx_6Bep-es7DnUsuswfLInKvuohT/s1600/brezel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 153px; float: left; height: 108px;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610407776010171538" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiMCq4MWP1NdGpHjy7vgpbrLo4vVGAZVEfMm04aRlLpEmxHjJww-CEUXjCMR-VpvDMYC3SozKcYG_eOM90ic1TIfufnVViU0c_lzT7RX-ZtxT8x6V6yx_6Bep-es7DnUsuswfLInKvuohT/s320/brezel.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The Salzbrezel - This German standard is found at every bakery and is universally tasty. Simple, salt + firm bread and it is a winner. They're great snack food and always welcome.<br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhondPdOJGOz7yYMDkxqZVxiGbX_3Lfqg8M18d_LZebRU1aypPkz5hfrowITQ6MY9tVny6mp4a7k8rc53w5-jN_RjT26NssIE0VY3Vsj8QDS9oiP6ozNiXuSgQd-9b1q0elwhjmB1wcbQHC/s1600/quarkini.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 184px; float: left; height: 91px;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610409204177075698" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhondPdOJGOz7yYMDkxqZVxiGbX_3Lfqg8M18d_LZebRU1aypPkz5hfrowITQ6MY9tVny6mp4a7k8rc53w5-jN_RjT26NssIE0VY3Vsj8QDS9oiP6ozNiXuSgQd-9b1q0elwhjmB1wcbQHC/s320/quarkini.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Quarkini - Similar to beignets, these are small round donut hole-like items with a cinnamon sugar coating. Somewhat rare, but worth eating when found.<br /><br /><br /><div>Yeah ok, I was going to give German names for the rest of the stuff but darned if I know them. There are a variety of ordinary croissants, danish-type items including some with a vanilla filling that I quite liked, some wonderful firm yet fluffy rabbit cookies (I think those were for Easter, but fresh ones are great), loaves of bread (usually somewhat grainy but fine tasting), and an assortment of other smallish pastries. You can also get quite ordinary pre-made sandwiches on bread, with cheese or meats similar to pre-made sandwiches in America but with better bread.<br /></div><br /><div>Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Two of my absolute favorites German bakery goods:</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN3JOVXE3bUyDR6pzOxiIAD3iahCOg6ay9VXhNPl-Ve-672ipfUYRl9J4hKqyHJo7wgqs0l13Pp7WIPu06o4LaON6tV_QX8IzrmmFUSCFql-JqyTAVKA_WSCA25yiA6ywAtAxAj894XUUZ/s1600/apfeltorte.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 238px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 172px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610409288750911602" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN3JOVXE3bUyDR6pzOxiIAD3iahCOg6ay9VXhNPl-Ve-672ipfUYRl9J4hKqyHJo7wgqs0l13Pp7WIPu06o4LaON6tV_QX8IzrmmFUSCFql-JqyTAVKA_WSCA25yiA6ywAtAxAj894XUUZ/s320/apfeltorte.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>Apfeltorte- Kind of an apple pie with a creamy topping. Not something you see all the time, but yummy regardless.<br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>And... (drumroll please)....</div><br /><div></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBV-imLXAicc_m1ksE9nXAV5AgeUYoZaw9PSyYwEVwIL6VN0J0pts_KtY0SQi3isULj1b6hXEcUrCdgN-xTGiDdUffIDIjvJAQdIBoVegMpYfdxzgiSwpOMLyWmcYIX69I7iyKPL5hUoqd/s1600/streuselkuchen.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 247px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 168px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610409386963245234" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBV-imLXAicc_m1ksE9nXAV5AgeUYoZaw9PSyYwEVwIL6VN0J0pts_KtY0SQi3isULj1b6hXEcUrCdgN-xTGiDdUffIDIjvJAQdIBoVegMpYfdxzgiSwpOMLyWmcYIX69I7iyKPL5hUoqd/s320/streuselkuchen.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Strueselkuchen!! I love this stuff! Firm bready interior with a crumb topping. It is more substantial than it looks and makes a great snack or breakfast accessory. It isn't nearly as sweet as you would expect when looking at it, but once you get used to that you realize it tastes great regardless.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anyways, that's probably enough about German bakeries. They're good, not hugely expensive, and plentiful. Thumbs up from this reviewer.<br /><br /><div>With that in mind, how about the 'real German food' you ask (wait, I already gave you Streuselkuchen, go be happy!). Sure, there are no shortage of 'Gasthof's around advertising schnitzels with schinken (I swear the German pork industry must be as strong as the US corn industry, it is in Everything!) but at about 15-20 EU/plate, four of us to feed, and a tiny salary to work with, such places are just going to have to remain unexplored for the time being. If I'm going to spend a lot on food, I want it to at least be French food (which in my so far somewhat limited experience, is the best stuff around). </div><br /><div>However... work actually provides an opportunity here. You see, in the interest of keeping us all there for more hours every day (probably a good investment), my employer hires a regular caterer. The food is heavy, usually no more enjoyable than it has to be, and well.. just the right price. But they definitely provide resoundingly German food. Which is perhaps why I kind of unfairly associate German food with prison-quality grub. </div><br /><div>Anyways, in the efforts to both conserve money and to try a bunch of weird German stuff, I make a point of eating the free lunch when I can. The menus are generally in German, but Google Translate does a surprisingly good job of deciphering them.</div><br /><div>Daily options generally include some sort of meat buried in a large pool of brown sauce with spetzle. If you're really lucky the meat is breaded as well (though still buried in brown sauce). There's sometimes a noodle option (spaghetti in tomato sauce with a large hard slab of parmesan cheese stuck to the top), or fish fillet (buried in brown sauce), or some sort of salad with stuff in it. These are all regular offerings that come back a lot, and most of them are edible if not exactly something to write home about.</div><br /><div></div><div>However, there's also some weirder stuff thrown into the mix as well. So our adventure-seeking explorer (whoops, that's me) will order those as well. I admit I'm a little more gun-shy these days after some early bad experiences. I tried the 'sausage salad' one day thinking "Well, I can eat most forms of sausage just fine so it should be ok", and then opened my tinfoil box to view the abomination within. Tiny strips of baloney like substance were mixed into a large heaping of onions and various plant stuff and then doused in a huge vat of grease. My boss looked over at it and said "Yeah, I could see how that might not be quite what you were expecting." </div><br /><div>I've ordered dumplings with vanilla sauce, and been pleased to discover they were exactly that - two large squashy dumplings in a tin of vanilla cream sauce. I don't know why it qualifies as a lunch, but it tasted pretty good. The dumpling with soup was a bit less desirable (the soup wasn't good), and had jam in the middle.</div><div></div><br /><div>I wish I had managed to catch the apple strudel so I'm hoping it makes another pass. This week I also declined the 'housewife herring', which the menu assured me was 'made in housewife style!' I think I will have to try that at some point though, but instead I went for the 'helen toast', which largely was unexplained on the menu. I mean, shouldn't we already know what that is? Heck, not me. I'll let you know.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">*Follow up* Ok, so the helen toast turned out to be a large slab of cheese browned and melted over a warm slice of ham, warm peaches, another slice of ham, and stacked on top of two soggy pieces of white bread. I think perhaps sitting in the tin for a few hours didn't do it any favors, and the bread really seemed sad to be thusly abused, but overall relatively harmless. </span><br /></div>David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-62264075509496424592011-05-24T13:13:00.000-07:002011-05-25T12:14:47.066-07:00Germany! What Am I Doing Here?Those of you who read my past blogs are probably expecting another game review. The truth is that its been a fair whle since I really played much new so I don't have anything too interesting to say there. Instead, I spent most of the last year the same way I spent the year before that - unemployed, and trying to maintain a semblance of sanity while so. I scoured job openings, applied for countless different ones of all flavors (executive, senior & ordinary producer, creative director, designer, and programmer). I would reshape myself and my presentation for each role and plow through, trying my hardest to project that yes, THIS was the job I both wanted and was ideally suited for. Whether that was running a AAA gaming studio, producing WWF wrestling titles for chinese distrubution, or programming medical imaging software, by golly that was exactly who I was. I waded through a zillion applications, phone screenings, interviews, panels, flights, etc... and had tons of close calls, but to no avail. Stephanie worked, having good success at her writing, but it paid badly, and I scraped up the occasional contracting job to augment, but mostly we just burned through our savings, our 401k, my portion of my grandparent's estate, and accumulated credit card debt.<br /><br />It was pretty horrible in a 'try not to show it' sort of way, and feeling increasingly desperate as time went on. We eventually figured out that there was no way our house was ever going to recover, so we may as well stop paying on that. Eventually we were simply running out of time and I vowed I was going to land _something_ one way or another. I would do it by force of will alone. I'm kind of a pushy bastard when it comes right down to it, so this should be doable.<br /><br />I applied for another batch of jobs and got a number of good responses. By simple act of will I stopped biting my fingernails after 20+ years of doing so because I thought it made me look better for interviewing. I took a 10 hour programming test for a company in Germany figuring if nothing else it would be good practice (yeah, do _that_ for fun sometime). I had one company actually tell my recruiter they were offering me the job (to largely run their company) and then... change their mind at the last minute! I had the company that makes the game I play the most (Riot - maker of League of Legends, see past blog) offer to make a kick-ass Design Producer role just for me, and then I must have fumbled one of my last couple interviews and they didn't make the offer either. And oddly enough, the place in Germany offered me the job. The pay was terrible (no, I mean *really* terrible), but it was located in Germany, right on the French border, about 2 miles outside the city of Strasbourg. As an added bonus, one of the producers made a point of visiting me while he was taking his US vacation, was a pretty cool guy, and said "come to Germany, please!"<br /><br />Now two years ago I probably would have looked at that and said yeah right and skipped it. But really when you think about it, you know how you have those life moments that you always look back on and say "<strong>but what if I had done that</strong>?" Yeah, this was clearly going to be one of those moments. I thought about the fact that my wife would really like to see Europe. I thought about the fact that my kids would have stories to tell about it for all their lives. I thought about the fact that continuing to be unemployed in America really wasn't that compelling as an alternative. And I thought... hm.... I could say yes.<br /><br />I told Stephanie I was willing to take the job. I think she was just dazed by it. She had wanted me to say yes, but I don't think ever believed I would. We arranged to sell the cars, as much furniture as seemed practical (no where near enough), packed and prepped. The company said they'd pay to fly us over, stay somewhere for a while, hire a broker to help find a permanent spot, pay to move our stuff, etc. The final contract said all that only it also said for no more than one month's salary's total cost (doh). In the end we sucked down the price of moving, sold some furniture, packed about half our stuff, 3 beds, 1 folding table, and a chest (and no other furniture), and walked away from everything else (tvs, furniture, house, etc...). I flew over two weeks ahead of the family, worked nonstop from the time I landed, and all of a sudden we were in Germany.<br /><br />I admit on reading this again to myself it all sounds a bit grim, but I wanted to give some honest context on how I got here. On a more positive note, we're here for an <span style="color: rgb(51, 153, 153); font-weight: bold;">ADVENTURE</span>, and we're going to live and breathe it every day. We do try new things, meet new people, and have a wealth of experiences we would never have come into contact with before. I moved all my childhood, but never to somewhere as resoundingly NEW as this. So let's see where this wild ride takes us!David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-19764835345041803782010-10-12T11:28:00.001-07:002010-10-12T16:21:08.183-07:00Kongregate (Web)I'm going to deviate a bit from my standard format today and just talk about something cool and free that you might not be taking advantage of. Now I have kind of a love/hate thing going with free gaming. On one side, I fear that having high quality free games around makes people feel entitled to gaming for free instead of cultivating an expectation that if you want something good, you'll need to pay people to make it. On the other side though, I foolishly spent my life pursuing game making instead of doing something that earns money like I dunno - baking or sanitation work, so having fun stuff around for free is quite useful. I guess I'll just recognize I can't really change it regardless, so I will simply be bitter and play some good free games.<br /><br />On that note, here's a site you should have bookmarked: <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.kongregate.com/">www.kongregate.com</a><br /><br />Kongregate is an aggregator, which means it scoops up free Flash games from a variety of sources and provides them in one location. It has a ton of games of every size and style available for public consumption. Now many of these are fairly low quality and not really worth your time, but there are also a huge number of absolute gems buried within the collection. These actually aren't very hard to find, since Kongregate does a pretty good job of putting them right out front with their Featured Games, and you can always search the highest rated lists by genre to find games you'll like.<br /><br />Kongregate then wraps these games with a lightweight achievement system. Basically points, levels, and badges that don't particularly mean anything but make you feel happy. They also throw in some random unlocks on their site-specific card game (Kongai), that you'll probably want later.<br /><br />Ok, so now you've got the basic idea. Lots and lots of Flash games with a better percentage of higher quality stuff than on the majority of similar sites and some really damn good ones mixed in. Got a little time to kill and want some random fun? Head over and try something out. To get you started, look up these and give them a play:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sonny / Sonny 2</span> : You play as a zombie with memory loss in this turn-based combat/RPG. The first guy who talks to you calls you 'Sonny', so that's your name. Nice skill system, classic japanese-style RPG combat, and just all around too good for a free game.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gemcraft</span> : If you haven't done so, there's an entire genre of 'tower defense' games you need to try out. Whether or not you've already done this, give Gemcraft a try. You place gems in towers to shoot at the attackers with a variety of gem types for different abilities. Its massively long though, so don't feel compelled to finish it. Just savor the experience while you have the urge.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Epic War</span> : I believe there are 4 Epic War titles built now and they're all pretty good. You play as one side of a big battle and churn out units to take out the other side. There are very few commands in the battle so its much less about micromanaging your units and more about monitoring the flow of battle and spell use. Between levels you'll get to unlock and improve powers and units and customize your army to your preferences.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Momentum Missile Mayhem (2</span>) : Stuff explodes and BOUNCES! Simple mechanism makes for very enjoyable play. Typical minor enhancements and unlocks, but the key remains the joy of knocking stuff around and causing it to explode.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kongai</span> : Kongregate has its own strategic collectible card game associated with the site and it is very well made. Think of this like rock/paper/scissors on super-steroids. Each player picks three heroes who come with four special moves and a single item. You play against another player and simultaneously select your action for the round. The server then shows you how those actions interact. The balance is good enough (not perfect, but what is?) that games are really decided on how good you are at guessing your opponent's actions and outplaying them.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PlanetDefender</span> : A constant stream of missile-shooting spaceships attacks your poor hapless planet which you must coat in defensive structures. You'll need to carefully weigh the tradeoffs of building lower strength structures for short term advantage or saving for larger stronger items or researching new options. This is another example of a simple mechanic that is well used to make for compelling gameplay.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Necronomicon</span> : Based on the Cthulhu mythos, this strategic card game has all the tentacled monsters and gibbering insanity we know and love. Using a large collection of horrific events and creatures, you try to kill or drive your opponent insane. What's not to love?<br /><br />There are many more worthwhile games on the site waiting for you to give them a try, so hopefully I've at least tweaked your curiosity. Don't be afraid to just poke around and try stuff out. The real joy of Kongregate is that it really does have a ton of very good games hidden a few clicks in. Explore a bit and you're sure to find something you enjoy.David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-16243830465752428012010-09-23T18:29:00.000-07:002010-09-24T18:09:25.129-07:00Bayonetta (PS3)<a href="http://www.sega.com/platinumgames/bayonetta/us/index.html">Bayonetta</a>, by Platinum Games is a low-impact semi-erotic dance video that someone in marketing figured might sell better as a PS3 action story game. You laugh, but play it through and then come back and tell me I'm wrong.<br /><br />You play from the perspective of the title character - an impossibly leggy gun-toting dark witch with weapons on every appendage - who blasts her way through a variety of feathery 'angelic' critters and halo'd giants with creepy baby faces. Beset by a healthy dose of random memory loss to provide an excuse for reveal background information at regular intervals, she bounces and blazes through a strictly defined story path.<br /><br />A hail of bullets rains from Bayonetta throughout combat. Actually, a hail of bullets just rains from Bayonetta all the time. She probably has to pull slugs out of her shower walls. As mentioned before, she's got a gun on each hand and another on each foot and makes constant use of all of them. Prancing through combat with moves that would make a professional contortionist cringe she gyrates and weaves with joyous abandon. The lower the difficulty level the more random bullets are launched, but even on the harder levels she apparently exudes them from her pores or something.<br /><br />Bayonetta has a zillion combat moves, but learning all of them is largely a waste of time because the difference between a spinning uppercut and a sliding hell jab is basically nil. You can button mash to your heart's content whenever something isn't actively pounding you and be rewarded by a series of increasingly powerful attacks that culminate in a nice combo finish. What does matter is your ability to get out of the way of incoming attacks - either by movement, jumping, or a well timed dodge. Performing such a dodge at the last moment also unlocks "witch time" - a world slowdown so you can pound on stuff some more for free.<br /><br />Weak enemy monsters have absolutely no chance against Bayonetta at any difficulty level and you can roll your fingers as much as you like until they are all dead. However, Bayonetta is full of boss fights. Some of these are just big tough creatures that you have to fight in a more cautious fashion (dodge occasionally), and some are terrain unto themselves that you will end up climbing, bashing, jumping off of, etc... in sequences a bit reminiscent of <span style="font-style: italic;">Shadow of the Colossus</span>. Boss fights also involve following key and control sequences displayed at the bottom of the screen in order to avoid damage, advance past cinematic moments, or (at the end of every fight) cause your clothes to vanish and your hair to turn into a giant demon which them crushes the boss in question. Yes, Bayonetta understands the truly important rule of combat - when you want to really kick ass, its naked time!<br /><br />Artistically, Bayonetta is fairly pleasant, if a bit heavy on the juvenile fantasy. She's enjoyable to watch fight, bouncing around smoothly with a wide variety of moves in a graceful fashion. They did a good job with the animations and make frequent use of wall walking to add to her field of movement. To add to the video > game quality, the entire game is packed with cut scenes, breaking into one between every fight, and sometimes several times in the middle of those as well. Bayonetta uses these to trade inane banter with whatever large nasty has come to eat her, or the couple people with a vested interest in her future. High marks for the choreographer but the script writer needs a firm talking to.<br /><br />There's a shop with additional unlockable moves, equipment, temporary boosts, etc... that you will visit between levels. Unfortunately there's also a painfully dull shooting gallery mini-game that comes along at the same time. What's odd is that they actually put a lot of work into providing additional mini-games throughout and then decided to use this particular turd as the one that you play over and over. There's an entire level with a <span style="font-style: italic;">Space Harrier</span> feel to it plus driving and shooting games. Someone spent a lot of effort on making them all, but then felt compelled to use a horrible no-depth 3 target shooting gallery as the between level repeat instead.<br /><br />The truth is that Bayonetta is mostly about just watching her bounce around and randomly kill stuff in a cinematic fashion. However, to be fair, they really do try hard to mix in a lot of gameplay at the same time. There's clear effort into maintaining a high standard of artwork and many cases of opting for gameplay variety with interesting surfaces to fight on, jumping puzzles, shooting challenges, missile guidance, and more. I love the way they introduce new bosses (boss arrives, looks mean, gets named and framed, then gets on with killing you). They even unlock animal transformations about halfway through and all of a sudden your movement capabilities have been expanded. Its just a bit hard to take too seriously with all the silly dialogue and dance moves.<br /><br />Don't expect anything deep but you'll have some fun anyways.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bayonetta</span><br />Rating: 7.5David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-23099557509897749452010-08-31T10:33:00.000-07:002010-08-31T13:12:31.151-07:00FrontierVille (Facebook)Wait a minute, why are you reviewing facebook games?! The reader stomps off in a fit of rage...<br /><br />Yeah, I think most self-styled hardcore gamers will be pretty down on any facebook related gaming thanks to the click-farming horrors that we all formed our association with. However, with the massive influx of first-time gamers that facebook brings to the table, and the huge amount of revenue pulled by some of these titles, it becomes worth your while to at least take a look and understand the genre.<br /><br />There are a lot of facebook games around now, so I'm going to pick the one that seems to be the latest evolution, crafted by facebook giant Zynga - <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://apps.facebook.com/frontierville/">FrontierVille</a>.<br /><br />FrontierVille's basic premise is that you are a brave pioneer, working hard to set up a new place to live 'out west' somewhere, probably during the mid 1800s. You arrive alone in your covered wagon and have to clear land, plant crops, raise animals, build structures, tend trees, and do other wilderness-oriented stuff to improve your personal space.<br /><br />Every action generally takes one energy to perform, and you have a limited supply of energy which regenerates one point per five minutes of real time. You also get refills by leveling up, or the odd bit here and there from random drops (when you clear land/harvest/etc it drops goodies), or you can purchase more from the shop in exchange for food resource.<br /><br />The first few levels come very quickly, so you get to play a bit longer on your first sitting since it keeps refreshing your energy every time you level up. It has a long quest path where you are assigned one task after another. This both gives you something to do, and lead you towards developing your area in the normal sequence. Note that you can choose to completely ignore the quests and just do your own merry thing - build 28 sawmills into the shape of a giant turtle if that's what floats your boat, but the quests give you useful rewards and generally ask you to do reasonable stuff so you'll probably follow along.<br /><br />You quickly run out of energy and will need to set the game aside for a bit. "How annoying!" your hardcore gamer self says. But that's also an advantage for their target demographic - casual gamers who really don't want to spend a lot of time playing something. Instead, it rewards them for checking in on it every day, puttering around a bit, and then setting it aside again without the pressing temptation to just play nonstop.<br /><br />Normal gameplay is to check in once or twice a day and see what you can do to advance your homestead. To begin with, your entire area is overrun with weeds, rocks, trees, etc.. These need to be cleared out so that you'll have room to build and plant. Occasionally clearing something will turn up a varmint which also needs to be chased away (more energy use). This portion of the gameplay isn't bad. You've got a couple limited resources (energy, wood, food, money) and make choices on how best to build your homestead (buildings, trees, animals, crops) to unlock new items, create additional resources, and advance your quests. All pretty solid gaming fare and enjoyable in a bit of a Harvest Moon sort of way. One interesting element is that the land actually evolves a bit in real time, so each day when you check back the trees grow and you'll have more grass, flowers, bushes, saplings, etc.. there to deal with. More importantly, the new arrivals are proportionate to what you had on your homestead beforehand, which is both a plus and a minus. Careful though! It is very easy to clear every single cactus from your homestead early on and then never see one again only to later realize you have a cactus quest for 5 of 'em and no way to cause new ones to grow.<br /><br />After you progress down the quest path a bit you start getting letters from your wife who will come out and join you if you make the right preparations, build the right structures, and collect the right supplies. Unfortunately this is also where you're going to start hitting the loathsome aspect of facebook gaming - the expectation to spam your friends. Yeah, all building construction requires building supplies that can only be acquired by spamming your friends for help. It is typical stuff for facebook games, but honestly pretty crappy. If none of your friends happen to be playing this game at the same time you can make yourself a fake account and farm it that way, but welcome to nuisance.<br /><br />Even worse, later on you'll hit the minimum number of frontier friends requirements to unlock various items and structures. "Sorry, you can't do that until you have 3 more neighbors!" This too, is a common evil of facebook games but one that I feel really breaks the original purpose behind facebook - that of having a social environment to keep touch with your friends. Now you end up making one of several distasteful choices. You could spam your other friends who aren't already playing to play too - generally a bad option since if your friends wanted to play they'd already be doing so. You can create some fake accounts to neighbor you - bunch of extra nuisance for a low impact game. Or you can just friend a zillion random internet strangers who play the same facebook games you do and turn your facebook experience from one of interacting with actual people you know, into just a platform for crappy games.<br /><br />I'm sorry facebook game makers haven't figured this out, but while cooperative gaming is good as an opt in experience, expecting people to spam their friends frequently or with stuff they don't actually want is terrible. I hope they figure it out before the industry suffocates itself with this kind of garbage since when you disgust a casual gamer to the point where they quit playing, you didn't just sour them on your game, you probably soured them on the entire genre. Its really just greed pushing marketing decisions that spew onto game design in a putrid way. Zynga, get your act in gear now!<br /><br />So you probably get the basic idea now. The game progresses further down these lines. You have a kid, build a schoolhouse, convince a teacher to come work there, make more buildings, raise more animals, plant more crops, spam your friends, etc... The school teaches classes, which also require friends to send you supplies, and there is a quest path to expand your homestead (give you larger playing area) which also requires you to... wait you know this one... spam your friends.<br /><br />Overall the game is moderately fun, and does have some nice resource tradeoff decisions and a cool gradual land evolution which lets you tailor your environment. The later quests get ridiculously long and repetitive so you need to kind of figure out when you feel done rather than expect an end to it. I'd suggest trying it out just to get a feel for what's hot in facebook gaming these days. This market is huge now and doesn't look to be going away soon.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FrontierVille</span><br />Rating: 6.1 (basic gameplay probably 7.1, but -1 for friend spam)David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-90812520478878432472010-08-23T10:14:00.000-07:002010-08-23T15:55:38.418-07:00Might & Magic - Clash of Heroes (DS)I know it reveals my inner dinosaur, but I'm still a big fan of turn-based gaming. I really miss the plethora of such titles that used to grace us on the PC so I appreciate the turn-based goodness that is provided by my Nintendo DS.<br /><br />This week, a franchise that has spawned both good and poor games - Might and Magic, makes a foray onto the machine in question. <a href="http://mightandmagic.uk.ubi.com/clashofheroes/">Clash of Heroes</a>, no doubt named in hopes that you'll feel some vague association with their Heroes of Might & Magic line, is an enjoyable puzzle / RPG.<br /><br />You play as some forgettable generic storyline hero and fight some generic storyline villians to give you an excuse to play the game. Fortunately, the gameplay is neither generic nor forgettable, and is actually quite a bit of fun. All battles are resolved using a 'match three' style playing field. You have a variety of troops that stack up against the enemy that can be rearranged or removed in order to form sets of three or more. Once a set is formed they lock into place and charge up to deal damage to the enemy a few turns later. Enemy units that get in the way of this damage can blunt it (block with your face!) as can walls. <br /><br />Its an easy mechanism to understand and has some variations and bonus complexities to produce fancier effects. There are larger and more powerful units that can take different matching sets to prepare and have more impressive combat effects. You can match units sideways to build walls, and you can stack multiples of the same type or timer for extra power. There are also some additional spells that are powered up as you get hit that produce powerful turn-around effects - significant damage, protection, board sweeping, etc. <br /><br />All this is wrapped by a lightweight RPG excuse to provide flow and progression. There are five different factions that pick from, each with slightly different powers and units. The variations aren't particularly large, so battles are decided more by successful matching and pre-emptive attack (a unit locked into a matched set and powering up has significantly more durability than one standing around by itself, so you want to make sure to block with matched sets or walls, not idle guys). Each race's advanced units have a bit more variety to them, with some stunning, or absorbing health, destroying multiple rows of guys, or firing concussive blasts into the enemy. These advanced units are frequently what dictates the success or failure of a battle, so getting them set up early is very important.<br /><br />The whole game has a bit of the same feeling as Puzzle Quest, with simple gameplay fleshed out a bit to include some variety and a nice dose of smoothly crafted fun. The campaign has a few amusing bits (undead dragons are good), and provides an excuse to play through each of the five factions. There's quests, items, gradual acquisition of units, minor resources, and the usual stuff you've probably come to expect in such games. <br /><br />Overall I found it quite playable, and worth a run. If you're looking for something to bring with you on your next airplane trip, pack this in your bag. <br /><br />Might & Magic - Clash of Heroes<br />Rating: 8.1David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-74359266544018898692010-08-16T11:46:00.001-07:002010-08-16T12:53:45.419-07:00Titan Quest (PC)With the recent release of Starcraft II I think quite a few people are turning a wishful eye towards the upcoming (but unscheduled) release of Diablo III. If you're one of these people, twitching for the critter-crushing loot-grabbing skill-unlocking goodness that we remember, then do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of <a href="http://www.titanquestgame.com/">Titan Quest</a> in the meanwhile. You should be able to pick up a gold edition (including the expansion pack Immortal Throne) for like 20$ which is well worth it.<br /><br />Titan Quest is a third person RPG set in (mostly) Greek mythology. The controls are very simple - click to move, click to attack, big obvious keys for spells & abilities, etc. You start as a random peasant with a lot of nothing, but as is frequently the case in such games, your foes have been conveniently laid out in order from weakest creature in the entire land to strongest, in a nice 'follow here' pattern starting at your feet.<br /><br />It has a pretty typical inventory system with body locations to drop equipment onto and a backpack for carrying spare loot, healing potions, and the like. The items are decent but not amazing, with some minor random modifiers added to magic items and different levels of rareness for better gear. The rarer the item, the more cool bonuses it has tacked onto it. There's also a nice collection of charms that can be assembled and attached to items, letting you customize their bonuses slightly to your own preferences. These will vary a bit depending on what sort of character you build. I'm a big fan of lifesteal since healing all the time while you kill stuff seems like a better health tip than eating vegetables regularly.<br /><br />Once you've gained a couple levels you'll get the option to choose your first Mastery. This is your class selection. You'll end up getting two classes over the course of the game so choose carefully. Each class has an associated skill tree with abilities to match. Think about how two of those are going to go together, since the two will interact and the combinations can be pretty fun. Combine spirit magic (necromancy) with warfare and you get a life draining melee combatant with undead minions. Hunting and storm yields a bow-wielding lightning mage. Nature and rogue combine to give you a trap-laying sneak with wolves and healing at his call. With 8 masteries (or 9 if you have the expansion) there are a lot of fun combinations to try out, and you'll probably end up playing a couple different characters at some point just to do so.<br /><br />Core gameplay is decent but a bit repetitive. The monster AI is just proximity triggered so its not going to surprise you by doing anything interesting. Monsters tend to be clustered in little packs at regular intervals so you can fight one group, move up, fight the next. Generally every level is laid out in one long path so you just move forward fighting group after group until you reach the next checkpoint / town / guy in a cart / whatever.<br /><br />It does spice things up a bit once in a while with a serious boss monster though. These are notably tougher, have some cool spell powers of their own, and can actually be a reasonable challenge, particularly if you've over-specialized a bit too far. All your damage revolves around your pets? Whoops, this guy eats pets for breakfast. Entirely dependent upon your life-drain to stay up? Sorry, undead are immune to lifedrain and here's a BIG one. You get the idea. If you get stuck you can always pull back and level up a bit, fill your pack with healing potions, and try again. But when you've been coasting through the normal waves like they were butter for a while it comes as a bit of a surprise to hit something that's actually challenging for a change.<br /><br />I should say more about pets. Quite a few masteries have a pet or two (or three) at their disposal. These are monsters that follow you around and lend a hand. Pets are fun! They come in a variety of flavors depending on the mastery and almost all of them are really enjoyable to have around. Nature, for example, gets a couple wolves that patrol around you, sweeping the little critters you might not even have noticed before you see your wolves busy eating them. Earth gets a big elemental that stomps around and tanks for you. Spirit has a friendly lich that happily life drains away next to you the whole time. You get the idea. There's several more, and almost all of them are fun, with perhaps the single exception of the Wisp. Storm has a floating electric zapper which I excitedly saved up to unlock. At last I had the points needed and finally summoned him, only to discover that he was a total dud. The Wisp is a close range defender that sits on you and only attack things that are super close by. Unfortunately, its cast by a class that defaults to long-ranged attacking so your Wisp ends up being a pointless speck that hides next to you and does nothing. *Shakes fist* Why couldn't you be a useful pet?<br /><br />Anyways, there's definitely fun to be had here. You can play it multiplayer just fine. It scales the monsters up a bit for multiplayer play so you still make comparable progress to single-player. Make sure to play completely different masteries so you won't be competing for loot. It sucks to all want the same rare item of coolness when you know you won't see another one like it anytime soon.<br /><br />If you've got the Diablo itch right now and need a way to scratch it, pick up a copy of Titan Quest today. It is a solid, enjoyable game that does a good job of staying true to its genre while providing enough unique additions to make it worth a run through.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Titan Quest</span><br />Rating: 8.2David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-87455010651166520022010-08-09T09:56:00.000-07:002010-08-09T16:45:48.196-07:00Starcraft II (PC)With their well-earned reputation for great game making, many of us wait anxiously for any new Blizzard launch. <a href="http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/">Starcraft II</a> certainly got its share of associated pre-launch hype and anticipation. So it was with some excitement that I cracked open the case and fired up my copy.<br /><br />Right away its obvious that the production values on SC2 are top notch. The UI is clean, the graphics are sharp, and every single campaign level smoothly designed with an abundance of integrated cutscenes, voice overlay, and high quality atmospheric elements. This level of detail, carefully designed missions with storyline relevance, and attention to tying elements together clearly make SC2 stand out as a well made game.<br /><br />So let me step back for a moment and cover the basics a bit.<br /><br />Starcraft II is a standard RTS, very much in the same model as the original Starcraft. There are three races to choose from - Terrans (human), Protoss (magic feeling aliens), and Zerg (swarming bug aliens). Gameplay involves harvesting minerals and vespane to gain resources, and to train units, buildings, and upgrades. Stronger units unlock with the progressive creation of additional buildings so you always have to make a tradeoff on building specific units to fight with now or continuing to push towards better late game units which might not be ready in time to save your bacon when you need them.<br /><br />Terrans are the race you end up playing for almost the entire campaign (a departure from the original where they let you play all three races during campaign mode). They've got inexpensive ranged units, strong vehicles, healers, and a long-distance siege tank for smashing fortifications from a safe distance. Protoss (space elves, just admit it and move on) are shield-based with personal shields that recover naturally over time if not killed. They tend to be higher investment per unit but higher per unit output as well. They have some heavy high end units that give good returns for a lot of investment, including a carrier that releases a storm of independent fighters to scour the area around them. Finally, the insectlike Zerg are the rush race, with rapid deployment and the ability to spawn wave after wave of small fast damage-dealing units. Zerg have their own arsenal of tricks as well such as underground movement and infestation, heal naturally, and gain movement bonus when running across their terraformed terrain.<br /><br />As I mentioned earlier, campaign mode is really well done. Between missions you can enjoy some well crafted story bits, upgrade individual units in the armory, and select tech advances in the lab which allow you to choose between one of two upgrades that will carry forward for the rest of the campaign. No single upgrade is game-breaking, but it gives a nice feeling of variety as you modify units to suit your own playstyle a bit more.<br /><br />The story progresses forward in a fairly linear path, but you can switch up the order of missions a bit to unlock certain units or upgrades first depending on your preference. You get to do one brief set of missions as the Protoss, but for the most part you're Terran all the way through, so I apologize on Blizzard's behalf to all you Zerg lovers out there. Maybe they'll do a Zerg campaign follow-up later.<br /><br />Multiplayer battles feel like the old Starcraft multiplayer, with tradeoffs between rushing, teching, and defense. Unfortunately, I actually find it a little too old-style faithful in this respect, as its missing a lot of the RTS evolution that you have probably come to expect in an RTS game. Terrain really isn't all that important, height yields very little advantage, there's no suppression, and battle is much more about straight numbers and rock/paper/scissors tradeoffs than about position and timing. I'm sure the Starcraft junkies are going to yell at me for saying it, and explain how if you memorize all the unit stats you can pick the perfect unit counter for your opponent's build, but truthfully I find multiplayer gameplay to be an awful lot about build fast, build plenty, and run them over with a giant blob. Really good Starcraft players may experience it differently, but I think most players are going to end up sharing my impression of it - speed and quantity is what wins games. That's ok, but not amazing as a tactical experience.<br /><br />I should perhaps mention the achievement system, because... its got one. But its not memorable in any way, serving mostly as a stamp collection and unlocking a couple different profile images. I would have liked to see them use it for something more - unlocks, bonus content, etc... and was disappointed that they didn't bother.<br /><br />Overall, I found Starcraft II to be enjoyable, but not impossible to put down. It has solid gameplay and a good campaign to play through. Even shooting for all the campaign achievements though, its not going to take you all that long (a couple days at most perhaps while still remembering to eat and bathe occasionally). It is a good game, and worth a play through, but it doesn't make me feel compelled to keep picking it up over and over for more.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Starcraft II</span><br />Rating: 8.9David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-35606428045672652462010-08-02T08:38:00.000-07:002010-08-04T22:16:33.094-07:00League of Legends (PC)<a href="https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c55b396d3054">League of Legends</a> is a team-based strategic RPG, of the recent genre emerged from the Defense of the Ancients mod. That's a mouthful. More importantly though, its a lot of fun, and surprisingly, completely free to play. It runs under the microtransaction model with lots of small items that can be purchased one of two ways - either for straight money, or credit earned via game time. What is somewhat unusual is that everything (with the exception of a couple custom skins - visual change only) is purchasable with earned credits. So really they're just banking on people being impatient in order to make money.<br /><br />The overall gameplay is relatively familiar - You choose a champion, basically a very strong individual hero, who you then take part in a larger ongoing battle with. Throughout the battle small NPCs fight the other team's NPCs while you stomp around and try to push your side to victory. Throughout the course of the game your champion will level up, choose skills, buy items, and refine him or herself into a pinnacle of kick-butt-itude. Sound like Demigod? Yeah, it should. That's the workings of the basic genre that both games are in.<br /><br />Don't shake it off prematurely, thinking you've already played that. LoL is a really well done version with a lot of winning elements to it. Even if you've spent your hours on Heroes or Demigod you're going to want to pick this up and give it a spin. You're just missing too much goodness if you don't.<br /><br />Right out of the gate, LoL has some great champions to pick from. There are 55 champions total, and each week about 10 of these are unlocked as free to play. The precise available ones change from week to week, giving you a chance to try them all out over time. In addition to that, you can spend your credits (earnable by gameplay) to permanently unlock specific champions. The champions have a wide range of play styles with a lot of individual personality. Feel like playing a giant demon that eats people and gets larger as it does so? You're in luck. There's the usual assortment of warriors and ninjas mixed with angels, rocket-powered gnomes, and a pyrotechnic little girl who animates her giant teddy bear to romp and stomp! The champions are done with a definite but not distracting humorous nod and lend a very enjoyable air to the gameplay. "I am evil! Stop laughing at me!" announces Veigar, the Tiny Master of Evil, and I still smile when he says it. There's also a lot of goodness in the sheer variety of abilities available. Definitely spend some time trying new champions out and savoring the options.<br /><br />Gameplay itself is relatively fast and furious, with both sides gaining gold and levels at a fairly rapid pace. Your only real way to slow down the opposing team is to blast them into oblivion, so you end up spending a lot of time doing exactly that. If you are familiar with Heroes of Newerth, you may be distracted by the fact that you can't last hit your own NPCs (killing them when they are low health to deny experience/gold to the opposing team). This means that the only way to actually deny experience/gold is to chase off or kill the enemy heroes, and gameplay adjusts accordingly.<br /><br />Each side has an assortment of large defensive towers that pack quite a punch in the early game. But since real advantage comes from making sure the other guy is dead, there's a lot of incentive to press dangerously close to them while trying to finish a wounded opponent. The towers are pretty unforgiving so it makes for a nice dance on the edge as you try to build a small positional advantage with one successful skirmish into a slightly larger one with a hazardous foray into tower space.<br /><br />Another huge win that LoL has over Heroes of Newerth is that it actually has a reasonable beginner path and NPC opponents that you can battle. In addition to normal matchmaker mode, it has a 'practice' area, where games may be set up to include computer opponents. These are worth slightly less credits than normal games, but they're a great place to learn and try stuff out. They also have the advantage of being fast, with a typical practice game vs NPCs taking 11-15 minutes. Don't finish before 11 minutes or you won't earn any credits, but generally speaking most games naturally run just a bit longer than that anyways, so it doesn't tend to be an issue. The computer opponents aren't exactly gifted, but they're a nice way to learn a champion you haven't played before, or simply farm some credits and experience.<br /><br />Speaking of experience, you also level yourself up a bit and have a minor skill tree full of small bonuses to unlock. You can reset and repick these at any time, so don't worry about 'bad' choices. Nothing you do is going to harm you later. Similarly, you have an inventory of Runes, that also give small bonuses. As you level up you unlock the ability to use more and stronger Runes, which once again, give small bonuses. None of these bonuses are huge, but you end up with loads of them to stack up, so you can tune yourself a bit with them as you grow.<br /><br />Overall I had a surprising amount of fun with League of Legends. What I originally expected to be just another remake on a known genre turned out to have enough style and flavor of its own to be worth a lot of play. I encourage you to give it a try and get a giant flaming teddy bear of your own. Oh, and when you do, ping me for a referral (or just use the game link up top). Only 9,998 to go until they let me design my own champion!<br /><br />Cheers!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">League of Legends</span><br />Rating: 9.1David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-3835401448457841102010-07-21T18:08:00.000-07:002010-07-21T18:46:29.410-07:00EVE Online (PC)<a href="http://www.eveonline.com/">EVE Online</a> is a MMO spaceship game. <br /><br />I'm going to admit up front that EVE and I are undergoing a trial separation at this time. We used to be pretty close, but over time she's gotten kind of ugly and ill-mannered and I think it would be better if I spent my time seeing other games.<br /><br />EVE is definitely not new player friendly. In fact, if you don't know people who already play this game, I can't imagine anyone ever starting it and not utterly hating it. The interface is clunky and more importantly, the introductory mission path leads you through what ends up being the absolute worst parts of the game - which is everything except shooting other players.<br /><br />So before I get too bogged down on that, let me talk about some of the good stuff. EVE's ship system is nifty. There's a nice variety of ship classes, each with configurable modules to specialize the performance of any given ship. Something they did really well is that ships of every size are actually useful throughout the life of the game. A veteran of many years can still get great utility out of a tiny frigate, and perhaps more importantly, a new player in that tiny frigate has usefulness as well. That's a goodness that few games accomplish, largely based on tradeoffs between size / firepower / agility, and providing roles that are filled by smaller ships as well as those filled by larger ones. Your tiny interceptor can be key in holding an enemy in place so your battleships can get close and slug it out, or a covert ops can be providing warp-to locations for the fleet, or deploying bombs in space. This wide range of useful actions for ships of all sizes is where EVE truly shines and you can spend quite a bit of time exploring and mastering the variations.<br /><br />Player vs player combat is very well done, and both small and medium sized fleet battles are adrenaline-pounding intense. There's an outstanding cat and mouse component, strategic decision making, coordination, timing, and just a wealth of ways to make a difference that create some absolutely outstanding battle dynamics. Coupled with the fact that everything you own in the game is destructible and can be at risk in these situations, EVE combat with moderately well balanced forces can be a serious rush.<br /><br />Unfortunately, absolutely everything else in the game is just blisteringly dull. I'm not even talking a little dull, I mean like really really excrutiatingly dull. All forms of in-game money generation are painfully boring. The mission paths, fighting NPCs are horribly repetitive and quickly mastered in a trivially repeatable fashion with zero risk. The more money an activity is worth, the more sacrifices you have to make (of your own time and sanity) to do it. And sadly, although relatively evenly matched combat is just a total blast, its hard to generate. You see, there's absolutely nothing in the game that encourages players to be in a situation where there's two relatively even sides fighting, and just tons of ways that discourage it. Combat is hard to find, and pretty easy to avoid. Generally the only good battles come from where both sides mistakenly think they have the advantage and thus choose to engage when they shouldn't have.<br /><br />Now I spent a long time playing EVE with the acceptance that the 90% painfully dull gameplay was the price I paid for the 10% of really good combat. EVE was (and is) a serious waiting game. The kind of game you play in the background while you have a life and occasionally check in to see if its time to have some fun. That being said though... it got worse.<br /><br />Basically CCP (the company that makes EVE) has gradually modified the reward structure and ship capabilities to encourage larger and larger groups, with no penalties for group size. They've removed area-effect weapons that punished large sloppy group use, and pushed the high end money-making activities to being focused on (wait, you know what's coming...) large groups. <br /><br />Large group play takes all the good parts of EVE and just squashes it. Instead of interesting tactical decisions, you end up with a tactical decision of "can I get more guys?". Forget tailoring your ship for special roles, just have everyone equip long range lower powered weaponry. That way it doesn't matter where you are positioned, you'll still be able to shoot something. Since there's no longer any meaningful area-effect attacks, there's no penalty for just adding additional garbage ships. They take almost as long to kill as useful ones.<br /><br />Worse yet, the larger the group is that you operate with by default, the longer it takes to get a battle set up. Whereas you might have had to get 10 guys on in one place for a good fight before, that quickly climbed and climbed and climbed. Whereas it was hard to find an interesting engagement with a smaller numbers of people, swell that to several hundred and add the increased visibility that comes with it, and your ability to generate a good battle becomes dismal. <br /><br />This is the model CCP pushes towards though. Epic space battle, thousands of people shooting at each other in one place! Of course, once you hit about 100 people in one place on the server, server performance becomes completely sporadic. So now you're no longer going to get a battle based on the quality of your decisions, but instead based on whether or not you got the random blessing of the server. It is entirely possible for one side to simply freeze in space while the other side shoots them freely, or have their weapons lock up, get broken up, or even just sit there and watch while the other team gets to act and they don't. Yay, thanks CCP, you really took a good game and crapped all over it!<br /><br />For me that's really EVE's kiss of death. It has been dumbed down to an unforgivable level, rewarding nothing but the addition of more bodies, and then causing larger battles to be completely random. If you were a low skill and uncreative player before, then this is great for you. After all, now you've moved up to a 50-50 chance of winning, and all you have to do is find the largest group around to tag along with. But if you were looking for the mental challenge of outwitting and outplaying a skilled foe, then EVE's days of glory are dead and buried.<br /><br />If you haven't played it yet, give it a pass. EVE is no longer worth your time. If you still play it and haven't escaped, well there's still some fun to be had, but at the same time CCP is going to rub your face in all their screw-ups over and over and over while you play. <br /><br />EVE Online<br />Rating: 7.0 (down from maybe a 9.0 before bad evolution)David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-30694460925528875412010-07-12T14:15:00.000-07:002010-07-12T17:05:07.111-07:00Elements (Flash)I'll do some larger games soon, but am spending too much of my time coding right now to give them proper attention. Until then, I thought I'd touch upon this little hidden gem for those of you who enjoy a bit of turn based strategy gaming. This game is completely free to play with no hidden costs or add-ons, which makes me feel kinda bad for the selfless fellow who builds it since it is a high quality game with solid production values.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.elementsthegame.com/">Elements</a> is an online card game, in the same basic genre as Magic the Gathering, but without the bloodsucking over-the-top pricing. Now everyone deserves to make money off their work, but MtG is pretty evil about it. Fortunately my addiction is done now, with only occasional flashbacks and gibbering in the night.<br /><br />You start by picking your element - one of twelve, each with a different style of play. There's no 'wrong' answer here, since you will get to change it freely later on. But it does commit you to playing a particular style of deck while you are first learning and getting new cards. To begin with, pick anything that looks fun and then start getting a feel for what your cards do. Generally each element's starting deck comes pre-splashed with a second element since there are a large number of crossover benefits.<br /><br />From there you'll get to select your games to play. There are a range of levels to play at, with the higher levels providing harder opponents, higher risk (each match costs you gold to play), and higher rewards. The lowest level match has no cost, but very limited rewards, so you can't ever get stuck in case you do horribly. More importantly, after every win there's a random chance of getting free cards copied from your opponent's deck (they don't lose said cards, you just gain them).<br /><br />Between matches you can adjust your deck and buy or sell cards. I suggest not selling much, since its generally harder to get cards that gold. More importantly, there are a variety of rare cards that won't ever be for sale in the store, so you really don't want to sell these and then find yourself wanting them later. Sure, you can eventually find another, but it is really annoying to be stuck waiting for a specific drop.<br /><br />Once you finish all the quests (there aren't that many) you're also given the option of upgrading cards. This generally makes a slightly better version of the original (lower casting cost, stronger defense, etc...), though a few of the upgrades have new powers or utility.<br /><br />From there you pretty much just play for fun. The quest path is really short, but there's a great deal of fun to be had in building new decks and making them work. If you find yourself just playing one deck over and over and over, kick yourself and try something different. I occasionally let my kids pick an element and then build a deck around that for a change. There's a lot of solid replayability buried in this game if you avoid getting stuck in a rut.<br /><br />On the down sides, the most competitive decks tend to be fairly predictable rainbow decks, using the most efficient cards from every element and pushing for a late-game win. Also, the top two npc opponents are just stacked with advantages to give them a chance to compensate for their lackluster AI. Double hit points, draw two cards/turn, three free mana/turn, ignore card maximums in deckbuilding, etc... Sure, they remain beatable, but losing because the opponent is drawing two cards/turn and casting the same spell 8 times in the first 8 turns is pretty bleh.<br /><br />Anyways, I don't want to leave on a bad note because overall Elements is a really well made game, just leaps and bounds above the quality generally seen in free titles. If you enjoy strategy / card type games, it is well worth a play. Have fun!<br /><br />Elements<br />Rating: 8.0David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-39734807239098259182010-07-05T19:22:00.000-07:002010-07-05T19:37:22.740-07:00Plants vs. Zombies (PC/Flash)One advantage to having kids (and there are a bunch actually) is that they play a variety of games you wouldn't have found and you get to look over their shoulders and check them out. My spawn are both hardened gamers at this point, so the variety of games this exposes me to is quite high.<br /><br />My son found this one and soon had us all addicted to it. More importantly perhaps, he went the extra step and bought the full version of it, so we got the chance to play it start to finish with all the bells and whistles.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.popcap.com/games/pvz">Plants vs. Zombies</a> is a functionally simple single player strategy game where you defend your yard from Zombie assault by use of a variety of combat-oriented plants. Shooting plants, biting plants, magnetic plants, snowball plants, exploding plants, you name it, plants and violence just go together! Which is good, since there sure do seem to be a lot of Zombies out there in need of some chlorophyll laden crushing.<br /><br />In the 'campaign' mode you are gradually introduced to an ever increasing array of plant options, while new types of Zombies are unlocked to assault you. The whole thing is done with an outstanding sense of humor. The help screen for example reads "When the Zombies show up, just sit there and don't do anything... - this help section brought to you by the Zombies". Each level you choose which of your plants to bring (enough to give some variety, but not enough to have the perfect solution to every problem) to match against the Zombies lurking outside your yard. Later levels include water plants for your pool (and corresponding Zombies with scuba masks, flippers, ducky floaters, etc..), fog, roof levels, and even a Zombie Zamboni machine that lays down ice for ice-loving Zombies to follow. <br /><br />In addition to the campaign mode there are a plethora of minigames, puzzles, and alternate game modes. There are quite a few easter eggs buried in, which are gradually shown to you with a purchasable Tree of Wisdom. And you absolutely want to reach the final level on campaign mode. The end credits are a blast!<br /><br />Plants vs. Zombies is light gaming, relatively easy with cartoony graphics, but its well worth a full play through. It is definitely fun, and was worth the purchase for the full version. Give it a try!<br /><br />Plants vs. Zombies<br />Rating: 9.0David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3264400309803864005.post-63093439816248724102010-06-29T14:53:00.000-07:002010-07-05T20:02:20.741-07:00DemiGod (PC)So right now no one knows to look here and I'll just be talking to myself. That's ok, I'll just think of it as practice (for something terribly important to be sure) and go from there. I'm going to make a habit out of reviewing some of the games I'm playing and later probably point people over here and let them play some of my side projects as they become available. I suppose at that point I'll be "Talking to Other People Too" and have to change the name or something.<br /><br />For starters, let's hit a relatively overlooked but quite enjoyable PC title: <a href="http://www.demigodthegame.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Demigod</span></a> by Gas Powered Games. These are the same guys who more recently made the somewhat clunky Supreme Commander, but always carry a special place in my heart for Total Annhilation, which is truly a RTS genre classic. If you haven't spent hours upon hours harvesting energy and building robots in that game, stop now, go dig it up, get an emulator if you have to, and try it out. Thank you Chris Taylor, I still appreciate that one.<br /><br />Anyways, back to Demigod. This is one of the recent hero-based combat/rts titles that have recently hit the market. It draws its concept from the Defense of the Ancients mod that was so popular on Warcraft III. In Demigod a fierce battle rages between two fantasy armies throughout the course of the game. Each side starts out well fortified with a series of defensive structures and only ordinary warriors and archers (tiny in comparison) to attack the other team. As the battle proceeds both sides gain access to more powerful units with special abilities (healers, siege equipment, stun, etc...) and the fortifications upgrade. However, you don't control any of that directly (you can spend money to decide which things to upgrade first). Instead, you stomp around the battlefield as a massive ultra-powerful semi-divine being and really dictate the ebb and flow of the battle with your presence as you crush enemy troops and slug it out with the opposing DemiGod(s) directly.<br /><br />It's a good concept and a lot of fun. The armies keep slugging away around you throughout the game, giving a feel of constant activity. Without your help though, they'd be well balanced and really never make much progress. The DemiGods themselves have a variety of special abilities, giving each one a unique feel to it. Granted there are a couple with a bit too much overlap (why look this guy is fast and good at close combat, and this guy is... fast and good at close combat) but I'm willing to forgive that because DemiGod gives us the Rook. Rook is basically a walking castle, and as you level him up he gains more towers and independent weaponry mounted on top of him. He is huge and slow, but while he slogs around you can see showers of arrows raining down onto nearby targets, his magic fortress linking with the other towers, and even a ballista launching from his back at distant targets. He's actually not the strongest DemiGod in my opinion, but he's just so darn fun!<br /><br />The DemiGods are broken into two major categories - Assassins, who are well suited for individual combat and just control themselves on the battlefield, and Generals, who are weaker individually but have the ability to construct followers (Minotaurs, Vampires, Yetis, whatever) to help them out. The Assassins tend to be stronger early-game but frequently struggle to keep up late game with a General and his full entourage. Gameplay involves defeating enemy combatants (smaller army members and hostile DemiGods) for gold and using that gold to upgrade your army, structures, and equipment.<br /><br />The equipment system is decent and allows a bit of customization, but really there are some clearly better choices. You also get to pick one bonus item every game which stays with you throughout the entire match but I'm hard pressed to ever come up with a reason to pick something besides the "Swift Anklet" which conveys a movement bonus. With movement leading to the ability to get in/out of fights, finish off fleeing targets, and simply get to good experience opportunities faster, there's really nothing more important as a selection that will stay with you all game. Maybe someone else can show me a compelling reason to pick something else in certain cases, but I'm not holding my breath.<br /><br />There's an enjoyable 'tournament mode' which has you pick one DemiGod and then play a series of battles of different types with him. These can have a variety of win conditions (destroy certain structures, first team to 10 kills, flag control, etc...). Structures are well done by the way, with small bonuses passed for controlling various locations (extra gold, mana, hps, etc...), a couple flavors of straight combat locations that fight nearby hostiles, and conquerable weapon turrets. There are purchasable upgrades to make these stronger, and as the battle progresses all of your structures will upgrade themselves, and some new structures will be constructed as long as you still control their construction site when you reach that stage of the battle.<br /><br />You can play DemiGod multiplayer, but my suggestion - don't bother. It is a fine game, and there's probably fun to be had multiplayer but it just doesn't have the depth of something like Heroes of Newerth that falls into the exact same genre and has better multiplayer options but no single player one. Instead, play Heroes if you have time and a multiplayer urge, but enjoy DemiGod when you need to be able to put it down and deal with other stuff or just don't feel like having some prepubescent dolt swearing at you.<br /><br />DemiGod<br />Rating: 8.5David Parishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09373256833894969799noreply@blogger.com0