Let's Play: Rimworld Part 4 - A Slim Hope

"We knew it looked like some kind of alpine forest where we landed so we expected it to get cold eventually but mother nature was having the last laugh. The cold snap that hit us killed off most of our fledgling crops and made working outside a battle against frostbite. All we can do now is hope it clears and we can grow more food before it's too late."

Day 10

And back we are again Fox-fans, in the now slightly frozen Fox Republic, running out of food and freezing our collective bits off thanks to the AI director deciding they didn't like us. At the start of this particular day Syd seems to be trying to haul things up to our stockpile whilst Angel continues hunting some of the deer herd to try and bulk out our dwindling food supply. I also order two campfires built outside so they have somewhere closer to run to for warming up.

This really isn't looking good for the colony so far if this cold snap doesn't end soon the food supply will run out. Even if it does end soon we may not have enough to get us through the winter either so it's now going to be key for Nicole to research hydroponics so I can grow food year round. I also order a hand tailor bench and a heater constructed, just hope the wood generators have enough juice to keep us running.

All I can really do at this point is hope the cold-snap ends in time for me to get another set of crops planted and at least one or two good harvests to stockpile food. If we can convince Ash to join our intrepid crew her growing skills will be very helpful, for now we'll just have to see. Nicole for her part researches late into the night whilst Angel thinks playing horse-shoes in the driving snow is just the fun she needs right now (she does have the psycho trait but who am I to judge.)

Snow everywhere!

Day 11

Another day, yet the cold-snap is still persisting and has done for three days now as Syd cooks some of our meager meat supply into a couple of meals and Angel goes hunting for more deer. I've genuinely never had a cold snap happen in the middle of summer so this is looking a little bleak for the three colonists, Syd opts to meditate on it in her room for some reason.

As if by some bizarre miracle the cold snap ended about an hour after that meaning I can see light at the end of the tunnel, time to start planting ladies! Or at least that is what I tried to nudge them into doing but such is the nature of Rimworld. For now I start looking at where I am going to build this greenhouse for the hydroponics, I am thinking to the south below the fields. I don't really want to build it out of wood so a stone-cutter's table also gets placed in the main colony building so I can turn these chunks into usable materials.

Things are at least looking up for now, we were six meals away from starvation or worse. If only Angel would stop being so stubborn and actually start planting the fields rather than doing everything but, I think she's annoyed with me for some reason.

Nicole once again tries to convince Ash to join our little crew and I am seriously hoping she can do that soon. Ash has some seriously good growing skills meaning between her and Angel I may not only be able to get all the fields planted fast but I may even get more than one harvest from each which will keep us going through winter when it hits.

Just when I thought things were looking up Nicole decided to hurl insults at Syd as she went to bed and the two now class as rivals. Just my luck.

Ash still needs a lot of convincing to join it would appear, can't say I blame her.

Day 12

Well, at least this day starts off relatively well with Angel getting up bright and early and finally getting to work planting the fields rather than ignoring my gentle nudging. Not quite out of the woods yet mind you as we are still critically short of meals meaning at least one deer a day has to keep us going until the crops start growing. Angel for her part actually quite smartly planted the whole corn field first, as that will take longest to grow but give the highest yield, a full harvest of that may well see us through the winter.

Ash seems to be slowly coming around to the idea of joining my motley band of misfits but Nicole has thus far been unable to convince her completely, whilst she will be an extra mouth to feed I really really need her growing and animal skills right now. I also set the remainder of the deer herd to be hunted as well as every small animal on the map I can find, until these crops grow meat is the only kind of food I have access to aside from berries.

Scouring the map one final time just in case there are one or two survival meals laying about I also set about designating every single berry bush I can find to be harvested. Every last scrap of food is now going to be needed or this colony won't survive til winter much less last through it.

Looking at my options I think it's going to be critical to get a hydroponics area set-up to supplement the food supply during non-growing months. I think I am also going to consider planting yet another field even if just temporarily, rice being the best bet as it's fast growing if I can even get one or two harvests from it then it will be worth it.

Hunting options are thinning out fast, the deer herd is all but gone on there are only a handful of other animals on the map not counting the Muffalo herd, they however are my reserve option. The main idea for them is to eventually tame them for their wool and milk but as I'd need to be able to feed them too, well, I can barely feed my colonists at the moment. Animal's do migrate onto the map but I can't really rely on it, if needs be they'll need to be hunted for food.

As if reading my mind Angel ends her day praying in her room, not something I expected her to be doing but there you have it.

It's rarely been this much of a roller coaster this early on in most of my Rimworld games to date so I hope you are all enjoying it thus far. Will the Fox Republic manage to prepare for winter successfully? You'll just have to keep reading but for now that ends part four, thank you to everyone for reading!

Things have finally thawed out but is the damage already done?

If you missed part 3, find it here!

Let's Play: Rimworld Part 3 - Things Were Going Too Well..

"Had they once been like us? Victims of circumstance simply trying to survive as we were? All we knew for certain was this small patch of forest we now called home was no-where near as safe as we had hoped. We would have to be ready to defend ourselves from more than just the flora and fauna."

Day 7

With most of the basics now in place it's time to start considering what to do next. I am definitely going to need batteries researched before winter as well as heating, lighting and some defences. I am also genuinely leaning toward planting a fourth field and laying down some sandbags in case of another pirate raid or worse.

The day starts with Angel feeding our prisoner Ash whom I have decided to try and recruit given her skills with growing and animals it could really help build up a food stockpile and free Angel up to do some hunting. For now I set up three small 2 by 9 fields for growing some more advanced things like healroot and cotton plants warm clothes are going to also be something I need to consider sooner rather than later.

Nicole attempts to convince Ash to join us whilst also researching, if I can get batteries I can look toward either researching weapons of some kind or perhaps look into alternatives for power generation but we'll get to that later. For now I set Syd off to build some sandbags to the north and south to give my shooters some cover from approaching enemies.

Food is starting to get low now and our starting resources are largely spent so at the end of day seven I designate a wide area of berry bushes to be harvested, steel and compacted machinery to be mined and trees to be chopped.

It really is starting to take shape, it's going well!

Day 8

Well I had a feeling this was going a bit too well now a cold snap hits, meaning it may well kill off my growing crops which puts even more pressure on my low food stores. Not to mention making every single one of my colonists complain about having to wander about in sub zero temperatures!

This could sow the seeds of ending this run earlier than I would like by far if my crops start dying off it's unlikely I'll get enough food stockpiled to survive the winter. There isn't a great abundance of berry bushes so I am going to have to be a bit risky with Angel for now hunting some of the dear herd roaming to the north of me, squirrel and rabbit meat alone won't come in enough quantity to help with my ailing food supplies. There is also another herd to my south and even a muffalo herd to my east but I'd rather wait and see if I can preserve them for the milk and wool later on.

If Nicole can convince Ash to join us sooner rather than later her growing skills may just arrive soon enough to avert at least this minor disaster. Welcome to Rimworld indeed, when the AI story-teller just suddenly decides things are going far too well for you!

This deer herd is now on the menu.

Day 9

With a worrying chunk of my crops dying overnight Angel starts off day nine with some hunting I also decide that rather than researching weapons next I may make a beeline for hydroponics. Also with some visitors arriving I am thinking I try and trade some of my starting silver for any food or meals they may have, every piece of food is crucial now.

It's so cold that I have had to build a campfire in my main building just to give my colonists somewhere to warm up, hypothermia is now becoming an issue, with all my colonists getting frostbite I am not even sure how much further this run can go if things continue on this downward spiral.

At least I managed to get three batteries up and running to store excess power a small victory. I am now definitely going to have the next research be hydroponics and then try and set-up a greenhouse of some kind, it may be the only way my colonists have a chance of surviving the winter at this point.

Just when I thought I was perhaps getting ahead of the curve, it starts to snow two seasons early and kills off the rest of my crops. Hunting is going to be the only way I can survive for now so first things first, I need to chop more wood and strategically place campfire so my colonists don't have to travel far to warm up.

Also I am going to need a tailors bench and put some of the leather I have been gathering to use making some poncho's to help keep people warm. I think my biggest hope right now is that the cold snap ends soon enough that I can replant the fields and get at least one decent harvest before winter properly hits, if I can't manage that, well, we'll just have to see what happens in the next part!

For now though I hope you are still enjoying this written let's play, watch this space for the next part soon!

Driving snow, low food, dying crops.. Welcome to Rimworld!

If you missed Part 2, Click Here!

Let's Play: Rimworld - Part 2 A Shaky Start

"What we had assumed was a relatively peaceful section of forest quickly proved too good to be true for our husky, Isis. We only saw the first of the two cougars, a pair of silent killing machines that saw us as little more than food. The sense of elation and triumph as the first beast fell was cut short as the angry barks of Isis were the only warning her had before we knew there was even a second one. Whilst she fought bravely we could not save her from its jaws, rest in peace Isis."

Day 4

Before my colonists even awake on day four the visitor decided to leave a gift of four pieces of gold, that goes some way to make up for Isis being munched on by a cougar. I also decide to put a roof over the stone building my colonists are currently sleeping in, I feel that may make a good prison area but that's to worry about later. Naming the settlement and faction was easy enough so from now on we shall be 'The Republic of Fox' and our settlement will be called 'The Foxhole' names that likely won't surprise anyone but still!

The dining area is starting to take shape at last and just as Angel and Syd begin working on some wood-fired generators yet more visitors arrive from another settlement, a good eight of them. Luckily they are friendly but I won't be interacting with them much this time.

Visitors, lots of visitors.. Good thing they are friendly.

With a pair of generators now up and the freezers coolers being built it means I can more easily stockpile food ahead of the brutal winters in though not starting with the battery technology unlocked was a little jarring, we shall adapt.

Whoops, after sending Syd and Angel to deconstruct some ship parts for more components a mad squirrel attacked and wounded Syd taking several bites and scratches on her arms and legs. Ouch. Those visitors proved more fortuitous than I thought as they rushed to Syd's aid and took care of the squirrel. I'm sure that'll give them plenty to joke about when they get back home, poor Syd.  The end of day four sees Angel patching Syd up and taking her a meal to aid in her recovery whilst Nicole opts to begin research on getting us batteries to store excess power which is going to be vital.

Day 5

I start off this day by throwing down another nine by nine growing zone for corn whilst a recovering Syd heads to the south to break down the ship part she was chased off from yesterday (yes I know it was a squirrel.) She does however sense and ancient danger when she moves past a structure built into the mountain to the south so I am not going anywhere near that place. Hopefully someone will decide to finish the actual beds today as sleeping on the floor is making Nicole particularly grouchy.

Angel opts to finish planting the rice field and begin on the cornfield which is good as I think we may even get two harvests out of each field before the temperature drops. Though I am not sure how much more will happen today due to Syd having to stop to rest so often due to her wounds from the previous day however she does finish healing near the end so that is good, if she'd died to a squirrel that'd have been humiliating.

Not the most eventful of days but that in itself can be a good thing in Rimworld at times, I feel perhaps I have piled too many work orders on which is why the beds still are not finished. I also need to start considering defences, as it's usually at about this point an angry pirate with a stick shows up. Warm clothes are also going to be very much needed but one step at a time for now.

Things are slowly taking shape.

Day 6

And with day six rolling around Syd is actually first to rise likely due to all the extra sleeping she did yesterday, she will be chopping down trees to ensure we have enough wood to keep our generators going and to finish the basics of our first building. With all three colonists now up and about there are many trees being felled whilst Syd busies herself finally building the beds, Angel opts to try her hand at researching over Nicole for some reason but so long as it gets done.

Well, I saw that coming a pirate raid a single pirate called Ash armed with a club seems to have taken offence to all the noise we are making. I briefly considered bashing her over the head and taking her prisoner in an attempt to convince him to join us but a brief look at her bio and skills I am not so sure. Good with animals and plants, we'll have to see how this goes I am not really in a position to risk my colonists too much at this stage.

A pirate armed with a club named Ash. Brave or foolhardy? 

I draft Angel and Nicole and begin moving them toward Ash's position to intercept her, so long as she doesn't get too badly wounded or outright killed I think I may try and convince her to join the Republic of Fox.

She took a few shots but Ash collapsed in pain rather than die outright, with Angel taking a bruise to the shoulder in the process so I opt to capture her after assigning the spare fourth bedroom as a prisoner room for the time being. We'll have to see if we can convince Ash joining us is in her best interests.

That is of course if she survives and recovers from her wounds and Nicole our resident warden can sway her. The end of day six was a lot more eventful, it would appear as both the stove and butchers table were constructed, all the beds are up so the next day it'll likely be sprucing things up, placing defences and starting to work toward building up a health food stockpile to survive the winter.

I hope you are all enjoying this so far, watch this space for the next part!

With Ash in custody and everyone happily sleeping in their own rooms, things are going well!

If you missed Part 1 you can read it Here!

Let's Play: Rimworld - Part 1 The Beginning

"The escape pod, no better than a rattling tin coffin built by the lowest bidder and the kind of thing you never hope to have need of. The burning heat of reentry turns the metal casket into a small oven, boiling heat churning around like liquid as the poorly fitted heat shield struggles, the whole pod shuddering so hard you worry you might lose a few teeth. All you can do is hope, pray, beg and hope the universe spares you as you grip the harness in white knuckled terror. Then as your eyes wince shut fearing you will be dashed against the planets surface the braking thrusters fire a split second before impact, throwing your shoulders hard into the harness, it seems the universe doesn't want to end your thread just yet..."

A safe landing, now where to begin?

Day 1

So it finally begins! First things first though I take a look around the map in an attempt to find a good place to start building, main priorities at the start are food, shelter and then electricity. With a small lake and a large tract of land just to the right of my starting area I think that is as good a spot as any, there's a sizable mountain that will help cut down any angles of attack as well. So now I just scour the map and make sure to un-forbid my starting supplies there's often a few extra survival meals lurking around. Seems our first pet is a female husky called Isis bonded with Syd our non-combat capable colonist, that may actually be pretty useful if we can train her to protect Syd.

I also make sure to give Angel the rifle as she is my main hunter and best shooter and Nicole the pistol, Syd will remain unarmed the knife I can save for someone else later. Next I'll be setting out a basic wooden building with four rooms, three of them will be bedrooms with the fourth larger one being a sort of dining/crafting/research area. Luckily there's a small stone building near to where I am building so for the first day or two my colonists sleeping spots will be in there, it'll stop them complaining about sleeping outside. With the basic layout planned I am going to throw in a couple of modest growing areas as well, 9x9 potatoes in one and rice in another, with this being a boreal forest map stockpiling for winter is going to be pretty darned crucial.

For now I am going to leave work priorities on automatic but I'll likely tinker with them as soon as the initial base area is constructed and the basics are in place. I opted to add a fourth bedroom which will act as either a medical bed or prisoner room, likely the former. I placed the stockpile behind the main building with a dumping stockpile for animal bodies next to it, roofing it is key as it stops supplies from deteriorating. So day one draws to a close with things off to a decent start!

Humble beginnings.

Day 2

This day should see the main building constructed with some certainty and it'll be time to build beds, tables and chairs and then begin working on a freezer for storing food. That in itself will require power, a couple of wood-fired generators and four batteries should be enough for that but first things first. A stove, butchers table, research table, dining table and chairs will be added into the main room with a bed for each of the four rooms as well.

Angel appears to be the go-to for doing most everything at the moment which I probably should have known but I think I may hold off on going too crazy with new build orders until she's got at least one or two of the fields planted. It's a good thing she sleeps more quickly than the other two, the lazy bums! There is now also a cougar roaming around which is making me decidedly nervous, get out of my base.. It has decided that Isis our pet husky looks like a good snack. Not good. Let's hope Angel can kill it otherwise Syd (and me) will be a little upset.

Disaster, there were actually two cougars and whilst Isis fought bravely she sadly perished before Angel and Nicole could fend it off. They did however manage to kill both of them before Isis became a meal, rough start to day two. So much for the idea of training her to defend Syd later on.

Rest in peace, Isis.

Luckily there are plenty of trees around though Syd is so slow at cutting them down once again Angel seems to be doing most of the work, I may need to switch to manual priorities to even out who is doing what. Things are starting to slowly take shape at least by the end of a slightly unfortunate day two, RIP Isis.

Day 3

No surprise Angel is up bright and early and moving to begin planting the two fields, the more food I can stockpile ahead of the winter the better as they are pretty brutal in a boreal forest biome. I decide to quickly throw in a horseshoe pin for some recreation as Nicole and Syd are getting a little grouchy, it should suffice at least for now whilst I am still trying to establish myself.

The building I will be using for my freezer to store food has also started, I kept it roughly 10x10 which will likely need two coolers to drop it below freezing to keep food from spoiling. Expanding the roof area over the stockpile and the right side of the main building near the mountain so as to stop the batteries I will build there shorting out in the rain. Syd after taking a long walk late into the night is still sleeping meaning Angel and Nicole are doing all the work.

The main structures are now up at least now it's just a case of building the beds so I can get rid of the 'slept outdoors' mood debuff as Nicole is getting extra cranky now. The research table now going down so I can start researching batteries which is going to be important to keep the freezer from shutting off. Whilst I let everything I have already set to build finish however a friendly visitor from a nearby settlement arrived, Alogo. Not really much I plan to do about them at this stage but I'm just glad it's not a pirate raid.

With the potato field fully planted now and the rice field starting at the end of day three with only really the beds and tables left I figure now is as good a time as any to end part one of this Rimworld Let's Play.

How my colony is looking on the end of day 3!

Let's Play: Rimworld - Part 0 The Set-Up

So, it finally begins the very first part of my written Let's Play for Rimworld. Initially I was just going to jump in and start writing away but I thought it might be best to include the set-up as well, a sort of prologue if you will.

First thing to select, the scenario, I did really consider playing the 'Lost Tribe' however I feel the classic 'Crashlanded' will do given I haven't played Rimworld since about alpha 16. Having more people to me is good but the lower level of tech you start off with means it's probably not the best idea given I am more than a bit rusty.

Next is choosing the AI story-teller and selecting the difficulty as above due to not having played in some time I feel it's best to keep it a bit more reasonable. So I'll be sticking to Cassandra Classic for my story-teller and keeping the difficulty at medium (I used to play it at rough or higher.) I will however be using the 'Commitment Mode' which used to be called Permadeath mode I believe. This is mainly because I feel the mistakes and failures are as important as the success and triumph in Rimworld. No save scumming here!

Now for world generation, I opted to change my seed to 'thewrittenletsplay' because why not, 30% world coverage is more than enough even if I do sometimes like the idea of using 100%. Average temperature and rainfall for now, if I do more let's plays of this we can change things up.

Not a bad little world, now for one of the most important steps in the set-up choosing a starting location. The kind of biome you opt to start within determines a lot, from the average temperatures at different times of year, the growing period for plants, the kinds of animals that call it home, the availability of certain kinds of rock etc. For me I already knew the kind of place I wanted to start in as it's quite possibly my favourite kind of biome, the boreal forest.

I enjoy the boreal forest biome the most as I have had some absolutely amazing games in them, they are not too different from a temperate forest biome but the differences make it more interesting to me. They have a decent enough growing period, warm summers, plenty of wildlife, however their winters are far more harsh than a temperate forest and there's something appealing about trying to survive in the snow to me. So as you can see above this is where I opted to have my landing site, large hills rather than mountains, mountains give me nightmares in this game.

Next up is likely the most important part of setting up a game of Rimworld. Choosing your reluctant colonists. It's important to make sure your starting three can do as many jobs and tasks as possible, missing out people who are good at building or farming can make things just a little bit tricky. So make sure you have a good range of skills between everyone, which is what I am going to do.

Didn't even need to randomise this lady at all, she has at least a modest amount of passion for most everything. Passion basically means they learn and improve that skill a lot faster than someone without passion. Her traits aren't actually too bad psychopath basically means dead bodies, violence, harvesting prisoner organs and other things which would make anyone else feel nervous don't bother her at all. Quick sleeper means she doesn't need as long to rest as others so she's definitely a good first one. Angel seems like a fairly ironic name though so I kept it.

And yet another lady being dropped from the sky onto this world, Syd is incapable of violence so she won't be able to help defend the colony nor take part in hunting. However her skill and passion at mining and construction alone would have been good enough. She even has high passion for cooking not to mention decent medical skill. Ladies and gentlemen, your doctor is in!

Last but not least is Nicole.. Yet another lady I guess this is just how things are going to be. She seems to be a bit of a wild card given her traits of being too smart and neurotic which may end up making things a bit interesting. However her skill with social and intellectual is hard to pass up, research is going to be pretty important plus she has decent combat ability like Angel does. Hopefully having two decent combatants will make it less of a detriment that Syd is a non-combatant.

So with everything set-up, watch this space for part one of this written let's play!

The 10 Things I am Looking Forward to Seeing In X4: Foundations

Ah, sandbox space games and me go all the way back to Frontier: Elite 2 so when I heard a new X game was dropping out of warp soon it was hard for me to not look forward to it. I have played a fair amount of the X series over the years from X2: The Threat to X3: Reunion and Terran Conflict so as I learned more about X4 I got more and more hyped for it. I won't be buying it on release as my PC is too rickety right now but it will be among the first purchases I make once I upgrade my PC.

So here are ten things I am looking forward to the most in X4: Foundations gleaned from the preview videos I have seen so far:

1. Fly Any Ship: This has always been a staple feature of the X games (save for Rebirth but we don't talk about that.) The ability to fly any ship from the smaller scout fighter to massive capital ships is always a win in my book.
2. Exploration: I love exploring in most games where it is possible but I love it in sandbox space games. From what I have been able to glean from the various videos and articles I have seen there are various wrecks and stations to find out there in the void which makes me wonder what other cool things exploration in X4 will have.
3. Dynamic Economy: Another staple feature of the X games and something I have always found pretty neat. Not just a feature for traders either as any smart pirates knows finding a good trade loot means lots of loot, yarrr!
4. Living Galaxy: The X games to me have always done a good job of creating the illusion of a living galaxy, the fact that things can happen with or without out. You can fly into a sector and find a battle going on or be stiffed out of your trade profits because that other trader landed first. This time around it seems they have really gone all out with it, factions can build stations, expand, go to war which is going to make every game very different.
5. Empire Building: Start off with one tiny ship and eventually have an entire fleet, stations and shipyards, almost makes this seem like it's going to be X4: The 4X. The new modular station building looks especially interesting.
6. Map Control of Your Ships and Stations: I think this is going to be a big improvement given from what I can tell you can control your fleets and such from the map screen like an RTS. Something I always struggled with in the previous games was managing a large empire.
7. Walking on Stations and Ships: Not exactly a feature I ever consider vital but I'll always appreciate that extra level of immersion. Being able to wander around ships and stations on top of flying around in space, I just hope it's not as clunky as it was in X: Rebirth.
8. Research: This one kind of caught my eye especially when you add in all the empire management aspects, though I do wonder just how in depth it will be or whether it will just be aimed at unlocking more exotic goodies, only time will tell. If it includes things like improving any ships you build, improving your crews and captains as well I think that could be very interesting.
9. More Accessible Mining: At least that is how it seems and sounds, in most space sandbox games if you give me a choice between mining or trading I'll usually take mining. In previous X games it always seemed like you needed a massive amount of set-up to even start doing it, however it now seems to be something you can do in any ship, slap a few mining lasers on a fighter or freighter and off you go which I much prefer.
10. New Universe (Kind Of): I am genuinely looking forward to seeing how the X universe has changed, different factions compared to before the story of the universe having moved on. 

Games I Love: Middle-Earth Shadow of War

As a big fan of the original how could I not love it's sequel which seems to dial everything up to eleven. I initially avoided it due to it's use of micro-transactions, which in a game as pricey as Shadow of War was more than a little dubious to me so I waited for the so called definitive edition and got it will all it's DLC's so, patience can indeed be a virtue! I'll apologise in advance for the screenshots, not many good action shots I'm afraid nor even shots of the interface.

I will do my best to avoid any story spoilers where possible but there may be one or two that creep in that I can't avoid. So, what is Middle-Earth: Shadow of War? It's an action game with RPG elements set in Tolkien's fabled Lord of the Rings setting. You take on the role of Talion, a ranger from Gondor stuck between the world of the living and the dead, as for why well, spoilers I don't want to give for those whom haven't played the first game. Personally I love the interpretation these games have on the setting so I found the story compelling enough to keep wanting to see what happened next but no spoilers!

Obligatory epic shot!

If you have played Assassins Creed or any of the Batman games you will feel pretty at home with the combat system here. There's just a lot more to it given the extra abilities Talion has access to this time around. There is something very satisfying about the combat system when you start getting access to more abilities and evading an Olog's club only to drop into slow motion and head-shot that archer before countering the dual wielding savage with a swift knee to the gut before using chain-drain to recover all your health and turn a ten against one into a five on five brawl.

There is even a more RPG like gear system in place now giving you not only different bonuses but sets and their bonuses too. Each piece of gear can also be slotted with one of three colours of gems doing  variety of things such as increasing damage, giving you life-steal or giving orcs you recruit a bit of a level bump. It's basic but I still found it enjoyable to get a nice new sword with a fun special effect or a new piece of armour which stopped me getting stomped on so much.

This was my end game Talion.

Much like a lot of things from the first game the so called Nemesis system makes a return dialed up to eleven as well. The orc captains return as a core feature to fight against or dominate and turn to fight for you, it's this feature which so many people have their own stories to tell about including myself. They can ambush you out of no-where, cheat death and return whether due to you killing them or them dying in your service, they can betray you, they'll remember if you ran away or burned, poisoned or even cursed them. I had one orc who was I believe a tank but also a spear throwing hunter with one of the nastiest perks imagined called 'no chance'. Basically when you get dropped to zero life you get a chance to fight back if you time your counter attack right. No chance removes that meaning if they drop you to zero you are gone.

Now this orc even followed me to different regions always showing up at the worst times and jamming a cursed spear into uncomfortable places. Not only that he always seemed to cheat death and return despite burning him, poisoning him even cleaving him in half cross-ways, he just returned and returned, more of him replaced by crude orcish metal each time. Of course him killing me kept powering him up. I even sent 3 of my own captains to ambush him and helped them but he ended up killing 2 of them and then taking me out until he was basically a boss fight in his own right.

I find the sieges to be a lot of fun, so much so that I think I must've done nearly two dozen online ones.

The forts and sieges are one of the new features of the sequel which sees you forming your orc captains into assault leaders in order to take over each of the five regions forts. Each fort has an overlord and anywhere up to six warchiefs (and their bodyguards) defending it. The warchiefs maintaining so called siege upgrades making it more challenging to attack so you usually have to do a bit of preparing ahead of time. Be it outright killing the warchiefs, dominating them to your side or infiltrating your own captains and turning their own bodyguards against them. There's nothing quite so satisfying as watching your orcs leading their former warchief into an ambush and pulling his head off. I find attacking to be a little more fun than defending for the most part which is unusual for me, the forts themselves are pretty impressive and have a style based on the overlords tribe.

The overlord fight is for all intents and purposes a boss fight, all your captains save your bodyguard and any turned bodyguards of the overlords remain outside meaning you better be sure you can take him. Ologs (basically war trolls) are a personal nemesis of mine as they need a very different approach to defeat.

After taking a fort you assign warchiefs and an overlord to defend it, purchase your own siege upgrades which you also purchase on attack as well and they all have counters and uses depending on various things. Spiked walls is likely by favourite on defence as it means enemies can't climb over the walls anywhere near as easily.

The pseudo online aspect also returns in the form of vendetta's and conquests. The former is basically you avenging another player who died to a certain captain which gives both some rewards and is back from the first game. The conquests however are new and see you attacking a copy of other players forts which makes the whole capture and upgrading of forts take on a whole new meaning as these are a fantastic way to get gear for yourself and training orders to improve your captains.

Like even the greatest of games it is not without it's faults and some of them can be pretty trying at times. Just a few flaws and gripes I ran into whilst playing:

• The movement and targeting system: For the most part movement is more than fine but more than a few times Talion got stuck on a ledge and refused to jump off and took a bit more than an arrow to the knee for it which can be punishing on the harder difficulty settings. Also there's no sure fire way to lock a target so that execute you just saved your might for might miss that captain and just snuff out one of his grunts instead. 
• Difficulty settings are a bit out of whack: This is more a gripe than a flaw, initially I mostly played on Nemesis as I found it the most balanced overall. Gravewalker makes it far too punishing and captains far too spongy to be fun. Brutal is a nice mix of ensuring you and the orcs both do a lot of damage but the rate at which captains can level up and the 1 turn timer on nemesis missions can leave you unable to recruit orcs if you aren't careful.
• Gear system is a bit basic: Again more of a gripe but the gear system could have been fleshed out so much more as it stands you end up scrapping most gear for currency in the end.
• Hands Off Pit Fights: Personally I think it would have been more fun if you got to control your orc captains and overlords when you sent them into pitfights, as it stands its more of a dice roll and even your legendary orc can lose to a lower level regular one if their traits hard counter each other. 

If you loved Shadow of Mordor then Shadow of War is basically that ramped up to crazy levels with lots of extra stuff. Personally I think it's a good game even if the install size made me wince (some 110GB.) I found myself playing at one point just to find the best orc captains to recruit or just roaming through a camp stomping, stabbing and arrow flinging just for the spectacle.

Obligatory shot of Mount Doom.

Games I Love: Space Pirates and Zombies 2!

I was originally going to do this one first as I have put the most time into it since purchasing it last Christmas but figured I'd do them in order, because more content is good! This game was seemingly quite polarising so far as fans of the original went but personally I prefer this one to the first one for reasons of which I will go into more detail later on in this post. In short sandbox space games such as Elite and Freelancer are among my most loved type of sci-fi space game (alongside 4X strategy ones.)

This is the campaign galaxy map, there are others you can use if you go for sandbox mode!

This screen is where you will spend a lot of your time in Space Pirates and Zombies 2, the galaxy map. Here is where you will do everything from assembling your mother-ship, docking at star-bases, hunting down enemies or in a lot of cases at the start fleeing from them. The galaxy map itself actually really does bring across the more living and dynamic galaxy this game possesses, the AI captains can do almost anything that you can do, they roam the galaxy, trading, looting, fighting, upgrading their ships and cursing the void as they sail to the nearest station in an escape pod. It is not just window dressing either, you could literally sit in a corner and watch the galaxy changing around you.

The mother-ship this time around takes a more direct role in the action and is the ship you will likely spend most of your time piloting. Other ships are now called strike-craft and act as your support ships, featuring many of the hulls now rendered in full and colourful 3D, another departure that met with seemingly mixed reactions compared to the original. You issue context orders usually with the 'E' key to your strike-craft and can even fly them yourself if you choose, personally I love capital ships so I always take the helm of the mother-ship. You can fire and even aim all the weapons yourself which is useful for knocking damaged parts off enemy mother-ships or hitting various power-ups that can pop up. However my favourite mode as someone whom loves capital ships is the so called 'battle-wagon' mode, this lets the ships AI auto-target for you prioritising the ship you lock onto but enabling all your other weapons to fire at any other targets when they aren't in your targets firing arc.

It's hard to do the explosions justice in a screenshot!

The battles themselves are pretty spectacular to take part in which is one reason I enjoy the move to 3D over the 2D of the previous game even if it is just a cosmetic one. You fly your ship around on a 2D plane but everything is rendered in full 3D, the explosions in particular are pretty spectacular especially if you take out any of the larger mother-ships and bases later on. The modular nature of the mother-ships means that damaging one part of it more than another can actually break off that part, enemy getting away from you? Just hammer his engines til they fall off. That wing with the twin particle hoses tearing you a new one? Shoot it off! It is also part of what makes the explosions pretty satisfying to watch. Escape pods flying off as explosions ripple along the hull just before the entire ship blasts into three pieces, I may be a game-play over graphics person but I still appreciate a good explosion.

Things start off pretty small with you not having many parts but eventually you can build quite a monster!

The mother-ship is also central to the new ship design system, you construct it using a variety of different building blocks around it's central core. Sub-cores are the first of these they basically for the.. Well, core of your ship they determine the shape of your ship and what ports will be available for things such as wings, noses and engines. All of those have different affects, stat increases and possible weapons attached to them as well as coming in small, medium and large sizes (requiring 1, 2 or 3 relevant open ports in order to be attached to your ship.) You can make nice neat shapes, you can have a mother-ship wider or longer as you prefer. To begin with you generally just bolt on whatever you can salvage or scrounge up but later on you'll be able to buy and even have ship parts delivered to you via a catalogue system if you don't want to fly around to find things yourself. You can also choose the weapons of your strike-craft as well, as before your strike-craft are not just acquired from looting blueprints from wrecks but you also level them up by acquiring more of the blueprints of the same ships. You can even use the tractor beam in combat to re-attach parts of your ship that have fallen off, never really used it too often but it's a nice touch still!

As before you also level up but rather than it being a kind of research system you earn certain unlocks at every level such as more sub-cores for your mother-ship or access to another strike-craft hangar but also a randomly selected perk. These form your stat increases, more health, increased armour to stop ship parts breaking off, faster reloading etc. I will admit this is the one area I think I miss the original game on in making your own build with the research points as it were but it really is just a minor gripe for me.

The living galaxy it creates is fairly compelling.

Now I mentioned near the start there was a living dynamic galaxy so I'll go into more detail about that. Every single one of the 200 or so AI captains that roam the galaxy pretty much can do what you do (with the exception of starting a faction.) They loot resource stockpiles, sell their loot, upgrade their ships, befriend or destroy other captains not unlike you. The various factions expand, grow, wage wars all with or without your interaction. Especially at the start of the game you are a very small ship, bolting on junk-parts and just trying to gather enough resources to survive. Early on most aspiring captains will likely cut their teeth in the various arenas at each star-base to get some XP and resources which early on are hard to come by.

You can join one of the existing factions and help them in their fights and conquests or even make your own faction. It's a fairly simplistic empire building aspect to the game but I still appreciate it being there. You basically build your starbases, upgrade them, defend them and hire other captains to man them for a cut of their loot.

Resources still play a large part in the game, to begin with you'll be scrounging from various slowly regenerating resources piles scattered around the galaxy or later on extorting them from enemies or pillaging star-bases for them. Rez returns as the ever sought after resource that acts as fuel for your mother-ship to traverse the galaxy and feed your crew. The crew or goons maintain your ship, not enough and your mother-ships hull starts to deteriorate too many and your rez supplies will burn up fast. Then there is scrap, the post-apocalypse in space equivalent of money and the resource most people accept as trade. It may not be the deepest or most complex example of a living/dynamic galaxy but I found this aspect to be infinitely compelling.

The zombies of course also return to turn all that is living into twisted hunks of ship and flesh but I'll avoid too many spoilers about them. Suffice to say I found them no less challenging to fight than the first one.

In addition to the story campaign which sees the continuation of the story from the original, the return of some of it's characters and some hilarious voice acting you also have the sandbox mode. This has so many options for tweaking and changing the game and it's set-up. From faction sizes, zombie and bandit strength, several different galaxy maps if or when the zombies even appear and the like.

It is of course far from perfect as with everything:

• Lack of tooltips and mouse-overs: For the most part the UI is alright but when it comes to ship design and the shop interface some mouse-over tool-tips would be massively helpful in figuring out if part a is better than part b.
• Slow Start: At the start you won't find yourself engaging in many battles outside of the arena as even the junk flying bandits will stomp your feeble ship meaning it's a lot of scavenging and scrounging. It does add to the whole post galactic apocalypse feel but still it can be a little slow.
• Threat Level Early On: Whilst later on skill and a good mother-ship and strike-craft set-up you can defeat higher level threats or even multiple aggressors, early on though engaging higher threat level targets is usually just the end of you.

I admit to being biased with this game as I love free-roaming sandbox space games but the sheer amount of ways you can configure the sandbox and the story campaign as well it's hard not to recommend this. It's fun, colourful, compelling and I've gotten a ton of enjoyment out of it myself but then I am biased, I love me my space games! Now if you don't mind I better take the mother-ship out to go stomp a rather uppity fellow whom is trying to slap my star-base around.

Even fleshy zombie ships explode quite nicely!

Old Games I Still Love: Space Pirates and Zombies

This game holds a special place in my gaming heart for a few reasons, first off it was the very first game I bought into early access for back when Kick-starter and the like were just taking off. Secondly this took me back to older games in my child-hood, top-down space shooters with a sort of simplistic thrust-momentum physics engine. I was initially just going to look at the second game but if becoming a blogger isn't a good excuse for revisiting old games I loved, then nothing ever will be! Also it's the most Halloween themed game I could find in my collection that was also a space game so, win-win!

Whilst each element of the game is fairly simple the way they all combine together makes for some surprising depth you may not expect from the screenshots. At a glance it looks like a top-down space shooter, using a basic thrust and momentum system as I mentioned before but there is a lot more to it than first appears.

The battle portion of the game is as you would expect where you will be spending the majority of your play-time. You orient your ship, aim and fire your weapons with the mouse cursor and use the keyboard for thrusting, changing which ship you control. You then typically perform a variety of missions (escorting, blowing up toxic waste, destroying satellites, destroying enemies to name a few) or just generally roam around in the sectors looking for loot, resources and enemies to blow up. The variety of ships you can eventually get and fly along with the weapons and other items you can outfit yourself with really add a lot to this and it's helped by some impressive 2D artwork and special effects, the explosions and wrecks of ships I personally find particularly impressive.

A relatively small battle but it's zoomed out and these are some of the larger ships!

All that alone would be fairly impressive but then you add in the fact there is also some fleet management and ship design. You never fly alone, you can have various other ships and can give them various behaviours and stances or even order them directly from a pause screen tactical map. Destroying a ship you don't have will give you parts of it's blueprint eventually meaning you can build it for yourself. Weapon and item blueprints can also be purchased (or looted from the smoldering wrecks) of stations eventually giving you a vast arsenal to customise your fleet with. The ships themselves have various hard-points that you can customise the weapons of depending on the ship type and the weapons you have access to. The mothership only occasionally features in certain kinds of encounters and story missions but it acts as your base of sorts, if it gets destroyed, game over.

The ship design and hangar screen, whilst you can't design the hulls, weapons and other utilities you can!

You can further customise the way you prefer to play via the research system which is basically like an RPG leveling system of sorts. Data can be accumulated mostly via destroying enemies, as mission rewards and just found in crates, get enough and you level up giving you points to spend on improving various aspects of your rag-tag fleet. In general you can improve whatever you think you will get the most use out of, for example if you prefer cannons to beam weapons you can just improve them, shields, armour, hull, cloaking and more can all be boosted in effectiveness to make for some interesting ways to play if you ask me. Especially as you find more blueprints and ships to make use of them on.

The research screen is where you spend all your hard earned level ups!

Also there is a resource management aspect to the game some have already been mentioned, REZ is the primary resource it is mined from asteroids, given from mission rewards and even from destroyed ships. You use it to build new ships, buy blueprints and given how many ships you can often lose it is arguably the most important resource. Next up is the crew or 'goons' having crew aboard your ships makes them more effective, enabling them to fight off boarding parties, repair the ships hull and the like. They are also sometimes used to trade with at stations for usually to bribe your way through a warpgate rather than fight through it.

The galaxy is randomly generated at the start of the game and you have some options for customising it too!

And also we have the exploration side of things, you move around the galaxy completing missions for each sectors self contained civilian or military factions whom may also involved a third faction and later a fourth faction) the bounty hunters. Generally as you knock over the various warp-gates to unlock access to new sectors you complete missions, level up, get ship and item blueprints until you can progress to the higher level areas whilst also following the story.

The bounty hunters, added in a post release patch usually only attack you if you annoy one of the factions in the systems they 'protect' a lot. You can pay off any bounty you have accrued if you don't feel like messing with them but the ships they fly are among the best so, acquiring the blueprints can make the risk worthwhile. Just be careful if you do, they can jam your motherships warp drive and prevent you from escaping unless you pay or fight them off.

The system map, beware the ire of the bounty hunters they can ruin your day pretty fast!

There is a final aspect but it feels a bit like a spoiler so read this section at your own peril. The zombies have their own ecology which differs massively from how you play up to that point. They typically don't use shields for their ships and generally just have rapid hull regeneration, also they 'fire' zombie clusters at your ship whom then try to beat their way inside and board them. If your crew fails to fight them off and the ships health drops to zero rather than exploding the ship gets turned into a zombie version and then starts attacking meaning you can often find your own ships attacking you. The zombies can be truly terrifying as even the largest ships can succumb if enough zombies board it which can cause a spiral of destruction, needless to say they are definitely the main antagonists and a very interesting one at that.

This was my first early access purchase and it turned into an impressive game especially given it was made by only two people. Space combat and exploration games will always pique my interest and this is just one of the many games of it's type I love. Had it just been a simplistic top-down space shooter I may have just ignored it but all the various aspects make for something with far more depth than first appears.

Sandbox space games will always hold a special place in my heard regardless of how deep they are, ever since I first stumbled an old copy of Frontier: Elite 2 as a teen. It's no EVE Online in terms of depth but there's enough complexity and general fun in this that kept me occupied for quite a while. Whether it was hunting down that last ship blueprint to make my rag-tag fleet awesome or just respeccing for a completely different play-style. Even the defeats didn't make me put it down, hard battles that tore your ships apart and depleted my resources often had me pondering how to change my fleet and approach whilst mining more resources. I distinctly remember my typical shields up and guns blazing approach not working at a certain point and I reworked my entire fleet into a cloaking, bomb launching strike force. It took a while to get the hang of those slow moving explosives at first whilst micromanaging the targets of my others ships but when it worked, I was turning even the toughest enemy ships into so much space junk, floating off into the void.

It isn't without it's flaws however:

• Difficulty Spikes: Depending on the galaxy you generate you can have some brutal difficulty spikes in smaller galaxies or find yourself grinding through dozens of trivial warp-gates just to find one blueprint. Thankfully you can customise how big you want the galaxy to be, the prevalence of blueprints and the base difficulty.
• Can Get Grindy in Regard to Resources/Blueprints: Early on it's not so bad as the ships are small and cheap to build and you don't have a massive amount of space for reserves. Later on in the game larger ships and fancy guns can deplete your resources rapidly in heavy fighting sometimes meaning you have to fly off to a mining base and farm resources for a while. It becomes a lot more of a problem later in the game due to the zombies.
• Weapon and item stats given in bars not numbers: More of a UI gripe than a genuine flaw but no numbers are given in the UI it usually gives a comparative bar on the strengths of one weapon versus the one you are replacing it with. 

All in all this is an old favourite despite it's small flaws, it has enough aspects of sand-box space games to keep it interesting and a story to nudge things along. So if you are after some enjoyable shooting, looting and explosions you can't go far wrong with this little gem! Now if you'll excuse me, there are about a hundred zombies trying to board my ship...

Games I Love: Homeworld Remastered Collection

If you read my last blog post this one will likely not be a surprise, the Homeworld games took my love of sci-fi space battles and dialed it up to eleven. I played both the original Homeworld and Homeworld 2 to death way back in the day so when a remastered collection was announced it will surprise no-one that I bought it and didn't regret it. Seeing those battles with shinier graphics was always going to be a plus and not having to spend ages tinkering with resolutions and trying to get the older versions working on modern systems ensured this was a no-brainer for me. I'll do my best to avoid any spoilers given how epic I think the Homeworld story is so without further ado, here we go!

The remaster makes this particular shot I first remember the game for that much more epic!

Rather than looking at each game separately I'll just look at the collection as a whole given they use the same engine (or so it appears to me at least.) Now the Homeworld games for me always sat alongside RTS giants like Total Annihilation and Age of Empires.

It was also the first space strategy game I know of to make full use of fully 3D movement, you could approach enemies from above and below, as most space games of the time even if they were 3D were often locked to a single-plane.

Rather than a base as in most RTS games, you start off with a mothership which takes on the role of a base but you aren't bogged down by having to place buildings. Anything you have unlocked via the research ship can be produced from the mothership itself, everything from the tiniest of fighter craft to massive capital ships and everything in between. The economy of the game is fairly simple, you sent out resource collectors to harvest dust clouds, asteroids or wreckage for RU's or resource units and spend those for research and construction.

Some amazing vista's really show off the improved graphics.

From there on your usual objectives are to find and defeat the enemy which is where the real meat of the game lies, in it's combat. Each ship has its role to play from bombers unleashing their payloads against larger capital ships to interceptors who shoot down those bombers, to see a huge battle in motion is a sight to behold. The improved graphics certainly help in that regard, larger capital ships slowly moving into position as shells and ion beams slice through space, fighters and corvettes buzzing all around it's hard to sell how epic it can look in some screenshots, one of those games that just looks far better in motion.

Personally I think the story of the Homeworld games is amazing and was a large reason the game stuck with me so long though I am loathe to spoil any of the games story. It is that story which keeps the campaign mode ticking along, the cut-scenes whilst short usually do enough to keep you invested in the story and wondering what might happen next.

There is no veterancy system in place for units as there is in Deserts of Kharak but you are still encouraged not to mindlessly throw away your units. Your fleet is persistent from mission to mission and the resources you gather are finite, so your ships have more value simply based on that, losing a destroyer or heavy cruiser can be crushing. You can also capture enemy ships using Salvage Corvettes in the first game or Marine Frigates in the second (not everything can be captured but it can add another element to your engagements.) This can enable you to supplement your fleet if you are skilled enough to pull off such captures or even just a way of acquiring more resources if you retire those units.

The battles can get pretty epic, this I would say is a mid sized battle in a skirmish match!

Is the remastered collection perfect? No, it certainly has it's flaws and quirks though they are few and far between and in some cases for me they are more gripes than flaws:

• Lack of statistics or information in game relating to certain things: Mainly aimed at the first Homeworld but no numbers are given on how things change or improve between the various stances. For example aggressive stance makes your ships do more damage but move more slowly though it doesn't state by how much. The behavior's such as passive, aggressive and defensive are also likewise not really clearly explained, nor are the benefits of formations.
• Removal of the fuel mechanic in the original Homeworld: This is more of a gripe for me than an actual flaw. In the original Homeworld fighters and corvettes had fuel so they would need to dock with a support ship to refuel but it does make things overall easier to get into so as I said, more of a gripe than a flaw.
• Enemy Scaling in Homeworld 1: Whilst I am fairly certain that in Homeworld 2 the numbers of enemies tended to scale based on your fleet from the get go I am pretty sure it wasn't in the original. This can lead to some tricky spots in the campaign, as I found out to my cost on two or three occasions.

In the end thanks to having both campaigns and a robust skirmish mode it's hard not to recommend this to anyone looking for a space combat RTS. It has more than enough to do in it to keep you busy for a while. Also given the current lack of many new RTS games even coming out these days much less anything like Homeworld it just makes it all the more worthwhile to check out.

There are also some good mods out there even if a few of my favourites haven't made the transition yet so far as I know (Star Wars Warlords, The Point Defence Systems mods etc.) Which is one of the big pluses of being a PC gamer!

In my opinion though this is one of the better remasters out there, now if you'll excuse me an enemy fleet decided to pop over for a spot of tea and ion cannons!

And I got lucky timing that screenshot!