Games I Love: Everspace

Personally I have always loved games set in space almost regardless of their genre (or genres these days!) Everything from space combat games like freespace, real time strategies like Homeworld and grand Strategies like Distant Worlds and Stellaris. So Everspace naturally had my attention helped in large part by the stunning screenshots I was seeing on the way up to it's release also helped by it's unique take on things. It's like Freespace meets FTL with a whole heaping of crafting, resource gathering and exploration thrown in for good measure with some random level generation and permadeath.

Visually stunning areas are the norm in Everspace!

A typical run of Everspace will see you selecting a ship from those you have unlocked so a fresh game would see you with only one (two with the DLC, I can't quite remember.) Spending any credits you earned from previous runs on permanent upgrades like increased loot drops or more weapon slots for particular ships. Then you select your difficulty and boom, you get thrown into one of the most stunning looking space games out there.

The combat and exploration part of the game is the main meat if you will, your goal is to reach the final sector much as in FTL. Within each area there are usually a multitude of things to do most key among them is making sure you have enough fuel to make the jump to the next area to continue your journey. Aside from that there is loot to be found from weapons to improved shields and many more I won't spoil as well as resources and blueprints (which are another permanent progression aspect for your runs.) There are wrecked freighters, bandit bases, hollowed out asteroids and more to poke around in for goodies however there is a catch beyond the outlaws and other enemies you will find. Linger too long in one sector and some mysterious aliens show up to put an end to you meaning you can't take too long in each sector lest you lose precious resources like missiles and the ever important repairing nanobots.

Which brings me onto the combat which just feels very satisfying to me helped in large part by some of the most epic and awesome explosions I have seen in a long time! Each weapon feels like it has it's place and uses, the humble pulse laser is very effective against shields whereas the satisfying gatling enjoys shredding some hulls. You can even apply three upgrades to each weapon should you have the materials and blueprints to do so. Whether you want to make that new beam laser you just found even more adept at stripping shields, fire a bit further or improve it's hull damage to make it more of an all rounder is entirely up to you. Whether it's dodging around an asteroid for cover whilst your shields recharge or finding out you can actually shoot down incoming missiles it's hard not to enjoy the combat in Everspace. Whilst you do have the option of flying in third or first person I personally prefer the extra situational awareness of third person.

See, I told you the explosions were epic!

I think I have only ever fully completed a single run of Everspace but I still have fun with it and often fire it up just to get some epic space action when I don't have time for something more in-depth. My personal favourite ship so far is the gunship simply due to how much firepower it has access to. Sure it loses the regenerating shields of the other ships but when you have that turret firing, a flak cannon thudding away and are spitting missiles out as if they are going out of fashion it makes me so gleeful. When you get that good run going it's just amazing but that brings me to the few flaws the game has, it's fantastic but not perfect.

Not only do you have pilot upgrades but upgrades per ship too!

The first flaw is the lack of an in system map, now I know you can occasionally find a comm array which flags everything in the area for you but still. It would be nice if things were at least tagged in lieu of a map so you could find them again once you have had them in sensor range once.

The second one is a minor issue to me, largely and it's to do with the initial difficulty. Before you have unlocked any of the permanent upgrades it can be hard to progress very far unless you opt as I eventually did to play on easy to get some of them.

Space can be a daunting place...

In light of that any new players who pick this up I have a few tips to potentially help it be less frustrating:

• Play on 'Easy' for your first few runs: Whilst you take a 25% penalty to found credits in general you will usually get further so you'll end up getting more to spend at the start of the next run. This way you will get more unlocks making the higher difficulties more manageable.
• Unlock Pilot Upgrades First: You will just have to trust me on this one, I know it's tempting to open more weapon slots or a new ship but the pilot upgrades apply to all ships. So increased credit loot bonus is best taken early along with improvements to nanobots. More credits means more unlocks, better nanobots means you will get further. 
• Don't hoard consumables and missiles: I know I used to do the same, not using things just in case I need them later. Best to just use them as and when you need them whilst you are learning the ins and outs of the game. 

I need bigger guns for this..

In conclusion Everspace to me is an awesome space combat game and some of the most stunning visuals I have seen, the explosions and nebula effects are especially good. It is one of my more recent favourites and I think I'll be getting many more hours of enjoyment out of it on top of the many I have already gotten from it!

Old Games I Still Love: Evil Genius

Evil Genius, where do I even start with this gem of a game? One of the few games to take the Dungeon Keeper formula and do something good (or evil) with it. After playing to death the Dungeon Keeper games this was the game I turned to and it was carried a large part by it's setting with me, I am definitely a fan of the whole comic take on a 70's James Bond/Cold War setting. I spent many an hour perfecting complex trap layouts, the perfect looking base layout and trying to find the best set-up of henchmen and minions to do my evil bidding.

Everyone starts somewhere.. Even Evil Geniuses.

The start sees you land on a desert island of indeterminate origin with your titular Evil Genius, a henchmen and a small band of worker minions. From there much as in Dungeon Keeper you lay out corridors, plan out rooms, place furniture and equipment, place traps, sensors and security camera's. All whilst doing your utmost to prevent the forces of justice from interfering with your nefarious plans. Aside from the building aspect there is also the World Domination screen, a world map which sees you sending off your minions and henchmen to perform various acts of infamy for loot and recognition (and usually money.)

You could have a vast array of helpful minions from the humble and disposable worker to marksmen, spin-doctors and martial artists. You have no direct control of your minions instead a 'tag' system for how they interact with targets and use of security camera's and loud-speakers gives you a pretty hands off way of manipulating your lackeys.

Of course you can't do this without consequence as the various intelligence agencies around the globe get ever more irked at your evil doing and start sending ever more dangerous agents to deal with you. It generally begins with investigators coming to your island in an attempt to find evidence of your evil deeds to report back to their superiors, if they escaped with information your 'heat level' would increase and more dangerous responses would be sent. Thieves and infiltrators would attempt to steel back your ill gotten gains, whilst saboteurs would try and cripple your base (usually blowing up power generators.) Then there were the soldiers, the shoot first, shoot again and usually keep shooting anything and everything until it was dead or exploded. Finally, the super agents who could usually mow down your minions and even permanently kill your more powerful henchmen.

What I did like about dealing with enemy agents was they were always given an assigned mission, such as sabotage something or steal back some priceless treasure. However they only had a set time to complete it so if they got distracted by social minions or delayed by traps they could run out of time and leave. If they left without finishing their mission or seeing anything nefarious you would actually lower your global heat rating.

You could even construct a hotel to distract roaming tourists and investigators but in general it was horribly expensive and never seemed to do that good a job. Though I often still built one anyway, just a shame it didn't make you any money (always felt like an oversight to me.)

Having trouble with someone? Stir them up in the Mixing Bowl!

There's a lot of fun to be had in Evil Genius, from watching some disturbingly hilarious interrogation devices squeezing information (sometimes literally) out of those pesky do-gooders to watching a new henchman's special abilities in action. One of my personal favourite things was the traps system especially once you research and unlock some of the more advanced sensors and traps to use. I sometimes spent hours making perhaps overly complex trap systems, though that did get you bonus money and notoriety for particularly successful ones. Also I just love watching a fully functioning base running with technician's maintaining equipment to guards hauling prisoners off to holding cells, I am just that kind of gamer.

Taken five minutes before saboteurs turned half of this into ash and body bags.

I'd say the strongest points of Evil Genius are as follows in my opinion:

• Art Style and Animations: The stylised visuals and excellent animations ensure this game is easy on the eyes even by today's standards. Everything from the small details of how a minion carries a prisoner the the various interrogation devices ensure there is always something to amuse the Evil Genius in all of us.
• Base Building: The sheer amount of rooms, objects and traps you could build kept me a very happy base builder indeed. One can only hope the sequel dials it up to an extra evil eleven! I am a massive fan of base builders being a self confessed turtle in strategy games.
• Setting: The comic take on 70's spy fiction makes it feel like an interesting mix between James Bond and Austin Powers. I don't think it would work anywhere near as well if it had gone for the realism route.
• Traps: The traps system is one of the better I have seen in a game like this allowing fairly complex multi-layer trap systems to be built and when they work. Oh boy is it satisfying to watch it working.

The World Domination screen in all it's clunky glory!

The game is far from perfect and now with a sequel in the works I am hoping the developers address some of this old classics quirks and faults:

• Clunky Interface: This can get irritating on occasion due to the 'tag' system as you can only directly control your henchmen and Evil Genius. Not to mention an overall lack of feedback across the board can make busy bases tricky to manage when under attack.
• World Domination Mode: A part of it is due to the lack of interface feedback when in the base part of the game. Though in general I think much more could have been done with it.
• Difficulty: I am a fan of challenging games don't get me wrong but you can get to a point in this where you hit a death spiral that can take a couple of hours before you realise it. 
• Hotel System: Honestly for the expense it never seemed to work enough to justify it meaning you had something which cost a whole pile of money that might only distract a handful of tourists or agents.

This game is genuinely one of my all time favourites which likely wouldn't surprise anyone given my love of Dungeon Keeper style games. Which meant the news of a sequel becoming official means I am more than a little hyped. On the off chance one of the dev's stumbles across this humble blog I leave some potential ideas and thoughts for the sequel beyond the 'More of everything cool!' ideas.

• Improved Interface/UI: Especially in regard to the world domination mode, as there was only a brief hard to see pop-up when enemy agents were active on that map. Far too often I'd be busy building in my base and not see the brief number pop up telling me minions were dying on the world map. The tag system could likely be improved, perhaps set global orders or even orders for specific minions and targets. One example could be to have social minions all attempt to weaken and distract investigators and guards to always capture or kill enemy soldiers etc.
• More Ways to Make Money: Never really made sense that you could only go out and steal on the world map. Maybe have it so you can set-up front companies taking a page out of the old Gangsters games. Perhaps even have it so if the hotel system returns it allows you to make money?
• Different Evil Base Locations: Perhaps on top of the desert island and the jungle volcano lair some I'd like to see are an arctic base, an underwater base, perhaps even a moon base? Just a few ideas.
• Multi-Level Bases: This one would be tricky to pull off unless they limited it to like 2 or 3 levels. It would however be a pretty neat feature and allow for some pretty massive bases.
• Custom Evil Genius: Being able to create your own evil genius, select abilities, appearance, maybe base or minion style would be so awesome especially if there are more RPG like mechanics put into the game this time around. 

That is it for this blog post though, took me long enough, not entirely sure if it made sense but if you'll excuse me, I better get back to conquering the world!

Five Things I'd Personally Like to See In: The Elder Scrolls VI

With the recent announcement from Bethesda that the next installment of the Elder Scrolls series is in production as well as me diving back into Skyrim recently I figured I may as well do a blog post like this. Now bear in mind this is just what I would personally like to see, nothing has been confirmed aside from it being in production, we don't even know where it's set. 

Now a little bit of a background, I have loved the Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind so to say I am perhaps a little hyped would be understating it! I don't even want to count the hours I've sunk into Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim combined. 

This top 5 list won't be in any particular order so take it more along the lines of five things I'd like to see in the next Elder Scrolls, so without further ado, here we go with number five!

5. Spell Crafting

Now spell crafting was conspicuous by it's absence in Skyrim and if I am honest the vanilla spells were not all that exciting. Thankfully mods managed to fix a lot of that (such as Apocalypse magic and the like) but giving us an interesting spell crafting system would be oh so appreciated.

I am not entirely sure how they could do it in an interesting way but perhaps a base spell type (projectile, aura, stream etc.) Then secondary and/or even tertiary effects as your spell crafting ability increases. For example an aura spell that raises the dead and gives them all bound bows or a chain lightning spell which casts an area of effect frenzy on each target hit, that kind of idea could I think be very cool and interesting to include.

I just hope if they do decide to reintroduce spell crafting they take some inspiration from the extensive magic mods for Skyrim when it comes to spells and effects. Which leads us into number 4 quite nicely.

4. Improved Magic

For the most part magic was alright in Skyrim but things like destruction magic scaled especially poorly and the selection of spells wasn't exactly inspiring overall. I don't think I'm the only one who'd like to see a veritable library of fun new spells and spell effects in the next installment of the Elder Scrolls.

One spell school in particular I'd like to see some changes to due to it being a personal favourite: conjuration. I am mainly hoping I can quite literally command a veritable army of undead thralls or elemental Atronachs as having only two of each in Skyrim was a little disappointing to my favourite build (a sneaky, stealthy user of conjuration and illusion magic if you were curious!)

Though some overall increased variety of spells across the board would be greatly appreciated I feel.

This would be in addition to spell crafting hopefully but I'd genuinely settle for just a lot more fun spells. The scaling issue with some of the magic should also be addressed which leads me to the next thing I'd like to see, an expanded perks system!

3. Expanded and Improved Perks and Skills

Now there was nothing wrong in the slightest with Skyrim's perks system I just hope they expand upon it and give every skill some really fun perks to use. If only to add to the roleplaying aspect of things, enabling new synergies between various perk trees, if they even take that approach this time.

A lot of my desire for this comes from recently using the Ordinator perks pack for Skyrim which massively expands the perk tree for every skill and allows for some frankly insane synergies. I don't expect Bethesda to go quite that crazy but I'd definitely like to see the perks and skills system expanded somewhat.

Some kind of scaling related to skill increasing effectiveness and damage would be nice I think too. A character with a maximum of 100 in for example two handed weapons should be vastly more effective than a character with 5 in two handed weapons regardless of perks. Then again maybe the leveling and skill system will be entirely different? We can but speculate!

2. Settlement Building

I actually didn't mind the settlement building aspect of Fallout 4 though it was far from perfect. However I think a settlement building aspect in the next Elder Scrolls would be all kinds of awesome if it's implemented correctly. Plus you could already build your own houses in Skyrim with the Hearthfire DLC so it's the next logical step anyway.

However I would much prefer it if it had you focusing on just one big settlement rather than dozens of smaller ones. Say for some story, plot or guild related reason you become lord or lady and have to choose one of several locations with various pros and cons for the new settlement. 

They could even add more of a management aspect to it as well and I wouldn't complain in the slightest! Managing caravans and patrols, hiring enchanters and blacksmiths and fending off bandit raids which brings me quite neatly to number one.

1. Living/Dynamic World

Now Skyrim did a pretty good job of creating a believably living world but I'd like to see a genuinely living and breathing sandbox that carries on with or without player interaction. Maybe a bit much to hope for and mind boggling in it's complexity to implement but would I like to see it, yes, yes I would.

Bandit camps that grow in size if ignored, raiding nearby towns, carvans and merchants moving between towns that can affect and change the availability of goods and resources. Smaller settlements being wiped out only for errant necromancers to raise the fallen and go on a rampage. Watching rival armies from different factions clashing in epic battles whether you are part of them or not. Things like that, this one is likely more of a pipe dream I know but I live in hope that one day, those kinds of things are the norm in RPG's. 

I was originally going to do a top ten but I only got to seven so I'll do another top five when I actually think of a couple more things I'd like to see in The Elder Scrolls VI. Maybe a tad early for hype but can you really blame me for looking forward to it? I hope not!

Old Games I Still Love: SimCity 4 Deluxe

Now city builders for me I have to really be in the mood for but SimCity 4 was always a favourite after getting bitten by the SimCity bug with my first ever PC. It had a pile of games come with the mountain of useless software they always used to bundle in with store bought, prebuilt rigs. Although the only two I really remember were SimCity 2000 and Alpha Centauri and I played them pretty extensively but the PC had been bought 'for homework' this was when I was mainly a gamer on the venerable PSX (Playstation one) but anyway! What I was trying to say before I swerved down memory lane was that this wasn't my first SimCity game, just my favourite.

In SimCity 4 like most other games in the franchise you are plonked unceremoniously into an empty looking patch of verdant green countryside and tasked with turning it into a concrete urban paradise. Usually easier said than done as keeping the sims happy enough to want to move in was tricky. With SimCity 4 however you could actually develop interconnected cities via the region view which in my opinion added an extra layer of depth and consideration to the gameplay formula and could remove some of the space issues from single self contained cities. The region you see below was the default region, containing all the tutorials but there were other regions you could load up, download or even create your own if you wanted, though I think I enjoyed the default region because of variety of landscapes it offered.

The region view, the first thing most people will see!

Once you actually get into the game properly you'll find your omnipresent gaze looking down at a patch of usually green countryside. Normally you'd tend to jump right in but in my case I'd always play around with the terrain tools (which was expensive once you had actually started your city.) Depending what I wanted to do I'd either flatten it all out so I had more room or create some interesting hills and valleys if I wanted to play around with bridges, tunnels, ferries etc and just wanted it to look a bit more interesting than a big homogeneous square of concrete blocks. Throwing down a few thousand trees didn't hurt dealing with pollution either even if most of them got flattened from the initial rush of laying down roads. You could also throw in a variety of wildlife if you wanted though once the city was started I never used to see them, a shame, having your police needing to deal with bears rummaging through the bins could have been amusing.

In the beginning! (Do the tutorials!)

Once I had done with sculpting the terrain it was straight into mayor mode for me, which is the main meat of the game, though what I enjoyed most about SimCity 4 was the fact you didn't have to make a straight up city. Due in large part to the region system, you could make farming communities linked up by road and rail to a neighbouring commercial city which was then further linked to a residential one. Although the way I generally played was I'd make one fairly typical city in a central area and build it up as far as I could to give the region a decent size population and then build connecting cities for specific roles, like farming, heavy industry, commercial. I'll admit that could get a little disjointed due to loading times but it was still an interesting layer to the standard SimCity formula that added some longevity to it.

Most of the building work is done automatically by any Sims that decide they want to move to your city. You would simply set down the zones according to the three main types (residential, commercial and industrial) and selected from various densities of such. As Sims moved in they build houses, shops and factories according to all kinds of factors, like water, power and more. Their education level also played a part, highly educated sims wanted high tech jobs, whereas Sims with low education were quite happy in farms and heavily polluting factories. The only real way you could directly influence things was taxing the various levels of businesses, increasing it for things you didn't want and decreasing it for things you did. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to get the hang of it so that my Sims were living in a gleaming modern metropolis rather than a dystopian smog-choked slum.

So aside from laying down roads and designating 'zoning' areas you also had to provide various utilities and amenities for Sims. Everything from clinics and police stations to universities, parks and power stations. Keeping your Sims happy whilst trying to make enough money to keep growing was the key challenge in SimCity 4 and I'll admit I catastrophically failed many many times before I even started to see my Sims building anything close to a skyscraper. Water was always the one I had trouble with though, always struggling to get the balance of pumps and treatment plants right so that everyone had clean water without me killing the budget. Though as with most things you could make use of the region layer and dedicate one or two 'cities' to exporting water to other places, much as you could do with electricity as well as many other things.

The budget was always the trickiest thing to get a handle on initially though at various points and milestones you could get special buildings to help out in various ways. From simple things like a farmers market to special deals to help you balance the books at a downside. The most memorable of those for me is of course was the missile range, provided a fairly hefty amount of income at the cost of, well what goes up must come down so your Sims didn't often approve of being the target of a missile strike. Who knew.

That urban sprawl!

Once I did get the hang of balancing the books though it was oh so satisfying to see a sleepy little town turn into a bustling metropolis. If you focused on just building one self contained city you'd often start running into space issues especially when it came to the larger buildings like power-plants and hospitals. However, once again this was where I found the region system to give so much more freedom in how you approached city building and something I spent a good chunk of a college summer holiday making use of. I got seriously into it as well, with scrawled notes on bits of paper as I set myself the goal of entirely filling a region, figuring out the best uses and placements for everything from freight and passenger rails to the vast raised highways and airports. 

There were also more involved aspects along the way such as deploying firetrucks or police to help deal with various disasters that occasionally popped up. Also you could even drive various vehicles around your city in a little mini-game added with the Rush Hour expansion to break up the placid pace of mayoral life or even just get a little extra cash or mayor rating for the trouble. 

Traffic problems getting you down, the autosaurus will stomp them flat! (Along with everything else..)

Of course when the building was done and you grew tired or urban paradise or perhaps you just find your Sims still being obnoxiously demanding you could always do some 'creative remodelling' by unleashing various disasters. From the more typical offerings of earthquakes and tornadoes or the more unusual (and fun) ones such as unleashing a giant alien robot or deploying the autosaurus (seen above!) 

There genuinely haven't been many other city builders or economic management Sims that grabbed my attention quite so hard before or after (those are for other blog posts though.) Sometimes even these days if that city builder itch strikes SimCity 4 is usually the first stop to scratch it as I find it still one of the better ones out there and these days you could likely run it on anything slightly more advanced than a toaster so it doesn't tax even my ageing rig. 

So all in all even now when I want to satisfy that city building urge, SimCity 4 Deluxe is my go-to choice.

Old Games I Still Love: Startopia

This game for me even now still scratches that management game itch without being so completely super serious like a lot of management games tend toward being. Long ago during an extended lunch break at college I wandered into the local GAME store as I so often did seeing what new games were on the shelves, grumbling at not having enough pennies and wandering to the bargain section instead. It was at that point I stumbled across Startopia, now I love sci-fi as a setting so I picked it up and had a look at the back of the box, the idea of managing a space station was immediately appealing. The rest as they say is history, I counted up my meager pennies and picked it up the next day, even if it did massively slow down working on a college project (oops, always do your homework first kids!) 

The game got it's tentacles into me pretty fast, catchy music, colourful art style and enough buildings and research to keep me playing 'just five more minutes' until it was two in the morning. I didn't find out til a couple of years later reading an actual review in a gaming magazine that the studio responsible for it was comprised of three ex-Bullfrog developers. Though the influences from games such as Theme Park were obvious to see after finding that fact out. 

Everyone starts somewhere!

The game featured a campaign of sorts as well as a sandbox mode and multiplayer though I never really made much use of multiplayer I'm afraid to say. However, most games of Startopia start in largely the same way, you'd have some pre-packaged crates containing pre-built rooms and some basic Scuzzers (construction and maintenance robots) and a pool of energy which both acted as currency and powered your buildings. You also generally had access to all three decks of one section of the space-station, those being the sub-level where most industrial focused buildings are kept, the pleasure deck for entertainment and shops etc. The last deck was perhaps the most interesting one, the biodeck, where you could terraform and sculpt it's environment in order to grow plants for your residents and guests to relax in, or harvest them for crates of useful and valuable goods. 

From this point you generally had to build up facilities, expand into other sections and research or trade for new things to bring in more energy to build more things and so on. You also had to hire the various alien visitors who boarded the station to crew your facilities, with each species having it's own structure or job, for example the Salt Hog's worked your factories and recycler facilities. The greys would crew your medical facilities whilst the muscled red giants that are the Kasvagorian's would keep watch from your security facilities. You also had to keep them happy lest they decided you weren't a very good employer and left, though that aspect was fairly basic as if they were unhappy you simply gave them a payrise. 

The research system also I think was pretty neat at the time, whilst you could of course just buy and research so called technology crates, you could also place any item you could pick up with your teleporter equipped cursor onto the laboratory research pad and you'd usually get something new out of it. If you dropped a piece of litter onto it for example you'd unlock the litter bin. Not all research let to something new but it always at least improved something be it making those medical supplies last longer or your Scuzzer's able to run for longer before needing to head to a recharging station.

Now I mentioned earlier that it was obvious to see the influences of Bullfrog games in Startopia once I knew the dev's had come from there. The most obvious one to me at least is the occasional medical emergencies you could opt to try and deal with much in the same vain as Theme Hospital. A good way to get energy if your facilities and staff could handle it or you would be fined for each one that didn't make it or worse, you'd end up with a horde of Skrasher's ripping your station and guests apart. 

The moment you realise you need more security guards. Skrashers are nasty.

Other smaller things could be seen as influences as well from other Bullfrog games such as being able to purchase additional furniture and equipment for your various rooms to improve them (again like theme hospital.) To making sure you had enough Scuzzer droids to repair, maintain and clean your station much like Theme Park. 

There is unlike the majority of management games a combat system in place though this was likely the biggest of the games flaws. Having minimal direct control over your employee's meant combat could boil down to you hammering the attack button to stack as many of your armed personnel on the target to take it down and most of the time only a few would show up. That said it wasn't completely terrible and it could be quite fun to watch when it worked. Aside from attacking other station administrators there was also the task of dealing with spies, finding bombs from rivals to the aforementioned Skrashers that were the.. Unpleasant result of a certain infection not being treated in time not helped by the fact that every single alien petted their carrier the Memau and as your station got larger it got increasingly more difficult to keep track of everything and try to find those tiny little problems. 

Cute but surprisingly deadly. -The Memau

However even these days, if the management game itch crops up for me, Startopia is often something that will be installed for a quick play as it's easy to get into but has enough depth to keep it interesting. The music I found to be at least fairly memorable and added to the atmosphere of the game no-end.  The graphics are cartoony and colourful enough to hold up today though far from perfect and sometimes it can just feel so satisfying watching your station ticking over from on high, just a shame Mucky Foot Productions didn't get to make much of anything else. It's not my favourite management game of all time but it certainly ranks highly as an old favourite for me!

When things get going it can be quite a sight to behold.

Old Games I Still Love: Dungeon Keeper 2

Still such an amazing game!

Now, this game is widely considered a classic and for good reason, it is among my most favourite games of all time so how could I not make a blog post on it. Made by one of my favourite dev studios the ever venerable Bullfrog (Theme Park is something I'll have to look at one of these days again.) I played it before the first Dungeon Keeper game as I'd picked it up as part of one of those big old game collection boxes (yes I know, games used to come in boxes, almost unheard of on PC these days!) The ones that used to have about a dozen or two dozen games in that I'd picked up because of a few of the other games inside it not really aiming for Dungeon Keeper 2 itself. I was hooked the moment I installed it because not only was it an original concept but pretty damned well executed too!

In most games, especially at the time you were always playing as the heroes, the knights in shining armour, the good guys for lack of a better description. In Dungeon Keeper 2 you play as the titular Dungeon Keeper with the task of building and maintaining your dungeon and it's monstrous inhabitants whilst keeping the heroes out, them minions do love their chicken. That alone was interesting enough to have me delving deeper like a gold hungry imp! The RPG elements also helped keep things interesting, every minion under your command for the most part had a level from 1 to 10 often gaining impressive abilities along the way.

The Dungeon Heart!

A typical game of Dungeon Keeper had you plopped into the map hovering above the ominous heartbeat of your dungeons core with a little bit of gold, a handful of loyal worker imps and usually access to a single creature portal. Then you'd be tasked with digging out the various corridors and spaces to place your rooms, which in turn would allow you do do more things like research or training your creatures. The types of rooms you had would also determine which evil beings would be drawn to your dungeon to work for you. Now, unlike most 'RTS' games save for a couple of exceptions you had no direct control over your creatures for the most part, they'd wander the twisted halls of your lair eating, drinking, training or if they were disgruntled, punching each other.

For the most part your influence over the world and your minions came down to giving orders and hoping they would be followed with your disembodied hand not only able to cast spells to help your minions and hinder your foes. In particular one amusing thing was a right click on a minion would give them a swift backhander usually making them slightly unhappy but compelling them to work faster (well you are playing as the evil overlord so it's to be expected!) The spells also allowed the one exception to the largely 'hands off' control, the possession spell.

This spell was honestly surprising to me, as you could literally cast it and jump into direct control of the chosen minions body. Turning the game into a first person action game after a fashion as as you could move around your dungeon, seeing it from ground level but also attack and form groups with your other minions. On some levels this was almost required but for the most part it was just a fun little addition.

The mission or level select screen.

The campaign I think deserves a special mention as I personally think it's pacing was spot on, each mission usually introduced a few new things at a time like a new room, creature or concept. As such it never felt overwhelming and I always found myself looking forward to what I would unlock next, an extra layer of motivation to beat that level. There were of course secrets to uncover, even a couple of hidden levels however there was one thing that kept me playing long after the campaign had been completed.

My Pet Dungeon, my favourite mode!

The 'My Pet Dungeon' mode was what I wiled away countless hours in building that perfect dungeon lair without the threat of attack unless you chose it to be so. There was still an objective to this mode earn points by building things and completing objectives to unlock more 'Pet Dungeon' maps. The sheer variety of rooms and minions on offer was quite impressive everything from Casino's and Fighting Pits to Temples and Workshops, all of which were put to use by your 'loyal' minions. Warlocks and vampires would pore over ancient texts in your library for researching new spells whilst trolls and bile demons crafted nefarious traps in your workshops.

Initially I was going to write a separate section for all of this but I realised it can all be tied up into one, atmosphere. This game has oodles of it and it just works so well with each aspect complimenting it. The biggest contributor is the 'advisor' character whom guides your evil deeds, voiced by the extremely talented Richard Ridings who just pulls it off so well. The graphics, whilst by today's standards are a bit primitive they still work due to the almost stylised look, everything is slightly crooked and off angle giving your evil abode a charmingly unsettling appearance when paired up with the lighting. The sound design in general is impressive at least in my opinion, from the steady thump of your dungeon heart to the slightly creepy ambient sounds it really rounds out the evil package gloriously.

For the longest time the only hint of us getting more Dungeon Keeper was the Dungeon Keeper 3 teaser that was in Dungeon Keeper 2 itself. As Bullfrog vanished though the IP was claimed by EA who turned it into, well let's just call it a disappointing mobile game and leave it at that. Evil Genius was pretty close to the Dungeon Keeper playstyle and is another game I still genuinely love but it still wasn't Dungeon Keeper which made me oh so happy when some plucky indie dev's took it on themselves to craft a spiritual successor in War for the Overworld (yet another game I will have to make a blog post about!)

All in all, I still love this game despite it looking it's age these days, it still has a place on my hard-drive even now. 

World of Tanks: My Personal Top 5 Tips!

Now, before I get into the meat of this particular post just a quick disclaimer. I don't claim to be an incredible player, my personal rating hovers between 5500 and 5600 or so but the amount of silly mistakes I see people making even at tier seven or higher is a bit worrying. So, rather than slump across my keyboard wondering how they even got that IS-3 I figured I'd share a few of my own personal tips, if it helps one or two people do a little better then I am happy!

Tip #1: Use Your Map

Always, always use your map, this cannot be stressed enough not just to get an idea of where enemies are but also so you know where your allies are as well. It doesn't really matter what kind of tank you are playing, the map is always your friend. 

There is often little point charging ahead as a scout if there are no friendly tanks there to shoot at what you spot. Nor is there much point sitting on an empty side of the map for five minutes when the entire enemy team has been spotted elsewhere. 

Tip #2: Never Give an Enemy Free Shots

Never advance around a corner if an enemy already knows you are there. Seriously I see this one so often it's a little frightening, I know it's tempting to roll around that corner and do a bit of damage, believe me, even I used to do it. However, they are more likely to hit your front drive wheel and track you, keeping you in place and barring a few tanks with forward mounted turrets, you can find yourself unable to fight back.

It's usually best to simply try and pull back and go elsewhere or simply find another angle to attack them from that doesn't expose you. Failing that you can if your tank is capable of doing so effectively, you can attempt to side-scrape.

It doesn't just apply to rounding a corner though, if you know that an enemy is waiting for you to pop out. Don't. 

Tip #3: Never Be Afraid to Retreat

Tempting as it is to try and be the hero and fight off five enemy tanks by yourself whilst the rest of your team goes full lemming train on the other side of the map, sometimes it's best to pull back. Put yourself in a more defensible position, behind solid cover and preferably behind something that will shield you from artillery as well.

Make sure to ping the map to inform your team but only do it once every so often, if you spam it people will likely just ignore you. If they don't come to help you then it's on them, not you!

Whilst there are some tanks which can at least stall a flank by themselves such as certain hull down heavies or heavily armoured tank destroyers. It is usually best to just pull back rather than get overrun and destroyed as typically it'll be you against many and at best in my experience you will never kill more than one or two if they are even half-way competent.

Also if anyone starts pinging on you or trying to tell you to go cover that flank without themselves moving to help you? Ignore them. 

Tip #4: Know Your Tanks

I mean this in a very general way, not just for tanks you play but those of your allies and enemies as well. Whilst tanks are generally divided between the five classes that doesn't mean every heavy tank plays exactly the same as every other heavy tank, a Tiger I plays differently to an IS for example.

Play your tanks to their strengths and try to exploit the weaknesses of enemy tanks as best you can. I know that's easier said than done for the most part but it's a good thing to always keep in the back of your mind as you play.

Telling a thinly armoured heavy tank to push or expecting a tank destroyer to scout for you is not likely the best of ideas.

Tip #5: Don't Get Frustrated or Angry

Believe me I know this one is harder to do than it is to say, there are times even I get so frustrated I could bite my keyboard in half but in the end it doesn't help anyone. You are in the end only responsible for how well you play, if you get six kills, do 4000 damage and still lose that is not your fault in the end.

Getting angry or frustrated over it will make you just play a whole lot worse and more importantly, you'll stop having fun, defeating the point of playing the game in the first place!

A rule I started to follow about a year into my playing of World of Tanks was to always try and do more damage than the hit-points of my own tank. Following that one simple goal in every battle slowly saw my average XP and credit earning increasing and my overall frustration diminishing.

Raging, ranting and cursing at other players no matter how badly they may be playing from your perspective is never really justified. Also if you find yourself the target of someones frustrations, simply mute them or add them to your blacklist. Remember, don't feed the trolls.

If you see someone doing something wrong, then perhaps try to explain to them why it may be they just didn't know! (It is not as if the WoT tutorial is that comprehensive let's face it.)