Far Future or Fantasy Universe - There is Always War

The latest patch for World of Warcraft, The Hour of Twilight (4.3) has been released. Besides three new 5-man dungeons, it also features a raid against the main foe of the Cataclysm expansion, Deathwing. And now with the new Raid Finder tool, I actually might have a chance to experience an expansion's climax for the first time. Just need to put in some time to re-acquaint myself with how to heal on my druid first. But between work, a dodgy internet connection and other distractions (see games below), I haven't played it as much as I'd have liked to.

Blood Ravens engage a small force of Orks

In the meanwhile, I've been playing Warhammer 40 000: Dawn of War 2, sequel to one of my preferred real-time strategy games. The main campaign, featuring the Blood Ravens chapter of Space Marines, plays quite differently to most RTSes. It's actually more of an RTS-RPG hybrid as you level up your commanders and equip them with loot, tailoring them to your preferred tactics. With no base building and this focus on small scale skirmishing, I could understand more devoted RTS fans being upset by this direction, but for me the blend works really well. With the end of the main campaign in sight, expect a review soon.

Blood Ravens Force Commander

And to indulge my nostalgia, I reinstalled Railroad Tycoon 3, the 2003 release of the Railroad Tycoon franchise. Its 3D engine is broken under newer operating systems and I had to hunt down a fan-made patch to get it working on my Windows 7 machine (available from the Hawk & Badger Railroad fansite). I've always enjoyed the train, business and stock management of the Railroad Tycoon games, and I was quickly back into the groove of the game, picking up scenario gold medals with ease. However, the game hasn't aged well, and the 3D terrain is more frustrating than beautiful. Still looking forward to a worthy successor; and no, Sid Meier's Railroads! isn't it.

Railroad Tycoon 3

First Impressions: Forza 4 and Rock Band 3

I started playing two of my newer Xbox 360 purchases last weekend, Forza 4 and Rock Band 3 and have put in enough hours that I have some initial thoughts on each of them. And things don't look good...

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Forza 4 gets off to a bad start when you can't fully install the game until after you've completed your first "race". This isn't explained anywhere in the game or the impossibly thin manual, and trying to exit from that first race simply restarts the game, driving me crazy for nearly an hour. This was followed by trying to download the free release DLCs (for first-hand buyers) but these failed at around the 9% mark.

When I finally got to actually playing the game, it didn't feel like a huge upgrade over Forza 3. Graphics, car count and detail, track detail - all have been improved, but nothing really stands out. Maybe the interior shading and glare most noticeable during sunrise and sunset races?

The gameplay is predictably well-done simulation racing, with difficulty settings to cater for both my casual racing approach as well as my colleagues' hardcore style. There's quite a few different modes to try, though the game initially steers you to the World Tour mode as the main way to progress. I'm also quite enjoying the Rivals mode which pits you against other drivers that are near you on the global leaderboards. It does sometimes pick players on your friends list as your next rival, which isn't useful when you're not really in the same league as them.

And finally, the much touted Autovista mode for exploring the intricacies of the detailed car models, crashed my Xbox the first time I entered it. I believe it's the first time my Xbox has ever crashed like that.

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Rock Band 3 is similarly problematic. It feels a lot like Rock Band 2. Most of the new features like vocal harmonizing, pro drums, pro guitar (requires another expensive controller) and keyboard parts just don't apply to my guitar playing. Still, it's quite hard to innovate in the genre and I didn't hold that against Warriors of Rock in my review. Unfortunately, Rock Band 3 has other problems...

For one, the music selection is piss-poor. I haven't encountered a single song so far that's in my music collection or that I'd want to get for it. And there have been quite a few songs that I was just happy to finish, hoping that I'd never have to play the same song again (some song by INXS springs to mind).

And secondly, the menu navigation is really poor. Every time I've played, I've had to rediscover what's in each of the different menu options, hunting for the game's main career progression mode. It's about 4 levels deep and I think it's called something like Road Trip goals, which shows you multiple goals (similar to achievements) - selecting any of these goals opens up the full list of all the tours you can do. There are other goals you can do to progress your band, but hiding the main part of your game like that is just bad design.

As an aside, I've decided to hold off on buying Skyrim for a while (Bethesda games normally need a few patches and user mods to be playable), but from reports such as this one on RPS, designers really dropped the ball with Skyrim's user interface. I know UI design isn't easy, especially for console, but these kind of mistakes in Rock Band 3 and Skyrim should never make it past QA.

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So, while both Forza 4 and Rock Band 3 have some fun in them, I'm currently underwhelmed.

KZN Settlers Tournament 2011

Last weekend I played in the 2nd KwaZulu-Natal Settlers of Catan tournament. I'm the sort of person who can take my gaming quite seriously having played competitive chess, bridge, poker, Scrabble and Magic: The Gathering at various times during my life, but this was my first time playing competitive Settlers of Catan.

I did do some basic preparation in terms of looking at some strategy from BoardGameGeek and a couple of games of the Xbox version, Catan, playing against some pretty decent AI opponents. However, when I got to the tournament, I felt as if I was surrounded by players with much more Settlers experience than me.

Preliminary rounds

The tournament consisted of 3 preliminary rounds with each round randomly matching up the 16 players over 4 tables, followed by two semi-final table for the top 8 and then a final table. Although 80 minutes for a game of Settlers sounds like plenty, we actually timed out on my first game with three of us stuck at 8 victory points (of 10). The next two rounds were good for me as I was gifted excellent starting positions in both - including two 12-spots in round 2 - and managed to win both, though round 3 was quite tense with luck initially favouring me then deserting me towards the end. In the end I scraped a win in that game and with 28 points out of a possible 30, I qualified as the top seed from the preliminary rounds.

With only the stronger players remaining, I wasn't going to get so lucky with the setup in the final. As second in the turn order, I took a gamble that I'd be able to pick up a valuable brick harbour positioned on two brick hexes, but it was taken before I could place my second settlement. My two settlements left me with plenty of sheep and brick but without a source of wood and no prospect of building quickly to a harbour. As the game developed, with qualification for the final looming over us, trading devolved into a 2v2 kind of game and the other 2 raced ahead. In the end I finished comfortably third on the table but didn't make it to the final.

My friend, Paul, finished second in the final (playing White in the setup below, losing out to Blue).

Finals post-setup

Settlers is a decent social boardgame and I did get to meet a lot of new people. But with weaker players unbalancing the game for stronger players, king-making and lots of luck, it's a frustrating competitive game. Despite that I'm sure I'll play in the next tournament - the opprtunity to share the boardgaming hobby with like-minded locals is too good to pass up.