P.C. Shannon

I’m a sucker for Star Wars videogames, so I recently downloaded the demo for Empire at War, which is a real-time strategy (RTS) game set in the Star Wars universe. Last night, I played through the tutorial and the demo. It’s a pretty awesome game, but like I said, I’m a sucker for Star Wars games, so maybe you should take that with a grain of salt.

Empire at War goes beyond the basic harvest-build-conquer model of traditional RTS games. In fact, the resource management aspect of the game has a lot more in common with the classic galactic conquest game Master of Orion than with defining RTS games like Dune 2 or Command and Conquer. There are no resources to harvest in EaW. Instead you earn credits from each planet you control at the end of each galactic day. You can spend the credits on building installations on the planets you control, constructing warships, or recruiting soldiers. This is, for me, one of the most exciting aspects of the game, since I find harvesting to be the most annoying aspect of RTS games.

In the demo, I started off with control of Hoth and was ordered to liberate two neighboring systems from imperial control. First I constructed a large space fleet and attacked a well-defended asteroid system. The space battle was a lot of fun. The space units seem to have a rock-paper-scissors balance system: the capital ships are strong against fighters but vulnerable to bombers, the fighters are strong against bombers and other fighters but easily taken out by ships, and the bombers can make quick work of the capital ships but are easy prey for fighters. When attacking capital ships and space stations, it’s possible to target individual systems, such as the shield generator or a turbo laser battery, in order to weaken your opponent before going in for the kill.

Following the space battle, I amassed ground forces in an attempt to liberate Tatooine. This part of the game was much more frustrating as the control and view system is less intuitive than in the space battle. Also, not all of my forces were immediately available. Instead, I had to take control of reinforcement points, each of which allowed me to bring in a handful of units from my army. It seems like this part of the game could use a little work, but I strongly suspect that the demo I played was from the finalized game.

Empire at War will be released on February 15^th. Check out Gamespot for a full, professional review.

I’m still agitated by the Illinois law about selling violent videogames to minors (previous posts one and two). But then I see these commercials on TV that are designed to inform parents about the V-chip and blocking channels and whatnot. That doesn’t get my blood up at all; in fact, I think it’s a good idea. If the well-intentioned governor of Illinois — or Congress, for that matter — wanted a law that required parental controls built into videogame systems, I would be all for it.

The system I envision would work with the voluntary ESRB rating system that’s already in place. A game disc would contain an electronic stamp indicating its rating. The game system could be set to restrict use of games above a specified ratings level unless a password was entered. A computer system would be harder to lockdown than a console, but the ESRB could be offer a free utility to block running restricted games. In fact, the videogame industry ought to consider voluntarily implementing these measures as a hedge against future legislation.

I support blocking tools like these but not the Illinois legislation that targets retailers. The difference is that tools empower parents while the new law attempts to act in their stead, shifting the responsibilities of parenting from the actual parents to the state.

Previously, I wrote about a bill in Illinois that would impose fines on retailers who sell violent videogames to minors. It looks like it’s going to pass. I still think this is a bad idea. Idiots.

I’ve always wondered why we, as Americans, shun sexual content but are pretty much okay with violence. This seems to be a general rule, but it’s particularly true of the content that we let our kids consume. In Europe, the attitudes are basically reversed. They also have much lower rates of teen pregnancy and violent crime. So on the basis of that data, it looks like teaching kids openly and honestly about sex, rather than teaching them that’s dirty and will kill them, causes them to either not have sex or to do it responsibly. It also looks like exposing people, kids in particular, to violent images results in more violent crime. Interestingly, Europe is also tremendously less religious than America.

I always thought that our attitudes about sex and violence were the result of our Puritan heritage. While that’s probably true to a certain degree, it turns out that there’s a solid legal precedent for our stance. In an article in the January 10th issue of Time magazine, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone says, “There is no recognized constitutional principle that allows the government to shield children from violent expression” but there are well defined standards that block sexual content. Plus it’s simpler to categorize sex acts than violent ones, which makes it easier to specify what’s okay and what’s not in laws and policies.

The Time article is really about an effort by the Democratic governor of Illinois to impose fines on retailers who sell or rent games with certain sexual or violent content to minors. Personally, I’m appalled by this. It is the responsibility of the parents to police their children’s activities. You can’t legislate morality and you can’t legislate good parenting, but if parents think it’s okay for their 8-year-olds to play games that involve beating up prostitutes, if they can’t say “No” to their kids, then we as a society have fallen down on the job.

Video games are rated by an industry group, very similar to the way movies are rated. The ratings for games are clear and frequently are more descriptive of why the game received its rating than movie ratings. It’s true that retailers need to check ID before renting or selling games rated for adults in the same way they check ID before selling a pack of cigarettes or tickets to an R movie. (I noticed today that Best Buy does check IDs).

But some of the things parents say in the article are just ludicrous. One man, father of a six-year old boy, compares the governor’s proposal to laws against selling tobacco to minors, saying that in both cases parents need the government’s help to keep contraband out of their children’s hands. It sounds to me like he’s saying that he can’t be bothered to police his children and would someone please do it for him. What we really need are responsible retailers. I bought cigarettes in high school without a problem but got carded well after college. The difference? Responsible retailers.

Another father says of his 16-year-old son, “He can certainly separate reality from the fiction of those things.” I disagree. 16-year-olds are not adults. The vast majority of them lack the abstract reasoning capacity to learn calculus. A kid at this age will say that he understands the difference between fantasy and reality, but I don’t think he really, truly does. It’s like someone who honestly thinks he’s not prejudiced but still tells jokes that involve the N-word.

This attitude that kids are more mature than they really are is also apparent in a mother from Texas who lets her two boys, ages 9 and 15, play Grand Theft Auto, the game that involves beating up hookers. She says, “I want to raise my kids with a sense that I trust them to be good and to know how to set their own limits.” You, ma’am, are a bad parent! A 9-year-old doesn’t know the first thing about his own limits—he’ll eat Oreos until he pukes.

Sadly, this approach is indicative of an attitude prevalent in Baby Boom parents. They hated their parents for being disciplinarians, so they resolved instead to be friends to their children. Teenagers are supposed to hate their parents, get over it. Children of all ages need limits, discipline, and parental involvement. I typically hate those “anti-drug” commercials, but the ones encouraging parents to know their kids, to discipline them for being bad, and to not be afraid of disciplining them are right on the money. The parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold tried to be friends to their sons and let them do their own thing, and we all know what happened. I’m not saying the parents are solely to blame, but a little more involvement and they would have found the boys’ collection of firearms and pipe bombs.

The bottom line here is that parents need to be involved in their children’s lives. They need to screen everything their children consume, from food…

Three words: so much awesomeness. Seriously. It’s hard to beat dual-wielding plasma rifles for sheer ass-kicking power, although sneaking up behind a chump in multiplayer and nailing him with the power-sword is arguably cooler. The really amazing thing about this game is that exceeds expectations, and that’s no small order. Halo 2 is perhaps the most eagerly awaited sequel since Star Wars: Episode I, except this time we’ve got something great instead of a turd.

The plot is still outstanding. Twists and turns abound, but I won’t spoil it here. The events are a little difficult to follow, but I think it will make more sense the second time around. The action maintains a pretty furious pace, but it can be somewhat repetitive at times. It’s always frustrating when getting through an area is just a matter of trial-and-error development of a tactical approach to the situation, but thankfully, this doesn’t happen very often. At times, the game gets downright creepy, like you’ve suddenly jumped into a horror game. For example, you have to move through a hotel in an early stage, but the power is out. You know the Covenant are coming, but you don’t know when or where.

This edge-of-your-seat excitement is enhanced by the gorgeous graphics. I really considered just replaying the first couple of levels over and over because they’re so enjoyable. I did notice a slight delay in loading some textures in early cutscenes, but it was just a mild annoyance. The rest of the game runs hiccup-free, except for a slight bump when loading each stage. Gone are the long loading times between levels.

I haven’t played multiplayer on Xbox Live yet, so I can’t comment on that. But I did get a chance to check out multiplayer on System Link with some buddies. The pistol was the most powerful weapon, in mutliplayer at least, from the first Halo, but it has been substantially reduced in power for the current game. The maps are all fun and run about like before, but with better balance between weapons that helps keep one player from dominating. The vehicles are fun, too, since now you can drive the Wraith tank, Warthog variants, and a few other new additions. The missile launcher will lock onto vehicles, or you can always hijack one from your opponent. With the tanks, first you bash open the hatch, then toss a grenade inside. Like I said, so much awesomeness!

I’ve been looking for a way to play BattleTech with Jeff for some time. For various reasons, I’ve limited my search to play-by-e-mail (PBEM) solutions. There aren’t really any specific for BattleTech, but there’s Cyberboard, which is a good “electronic cardboard” tool. We would still have to keep track of everything manually, plus check each other’s calculations by hand. And with the way the turn sequence works in BT, it’s just way more work than it’s worth. So I’ve decided to write one on my own. Wesley’s friend Andrew has generously offered to help on the server side. I’ve been doing a lot of background work lately, laying out a strategy and whatnot. I will have to learn some new languages (Javascript, PHP, and a little MySQL basically), but I already understand the programming concepts involved. I wrote a decent little n-tier app when I was still doing IT stuff, and this isn’t too different. It’s just that implementing all the game rules will be a little tricky. I’m looking forward to it, and most of all, to finally whooping Jeff’s ass good.

I spent a few more hours with KOTOR last night, and I like it more. I’ve figured out the subtleties of the combat system, so it’s no longer annoying. I’ve also stopped transporting back to the hideout every few minutes to heal. It seems like once you clear an area and move on, it remembers that. It just reloads the bad guys if you leave an area prematurely — going back to a previous level or teleporting back to your home base — probably to discourage you from doing that. It worked on me.

There’s also a great sense of satisfaction in completing a quest. I only had to cheat once last — I had to lookup a walk-thru on GameSpot to figure out one section. But it turned out that I just didn’t understand how to do something rather than not knowing exactly what to do.

In summary, a very very fun game.

I played KOTOR for about 3 hours last night. I like it, for the most part. It does degenerate into a hack-n-slash adventure at times, which is really annoying when you’re trying to get thru a section and you keep getting killed in the same spot. What’s the fun of that? It’s very frustrating. Also, you can only walk forward, so if you want to retreat in a combat situation, you have to expose your back. WTF?!?! It also has this weird feature where you can basically teleport back to your base, and then return to your starting position. This is nice because it allows you to change your party make up as you please, and also heal completely. However, when you return to your starting position, all the creatures you killed are reincarnated (actually this happens whenever you leave the area and then re-enter — it doesn’t remember which beasts you’ve defeated — which makes you wonder why the Xbox has a hard drive). The teleport feature also allows you to bypass any security checkpoints in the way — you have to sneak past the first time, but after that, you just magically whoosh by them.

So in summary, the role-playing part is very cool, but the combat is kinda sucky. And the graphics could be better. Oh well. I’m not a Jedi yet, so I’m sure everything will be much cooler then.

Official Website
GameSpot Review