War whilst the Sun is Rising

I've been dabbling in Dawn of War 2 lately and it's had the odd effect of making me crave a traditional RTS, a genre I've been burnt out on since the early aughts. In fact, the only reason I decided to give DoW 2 a look was because it was very non-traditional.

But at some point tonight when I was wading through a vast green sea of angry Tyranid I began to crave the ability to lay down a nice barracks, perhaps a wall or two. Maybe harvest some quantity of Unobtanium or some similarly ludicrous resource.

Don't get me wrong, the premise is charming: a squad-based isometric game with heavy RPG mechanics and the trappings of a strategic meta-game. I think part of the reason I'm not totally infatuated with it is because I'm getting echoes of Dragon Age, which I spent over a hundred hours playing and with which I'm thoroughly exhausted. I suppose I'm not fully ready for another game where I pause the action, issue orders to individual characters, and watch passively while they're carried out.

I'm not done with it, certainly, and I'm enjoying my time with it. But there are moments, like tonight, where my thoughts stray irresistibly towards Tiberium.

-a

By the rationale that GTA encourages gang activity and violence against prostitutes, The Tudors is inspiring our children to seduce women, marry them, cheat on them, annul their marriages, accuse them of treason/witchcraft, and behead them. Shame on you, Showtime.

The inaugural post. I thought I'd break my blogging cherry by reflecting on what's evidently one of the hottest trends in gaming: building RPG mechanics into practically every other genre.

It began, as far as I can tell, with sports games. EA's annual titles all began including metrics for tracking player's physical characteristics: Strength, Speed, Stamina, etc. Sound familiar? Perhaps they'd be more recognizable dubbed Str, Dex, and Con. As these titles evolved, they even spawned modes where a player assumed the role of a single athlete and followed his career from high school to the pros. This, I suppose, is what happens when you put the development of sports games into the hands of nerdy programmers.

But now examples are legion: Dawn of War 2, Modern Warfare, Fallout 3, Borderlands. When I loaded up DiRT 2 I can't pretend surprise to learn that I'd be earning experience points to advance my level.

I couldn't be happier. I've always been a fan of RPGs in large part because of the way they let you benchmark a character's progress and expand his abilities. The reason I got into the EA titles and much of the reason that I have any interest in sports is because of games like Madden that let me manufacture superstars.

So cheers, developers. Perhaps one day these RPG systems will have fully supplanted the "unlocks" of yore, and what a golden world that will be.

-a