FUEL was my first purchase, at around £5. I’d read the hype that was happening before it’s release, with it’s ridiculously huge open world and the like, but for me the game was a let down. After banging my head against the wall whilst the necessary Games for Windows Live installed and updated itself (Closing the game around 4 times in the process, I mean, what the hell GFWL, why would you do that?), I leapt into the game. Well, no I didn’t, because I needed to adjust the graphics options, which you can’t do ingame. Sigh. Another restart of the game later and FINALLY I can start playing. And.. well.. I really didn’t like it. The actual racing felt clunky and rigid and the way of accessing races, whilst probably the best way to do it with such a large world, took you out of the game. Ditching races for the moment I decided just to explore, and whilst my surroundings looked nice, everywhere felt kinda samey.. Even climbing to some of the game’s Vista points just got me to see the same stuff in a prettier way. Having said that, the weather and light cycles were really enjoyable. Driving along a clifftop path whilst the sun is setting was the most fun I had in the game. What really killed it for me though is the poor GPS, if you’re going to have a game hyped up because of it’s huge gameworld, you might want to make sure it’s usable.

Whoops, went into a bit more detail that I’d meant to there, so I’ll quickly skip over the next three I picked up. Kane and Lynch wouldn’t even start and I’ve not launched Indigo Prophecy or Painkiller yet. Both games I’ve been meaning to play for a while, and finally picked up nice and cheap. Unfortunately, other games have been calling, but I’ll get round to them eventually. Also grabbed the Hitman pack, which wasn’t even on sale. Curse your purchase convincing ways Steam! Saints Row 2, Killing Floor and GTA IV also got bought cheaply, but I’ve not played them enough to write about those either. I wonder why…

Oh yes. Because Civilisation IV EATS TIME. Taking over 2 hours to complete the tutorial (To be fair, I did carry on with the game ’till I could nuke Ghandi) it’s certainly a game you need to set some time apart for, which we have indeed been doing. We need to finish that 9 player game we started last night people, it was going pretty awesomely ’till everyone had to leave. Anyway yes, classic turn based strategy game, if you didn’t buy it you lost out.

Red Faction Guerilla was a game I nearly didn’t buy when the sale rolled round, but was convinced to do so. Glad I was, because after I’ve jumped through the glitchy hoops of getting it working somewhat on my machine (The driving still lags, anyone got any idea why?) it’s a lot of fun. I’ve been.. ignoring the missions and smashing as much as possible with a hammer. Probably says something about me, but hey, hammers are cool. Not to mention explosives. Explosives are also cool. Combining the two is, well you get the picture. For £3.75, despite it’s bugs, it’s a fun-filled destructionfest. Boom!

FlatOut Ultimate Carnage was on sale for £1.70 one day. It has online multiplayer, so myself and a couple of people in dahouse (<3) decided to snap it up for that price. The opinions you get will be.. different, depending on who you ask. I enjoyed it, the mere pleasure of racing schoolbuses around a figure of eight track was, to me, worth the price alone. The handling, or lack thereof, grew on me, and the destruction derby mode is pretty damn awesome. Toby on the other hand, was trying to find a way to remove the game from his account entirely, he was that unimpressed by it. Deary me.

Finally the sale has gotten me playing Borderlands once again, which the DLC finally being cheap enough (and containing a G enough) for me to pick it up. Damn that game is fun, that is all.

So I have all of these new games to play! What shall I play, what shall I play… spoilt for choice really…

What’s that Valve? …Engineer update?

Eh, screw those games. TO TF2!

After recently completing the first Mario Galaxy, I took full responsibility of playing it at the expo. Throughout both days there was a massive crowd around the game, implying it’ll be new and different to the previous game however after managing to play it at the last minute I found I could shorten this review to “more of the same” but that would make it seem like a bad thing, since it is still one of my favourite Mario games and so much has been improved.

First of the premise, which is the same as usual. Peach has yet again been captured by Bowser and you as the portly plumber have to go save her (I’d have given in by now and just let Bowser have her) by collecting stars from various levels (galaxies) and face several bosses along the way. So just like any other Mario game but that was to be expected.

Cloud Mario takes to the skies.

Now onto the new and improved stuff. Nintendo have really studied the previous game and improved what they can. Controls remain the same but are introduced with a friendly more familiar 2D style level. Level selection is done in an easier method than the old observatory similar to Super Mario 3, Co-Op is performed in the same way but provides help by snagging not only Star Bits the main player might’ve missed but also retrieve items, the camera has been improved and in a rare case for a game the camera will not need you to control it. Finally hints are present at what to do next and the option for additional help for the game is available should you need it.

All this makes the game much more accessible and fun to play, though that doesn’t mean it’s easy, far from it. All concepts introduced in the first game: gravity changes, comet challenges and even the bosses’ techniques have been improved, expanded and made more challenging. Completionists and experts also get extra challenges as you unlock more the more you complete. Playing a level as Luigi will open up developer speedruns and getting all 120 stars unlocks an extra challenge, expanding the game’s lifespan.

More playable characters are available this time around too. Luigi does not require you to play the whole game again to play as him and is available near the start. Mario’s trusty pet Yoshi also makes an appearance with unique abilities and classic tongue action to eat enemies and spit them right back at them. Speaking of abilities Mario has some new powers too: The Cloud Mushroom enables players to create up to three platforms by shaking the Wiimote. And the Rock Mushroom gives Mario the ability to roll up into a boulder and bowl down enemies.

So in short, another excellent Mario game with enough gameplay to last a long time. (Oh, and for you Mario 64 fans, there is a galaxy you might recognise in the game)

I wouldn’t call myself a particularly rabid fan of Rhythm Action games. I do really enjoy a good game of Rock Band with friends and I’ll be damned if I didn’t spend hours upon hours sitting on my own in the dark when Guitar Hero II was released, but when you take a step back the genre looks a bit… well, less interactive with the music than the finely tuned note charts of the aforementioned series’. Instead of the game directly influencing the music, the music just has some effect on how the game plays.

That’s the problem part of me had with Audiosurf. As I followed the hype before it’s release my head was picturing something responding perfectly and clearly to any song you popped into the game. Of course this was impossible, and whilst Audiosurf is still an enjoyable game it wasn’t what I was hoping for. Neither was Beat Hazard, a recently released rhythm action game for the PC and Xbox 360.

The best way to describe Beat Hazard would be a Geometry Wars that reacts to your music. And with a ton more glowing, flashy things, which if you’ve played Geometry Wars is a bit of an accomplishment! Yes, Beat Hazard is a top down, one-screen shooter, where many things are effected by the musical input. The spawning of enemies and bosses are effected, as are your weapons capabilities and indeed the plethora of visual effects the game utilises to help you on your way to seizure town.

The demo I grabbed off of Steam gives you 10 songs to play before it expires, so I quickly set about seeing what Beat Hazard could handle in a fun manner. I’d been told beforehand that it favoured something with a lot of guitar and drums, so I leapt into the Subhumans track ‘Internal Riot‘. The game seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake, the song starting off quite fast paced (and remaining so throughout) it seemed a bit hesitant to get going. Floating around with some asteroids made of space-junk to fire my pea-shooter strength lasers at for a bit before even getting my first enemy. Eventually it picked it socks up and got going, sending in a few waves and throwing out some volume and weapon powerups (The volume powerups are a bit lame.. I want it loud right away curse you!). All the time the aesthetics are bellowing into my eyes as I tried desperately to focus on my ship at the same time as keeping an eye on the swarm of enemies incoming, shrouded in a sea of particle effects, powerfully reacting to the music but.. well, just a bit distracting. I’m not very good at keeping my eyes on everything happening onscreen at the best of times (So shoot me?) and I was quickly overwhelmed and lost my three lives to end the song. Death was a bit disappointing, I enjoyed the “punish the score but don’t stop the action” stance of AudioSurf, but at least each death was pretty with all the colour draining out of the screen ’till I’d built the volume up once again.

Unperturbed I flicked open my music library and tried a bit of variation. “Bait Theif” by Bit_Rat, a nice, fast paced chiptune track was going pretty well until the bosses appeared and I got blown to smithereens., I’d recommend it if you’re better than me, which isn’t hard. The album’s free and available for download via that little link there, it’s a good listen. Next up was “Aint no rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant, a song I unashamedly only know from the Borderlands intro. I fared much better this time, the game seemingly going easy on me with the slightly more laid back song, and I managed to make my way through the whole track unscathed, beating a boss in the process, another song I’d recommend playing! Looking for more variation I played “Warez loder” by YTCracker, “Cave Story” by Vernian Process, “California Uber Alles” by Dead Kennedys and “Indestructible” by Disturbed, which I lasted an awful 33% into, eep.

I forget the other songs I played (Yes I’m too lazy to check) but once I’d run the demo well dry of free songs, I idly clicked back to the main menu whilst admiring the continued music effecting the menu screen similarly to the game. There on the splash screen was the option to just watch the visualiser as a song plays. Well, I was terrible at the game, but I -do- like flashy seizure time set to good music! *Click*. I’m not quite sure how long I sat there watching lovely, lovely fullscreen colours, but it was probably not very good for me. It was pretty damn awesome though.

Apart from a few errors I had to start with (the current version of the game played up with my 1680×1050 resolution) and the error sat between the screen and the chair, the game was pretty fun. If I weren’t so terrible at these sort of games I’d probably pick it up on Steam, as it stands I am absolutely abysmal and would be very happy if I could get it as a WMP visualisation or something. Go on, you know you want to make one Cold Beam!

So yes, check out this gameplay video, pick up the demo now on Steam and give it a go- providing you’re not epileptic of course!

<3

As part of GeneShark’s GTPBYD feature I’ve decided that I’ll suggest Mass Effect, a game for the XBOX 360 and PC created by BioWare. The main concept of this game is that it is a space exploration RPG with some shooter elements. You play as Shepard, who is a commander of a ship who is also completely unique depending on who plays him or her. For Shepard can be a boy or girl. Shepard can be old or young. And Shepard can look like whatever you want him to, although only if it falls within the 10 face shapes and 12 eye types etc.

This is one of many reasons why I think this is a game to play before you die. Most games struggle in the RPG category from either sound problems or lack of variety. For example in Morrowind the only time you saw your characters name was in text. This game however allows you to give your character a completely original first name and yet still utilizes the full extend of spoken word, no part of this is reading except for speech choices and subtitles.

Which brings me on to the speech choices, these are easily set out in a disc shape at the bottom of the screen with up to 6 choices around it. Selecting the choices involve simply selecting it using an analogue stick or mouse. Although when you select a choice the description may be only a few words, the character Shepard will actually say more in the script based upon what you say and also previous decisions.

One of the many dialogue trees in he mass effect game

The game allows you to take multiple routes in creating your character, most simply allowing you to be a Paragon or Renegade (Good or Evil), but also letting you choose a character class and background story before the game starts, affecting certain missions or scripts. The main combat element of the game involves 4 weapon classes (Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Pistols and Sniper Rifles). There are hundreds of these weapons ranging form level I to X. Also there are ammo upgrades and performance upgrades for the weapons as well as armour and armour upgrades and a grenade launcher and grenade upgrades.

What I’m saying is that the weapon customization is HUGE, like most of the customization in the game. The game also has massive replayability value by letting you restart the game at the same level and with the same equipment as when you finished. Getting achievements is a biog challenge in the game as you would expect it to be.

And I haven’t even got to the biggest part of the game, the exploration and side missions. The game is set all across the Milky Way galaxy, and includes around 20 different clusters and over 50 systems and very near to 500 planets. Of course it is impossible to land on every planet, so BioWare made it seem realistic, letting you land on planets that we’re between certain suface temperatures and pressures etc. This means that you may only be able to land on 1 planet in each system (not Earth sorry, but the moon you can :D). And the size of the planets themselves are very big areas that would take a good 30 minutes to an hour each to ensure you found everything on them.

So in all this game is a truly great RPG experience with enormous customization capabilities and very few technical problems, the most obvious of these is that rendering times for some of the textures are quite slow.
And all these reasons pull together to show why i think this game is a game to play before I die.

LAST POINT – BRAGGING RIGHTS:

I just want to say this about my own game which I am currently playing through the second time:

Level: 58
Weapons: All Spectre X weapons with upgrades of level X
Paragon %: 100
Armour: Predator L which is the best shield and tech/biotec defensewise
Credits: 9,999,999 (Max)
# of achievements: 25

The team-based wild west shooter Lead and Gold came out of beta today and was officially released, so I figured I’d better hop back onto it and see how things have improved since my last session, which admittedly, was a couple of updates ago. I grabbed JMB22 (who had just bought the game) and we set up a simple 1vs1 shootout.

I was pleasantly surprised. Choosing the Trapper and heading off to go evilly pick JMB off with the buffalo rifle I found that the aiming had been drastically improved, one of my major gripes with the game whilst it was in beta. Either Fatshark had made it a little easier, or my week of no-lifing on CSS has paid off in some minor way… Other improvements include the range of graphical options, letting my graphics card happily chug away with it on low/medium instead of crying at being stuck running on high. Good times.

The balancing of the classes seems nice. Each definitely has situations they’re great in and those situations you’re only coming out of in a casket. Take the aforementioned Trapper, lovely at picking off JMB from a distance, but let him get close as a Blaster and you’re absolutely fucked. In the face. With a shotgun. Ow. The Trapper and the Blaster are the extreme classes, as it were. The Gunslinger and the Deputy seem a little more balanced for ranged or close combat, and are good classes to use as you’re getting used to the game.

As well as requiring the various classes to be working together to truly be an effective team, Lead and Gold introduces the Synergy system to encourage sticking together. A classes synergy is an energy that radiates around them giving team mates within range a class-specific boost. As well as the health-regen every class gets, the Trapper radiates critical hit likeliness, the Blaster radiates defence, the Gunslinger radiates accuracy and the Deputy radiates attack. It’s an interesting and effective system, and I’m looking forward to utilising it better in some larger shootouts.

As well as shootout, Lead and Gold offers quite a number of game modes over a multitude of maps. It’s fun, a bit different and hell, for £9.99 you can’t go wrong.

Theme Hospital

Hello you lovely people. This is some sort of section where the silly people here at MTTG tell you to play some sort of game before you die. Because I was asked nicely, I agreed to join in. Anyone with any sense will have probably already read this on my blog, but hey, it’s here now, so here you go. My contribution: Theme Hospital.

There are people who don’t like old games. They would see system requirements like 75MHz processor, 16MB of RAM and Direct X 5, and immediately return the game to the shelf to find the latest GTA, Call of Duty or Halo. Those people are fools and deserve to miss out on the greatness that these games have to offer. Others will pick it up and read the blurb which asks “Can you balance the books and the bedpans?” and decide that any sort of financial balancing act is beyond them. “Design maintain and manage a hi-tech hospital facility?” they would scoff, “Making the most of limited resources and turning cures into cash? Who do you think I am?” They chuckle to their equally idiotic friend. “You’ll be struck by the fun, if you don’t get struck off.” They will guffaw, put the game back in the wrong place and then go off to beat a prostitute over the head and claim that this is the best thing ever. They are fools and should be shot. Twice.

Now, whilst I don’t have a specific problem with GTA (even if the franchise is horribly dead), or CoD, which can offer some fun, even Halo, in all its horrendously overrated glory, can provide moments of fun, they do not bear comparison to the joy offered by a Bullfrog title like Theme Hospital.

Let me take you back to your childhood. When you were young and asked “What is it you want to be when you grow up?” you probably said “Batman” or “Wonder woman”, maybe “Princess” for some of the boys at the back, you might have said you wanted to be a fireman, or a vet. deep down, however, we all know what you meant. Really you wanted to be a hospital administrator. You always wanted the pleasure of choosing who to hire, you wanted to manage details like making sure patients had enough seating, you wanted to ensure you had fire extinguishers ready, enough heating to keep people warm. Make sure there were toilets and a staff room. All the little details. You wanted the chance to entertain visiting VIPs, impress the hospital board and get a promotion.

I can hear you all laughing. You think I’m crazy. There is no way that something like this could be fun. What is this silly man talking about? This isn’t a game I should be playing before I die. Well, the intro video will probably go some way to showing you that this game isn’t all about hard work.

If you think you are in for just simple diseases, think again. This is a 1997 Bullfrog game, it has humour. Diseases include Bloaty head (which needs popping), Invisibility, Slack Tongue (Which needs chopping off) and baldness (Yes there is a cure!). Your wonderful receptionist will ask people not to die in the corridor, keep their germs to themselves and, of course, telling the morgue patients to be quiet. Even hiring staff members can be fun when you read some of the personality descriptions provided.

There is depth to this game, varying missions, all with different requirements, chances to shoot rats between some levels, and trying to get one up on the other, computer controlled, hospitals, all with familiar names. There is a multi-player option, but that isn’t as easy as it sounds. This was a DOS game, and as such the protocols available in the multi-player patch (Serial Cable, Modem, and IPX/SPX) aren’t really available on modern PCs. There are some work-a-rounds, but none for the more recent OSs, at least that I’ve found. That’s no great loss, and the other patch, the one that makes people pregnant, is still alive and kicking.

So why do I want you all to run a hospital before you die? This game is funny. I don’t just mean that you will snicker a bit at people as you watch them use the toilet, I mean there is a layer of humour here that Bullfrog did well in the games of this era. The game play is great, the challenge really does grow as you progress, and the graphics, while not super-realistic, aren’t too shabby for a game that is now 12 years old.

There are no invading armies (except some rats), there are no guns (except for use on aforementioned rats), there are no prostitutes (at least as far as I know), no zombies (although people can die) and there isn’t any Hot coffee (although people can get pregnant), but this is game in many ways superior to GTA IV, CoD 4, Halo 3, and many other modern games.

This is Theme Hospital. On the PC not the PlayStation. This needs to be played before you die.

MTFBWY

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This content is reposted from the Random Blog of Random Blogginess. The original post can be found here. It is used, with permission, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Any trademarks or copyrights relating to Theme Hospital, Bullfrog or EA are the property of the respective trademark and copyright holders. They are used under fair use and no infringing claims are intended.

So after a lot of nagging from GeneShark/Tom I decided to have a look at the Just Cause 2 demo, I had a look through the Playstation Store and went to download it. It was at this point I realised I had about 70MB free space on my Harddrive, so I went over to my 360 and downloaded it there.

So when I loaded it up it started going through some intro cut-scene thingy, which I was not paying much attention to because I was too busy talking in our IRC channel (which you should totally join). Without noticing I was then in gameplay, I took a few steps forward then a timer appears in the top-right corner. This was the timer for demo play, it was set to 30 minutes, which I suppose is a reasonable amount of time for a demo.

How goddamn awesome is this

Now with most game demos what I would expect is the typical tutorial level (and maybe one more) so I can get used to what the game was about. It seems what little explanation about what I was doing was in that little cut-scene (Crap >.<). But nevertheless I tried to make sense of it. There were basic control prompts still like ‘RT to shoot’ etc. So I started having a look around for something to do relevant to progress. That was until I found the grappling hook…

For nearly the rest of the demo I found my self grappling onto and riding on top of cars, grappling up huge-ass cliffs and parachuting down or unnecessarily grappling along the floor. I alerted some police of some kind and had a bit of fun shooting the before grappling off into the skies.

This was fun too!

Although at one point I stumbled upon this military base, and stole a helicopter (by grappling onto it and then entering of course) which was fun, until I left the ‘Demo area’ at which point I had to turn a helicopter around and get it back to the demo area within 10 seconds. Of course I couldn’t and the demo reset and put me back to the start (without resetting my 30 minutes) it was at this point I couldn’t be asked anymore.

So,in conclusion I’d have to say: didn’t have a damn clue what was going on,  but the grappling hooks and helicopters are fun. This game is out this Friday (on week of posting). Or was released 26th March 2010 if this is being read at a later date.

In addition, more recently I have been emailed an additional 3 codes to give out (for being part of the beta) for which I have given out 2. So the first person to ask for one in the comments either here or on TurtleStomp (where this post will also be featured) can have the last code. [UPDATE- Code has now been claimed]

Ok enough talking about beta codes etc, the actual game is a racing game which looks like your average racing game until you find out about the vehicular combat. Yes that’s right vehicular combat, gaining power ups, attacking other racers and leaving hazards on the track.  All the usual stuff you’d expect in games like Crash Team Racing or even Mario Kart. But this game is much more serious and you still need a reasonable amount of racing skill required to win.

With games such as Mario Kart and using it as an example here, you will find first place stuck with damn koopa shells and the like whilst the player in last bullet bills theirself past absolutely everyone, then the cycle repeats on the person now in last as a result. With blur the powerups are out there on the track and you can see what each one is before you drive through it.

Bullet Bill (on mario kart wii)- If you are last, you'll get this a lot!

Also in blur you are driving a real car, not a tiny go kart which can somehow hop and skid around corners and which usually maxes out at about 30mph (despite what their speedometer might say). You have the feel of being in a serious racing game but with the added perk of vehicular combat. Now I know there are other racing games which do not have slow moving go-karts with weapons and/or powerups but if I can remember, pretty much all of them are set in the future, where as blur is set now with real cars.

Online multiplayer in Blur can take up to 20 players in a race lobby, and when you are in a race with about 10 or more it starts to get interesting, especially at the start when everyone is crowded together and cars are skidding and flipping everywhere with close range powerup attacks. The one downfall I have noticed is that the slots not taken by players are not filled by AI, so if you are stuck in a 3 or 4 player lobby and the race starts (lobby takes control of itself, giving a choice of 2 tracks for players to vote between and a 1 min gap between races) .

Go to the next page (you know you want to)

For countless years, heaven and hell have been warring against each other, with neither side triumphing over the other.  Until amidst the warring and fighting a new kind of kingdom was being born, the humans, as the humans were a very young and fragile race, the Charred Council which is a neutral party designed to keep watch on the balance of the fighting, decide that the wars should cease as to let this new race grow. They make heaven and hell form a pact to stop fighting until a time that the human race might potentially become a threat. This pact was sealed with seven seals which were hidden. For years the human race grew and grew, but something happened which shouldn’t have, the seals were broken prematurely and you, which is war was sent to end the threat to the balance, but you was betrayed and the council blamed you for causing the apocalypse, they stripped you of your former powers and sent you back to earth 100 years later after the apocalypse to a world stricken with demons, to try and find out why and who broke the seals prematurely, in their eyes if you are killed then you are therefore punished for the cause of the apocalypse, but if you truly find out who and why did it then they will be judged by the council. Well that’s the back story.

Sexy angel woman... Shame she hates you.

Let me start on the actual review.

Story- the story is good and you actually get many cut scenes describing what is happening and what you should do next etc. I won’t give out spoilers but you find out who broke the seals and you try to bring them to justice etc. There are many characters which are cleverly done to explain the different sides of heaven and hell etc.

Game play: this game is like a combination of: the Legend of Zelda series, God of war, World of Warcraft (some of the graphics), Portal (a small degree).

Combat- the combat system is quite simple but entertaining, each of the weapons are oversized, you have a button for your sword, the X button (Xbox), a button for your secondary weapon, the Y button (Xbox) which is either a scythe or a large electrified glove/fist. You have a target system by holding the left trigger, similar to LoZ Z targeting. Your sword is huge and is about as tall as you and called the Chaoseater which is Wars’ signature weapon. The scythe is unlocked using a code there might be another way of getting it but I’m not sure what, I don’t rightly know if your given this code some point in the game as I used the code which is given in a collectors’ edition of the game, the scythe is called the harvester which has a very large swing and hits multiple enemies, this scythe is the weapon of Death, who is another of the horsemen. The fist weapon is called the tremor gauntlet and this is also a huge oversized fist gauntlet, it used to break crystals in the game and is very powerful against certain enemies, it can be charged up to do a powerful ground punch etc. There are many combinations in the combat system such as: holding left trigger and pressing back and X or Y to do a powerful attack that knocks the enemy in the air, pressing X X X to do a string of sword moves etc. You can also block and counter many of the enemy attacks against you by pressing the right bumper, to do a counter you time the pressing of the RB to just as the attack hits you to block it then do a powerful counterattack.

]]> http://moretothegame.co.uk/2010/03/360-darksiders-review/feed/ 2 http://moretothegame.co.uk/2010/03/pc-dwarf-fortress/ http://moretothegame.co.uk/2010/03/pc-dwarf-fortress/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:55:50 +0000 Rogue http://moretothegame.co.uk/?p=2587 It’s 2:07 on a Monday morning as I’m writing this review, though I get the feeling it’s not so much a review as part plug, part grumble and part character assassination of bearded men of a short stature (that is, dwarves).

Ever since it’s publication half a century ago, Tolkein’s fantasy epic and it’s menagerie of siblings, cousins and revisions has influenced current thought, and introduced to us the modern idea of dwarves. Stocky, stoic and seldom sober they have graced fantasy ever since, and Dwarf Fortress does nothing to question this. However, this game has taught me to never look at those grumpy little bastards in the same way. Ever.

To begin with, Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress (I shall refer to it as Dwarf Fortress from here on) is a real time strategy game and the project of 2 designers and is available free for download from their website, Bay 12 Games .  It’s been in development since 2002 and is still in the Alpha phase, but is at a stage of detail and development that most games reach when completed and is still fully playable. It uses ASCII graphics (like a Roguelike) though several player made mods are available that replace the text symbols with sprites to make it easier to follow.

The game begins with an opening sequence using text to animate the actions of a dwarf before leading in to the title screen. It is of note to mention at this point that all the music in the game was composed and played by the lead designer himself, adding a haunting backdrop to gameplay. On your first play you will be prompted to either create a world randomly or by design parameters.

This is the first remarkable thing about the game is that it generates a fantasy world, complete with rivers, mountains, forests, geological formations, down to the very rocks that make up the world (this becomes important later on). If this were not enough it then generates civilisations, deities, and history and lets you display all this happening. And it names it all too. What this means in essence is that when you generate a world it will always be a random, new world to play.

Once you’ve got through this you can begin playing. There are three gameplay modes: Adventurer, Legends and Dwarf Fortress.Adventurer is a hack and slash single player RPG mode that lets you play as a human, dwarven or elven adventurer. Legends I shall come to later, but Dwarf Fortress mode is the meat of the game.

When you enter Dwarf Fortress mode you must first choose a location almost anywhere on the map. You are given information about rock type, climate, vegetation, everything you need to choose an ideal setting. Typically dwarves are mountain people and it can help to have a mountain setting but I’ve had jungle dwarves, hill dwarves, even beach dwarves. All the raw information given is important as it’ll tell you what resources to start with, what enemies to expect and quite literally the lay of the land.

Following this you are then given the choice of preparing carefully or throwing yourself straight in. Preparing carefully let’s you choose the skills your dwarves start, along with the supplies and livestock they get too. This, like the ability to choose your location on the map with the information given, encourages you to think carefully about what you’re doing.