It’s November, which means two things:

1. Video Games are coming out (of course, they did that in October too)

2. I don’t actually have money to purchase most of them, because I’m paying my own rent and want to pretend to be responsible once in a while

In my personal case, there is only one major November release that will likely see any play from me, and that is Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s the kind of game that I have to play for myself, regardless of critical or fan reception and regardless of how much it might hurt. I pre-ordered it for a reduced price on Greenman Gaming a while ago, so it has managed to narrowly escape the void of my current bank account balance :/ This all said, homework hasn’t kept me down as much as I thought it would, and I actually have a couple of things to say about some things in a brief fashion. I just figured it would be better for me and all involved if I actually wrote things more than once a month.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth

I’d call myself a “fan” of the Civilization series, though my hour count on Civ V is a mere 97 hours which I’m sure is a fraction of what some of you have put in. Given the current state of Beyond Earth though, I might just go back to Brave New World and bump that hour count up a few more digits. That’s as much a slight against “Definitely not the spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri” (because it isn’t really) as it is a recognition of how far Civ V has come since its vanilla incarnation from 2010… and it’s also me implicitly stating that if I’m going to play something like Beyond Earth, I might as well play its more expansive, more interesting predecessor. Or I could play Alpha Centauri, which has actually crossed my mind a few times even if that game has its own share of carry-overs from Civ II that I’m not a huge fan of.

Sure, the devil is always in the details, but on a broad level there isn’t a huge difference mechanically between Beyond Earth and Civ V. The biggest changes come in the form of the affinity system, the tech web and the presence of aliens. And indeed, those things together do make for a somewhat different game of Civilization, one that rewards a somewhat more aggressive hand (given that aliens are like Barbarians who are still sort of a threat until the mid-game) and allows for a bit more overt variation in technological progression from game to game. Alas, the woes of the vanilla game are also present here, and some of the unique systems feel a little half-baked right now. Affinities are all well and good, but the unique victory conditions for all 3 don’t feel different enough, and the actual bonuses to units are more in the raw “circumstantial numerical bonuses” category rather than significant differences between a purity soldier and a harmony soldier. The tech web is perhaps a tad too confusing at first, and even after getting a grip on it I can’t help but feel like it’s not very intuitive right now. Aliens? Aliens are okay, even if they aren’t so tough once you get your hands on some tier 2 units. But at least it is all future stuff, right? Yeah, that’s pretty cool. That being said (to continue dumping on this game I still think is entirely okay) this game has made me realize how much the historical aspects of Civ add to the game, when you’re discovering writing ‘n stuff as part of your plan towards historical supremacy. As someone whose favorite part of Civilization V and Alpha Centauri are the voice-over quotes whenever you discover a new technology, I think the ones for these weird hypothetical future technologies aren’t nearly as well written as the ones in SMAC (or, implicitly as cool as all the great historical quotes in Civ IV and V) . It’s a little thing, but I think it is representative of the game maybe lacking some personality. Doesn’t help that there are only 8 leaders right now, especially since their bonuses are pretty minor.

I think the reason I’m so content to expose Beyond Earth’s flaws right now is because the quality of its core gameplay is self-evident, given how much it borrows from Civ V. You already know if you like these kinds of games. But I think if you’ve spent any amount of serious time with the previous game, you’re almost better off just sticking to that until Firaxis improves and differentiates this one with DLC/Expansions. That core is strong enough that I’ll probably get around the 20 hour mark, but I’m not sure I’ll do much else until then.

Other things

I wonder how getting into weird, obscure stuff has become expected of me over the past 5 or so years of blogging on this website. Still, I guess you could get more obscure than “The only Ace Attorney game to have never made it over to the west” (at least until the next one doesn’t get released over here), given that the fan community has been active enough to put out a superb translation patch for it. As with all of these kinds of games, explaining specifics about the story spoils what makes them good in the first place, so I’ll merely suffice to say that I think this is quite a bit better than the first Ace Attorney Investigations and it’s both understandable and a pity that this one never came over here. Given how many callbacks to not only the first Edgeworth game but past Ace Attorney games in general there are, it seems pretty obvious that only people who are already fans of the series should give it a look. Of course, if you’re going to the trouble of downloading a translation patch for a game that came out in another language, chances are you’ve already proven a certain level of dedication. Of course, this also led me to purchasing Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright when I was in the Gamestop the other day, so I might just be sort of nuts.

Other than these, I’ve been messing around with Sam and Max (which I think is very, very funny, for as much as I know I’m just going to look at the stupid hint book and spoil everything for myself) and TIE Fighter, which is both hard and fun and I’m not great at these games anyways. Oh right! Jazzpunk. Jazzpunk is also very funny. I sure am glad I didn’t pay $15 for Jazzpunk, because it’s like 2 hours long. Thanks Humble Bundle! The other stuff from that bundle I’ve messed with thus far are 15 minutes of Tower of Guns (Meh) and occasionally thinking about trying to get friends to play Risk of Rain because I have 3 other keys. Also I will probably continue playing Legend of Grimrock 2 through all of this, which I find to be quite enjoyable. Until next time, remember that Legend of Zelda speedruns are basically dark wizardry.