Carl Chavez

I was playing the game FTL: Faster Than Light tonight with the Torus, the drone carrier.

Here was my ship’s configuration at the beginning of the final mission:

Crew: an Engi helmsman, a Rock gunner, a Mantis shield technician, a Human engineer, and an Engi mechanic/shield tech.
Weapons: Ion Blast II, Ion Bomb, Heavy Laser I.
Drones: Laser I, Beam I, Defense I.
Extras: Advanced FTL Navigation, Engi Medibots, Advanced Reloader, Cloak I (later II), Engine IV, Shield VI. 8 fuel, 25+ missiles, 15 drones.

I reached the enemy flagship and fought the first engagement with minimal damage. By targeting its shields with both the Ion Blast and Ion Bomb, I was able to bring the shields down quickly. I used the Heavy Laser to damage the shield generators as well. That enabled both my Laser and Beam drones to rip apart the flagship’s components. The flagship retreated with major damage.

I pursued it and re-engaged it as quickly as possible. This time, it destroyed about 65% of my hull, and it sent in a bunch of both aerial drones and two boarding drones. I was able to handle the boarding drones with my Mantis and Rock crewmen, but the flagship’s weapons successfully damaged the oxygen generator and started fires around 25% of my ship before it retreated again with even more damage. I was able to open the exterior doors and vent out much of the oxygen in the burning sections. After closing the exterior doors, I was able to repair the oxygen generator with about 15% of the ship’s capacity remaining, but not before one of the Engi died of oxygen deprivation while repairing the generator. At some point, the door controls had been disabled, so I needed to send the other Engi to repair the door controls.

The flagship’s attack had also disabled my ship’s internal sensors, so as soon as my crewman entered the door control room, he was attacked by another boarding drone! It had been left behind when the flagship fled, but it was still operational. The crewman fled with major injuries. It’s a good thing Engi ships have airborne medibots that can heal crewmen anywhere on the ship! The crewman was able to reach the medical room without dying. The Mantis and Rock crewmen rushed over to the room and dispatched the boarding drone. I upgraded the cloak with some of the extra salvage from the flagship.

Now that we were short one crew member and the hull was heavily damaged, we also had to temporarily retreat as well.  The Advanced FTL Navigation enabled my ship to get to a frontline repair station quickly. It had not yet been overrun by the rebel forces, so we were able to get most of the hull repaired. They also added some fuel to our nearly dry tanks, so we were able to intercept the flagship one final time.

The third battle was an incredible battle!  As usual, I tried to disable the flagship’s shields with the ion weapons. This time, though, the flagship had a special shield system that absorbed more damage before going down, so it took my ship much more time to wear down the flagship’s shields. Also, their missile launcher damaged my drone control room, so I temporarily lost the use of my beam drone until I adjusted my ship’s power levels.

At this point, I was hit by the flagship’s super laser weapon. Multiple laser shots broke through my shields and hit my ship in multiple locations simultaneously. Fires started all over the ship, and the oxygen system was damaged again. I had to take my medical system offline so I could continue to fire all weapons. I also thought about taking the cloaking system offline, when I suddenly realized: I had not used the cloaking system at all! I could dodge the super weapon with it. In the meantime, I had to open the exterior doors again. I did so, knowing that without an oxygen supply, the fires could go out, but things were going to get really dangerous for the crew. Sensors detected another power surge from the flagship, so I activated the cloak this time, and I successfully dodged the next laser barrage!

Suddenly, the boarding alarms went off. Two humans went after the cloaking device, and another went toward the door controls. I sent my engineer to repair the oxygen generator, and I sent my gunner and shield tech to repel the men attacking the cloaking device. I ignored the third boarder for the moment. In the meantime, I had successfully disabled the shield systems on the flagship. My drones were fully online and doing lots of damage to the flagship, but my heavy laser was offline, so I wasn’t able to finish the flagship off quickly.  The cloaking device took an ion hit and would not be available when the flagship’s super weapon would next be charged.

At this point, the oxygen supply was under 20%. I had not yet noticed what the boarder was doing. The two boarders died in the cloaking device room, and I suddenly realized that they had asphyxiated in addition to suffering wounds! I opened all of the interior doors to spread out the remaining oxygen, since my crew were also losing health from oxygen deprivation. At that moment, the third boarder destroyed the door controls, so the interior doors could not be closed! The exterior door was still open, so there was no way to replenish the oxygen in the ship!

My engineer and pilot were now working together to fix the oxygen generator, but it looked hopeless. Another super laser barrage hit and fires started again. There was even a breach in the engine room from a missile hit. Since the doors were open, that was just another nail in the coffin. All of my crew died within seconds. The third boarder died a moment later, and my ship was lifeless.

My ship broke apart and pieces of wreckage began to break apart and drift away. I sat in my chair, screaming “NOOOO!!” because I had reached the final battle with a really good ship and crew, yet I had lost the game…

…or had I? Suddenly, the flagship ALSO broke apart! I had concentrated so much on the boarding parties, the repairs, and the oxygen problem that I had not watched my drones. They had been whittling away at the flagship the whole time. They must have started some fires on the flagship, because normally drones would shut down if a ship was destroyed. Therefore, the flagship must have been destroyed by fire just milliseconds after my last crew member died. Even though I died first, the game declared VICTORY FOR ME!

I was shocked, amazed, and relieved. My crew, having embarked on a suicide mission, succeeded heroically.  Vengeance was theirs from beyond the grave!

Experiences like this help explain why so many players of FTL are enjoying the game so much!  Since the game has many independent parts, unexpected events can happen. Players have to react to those events, so players will often play differently in any given play session than in any previous session. And sometimes –like tonight– the game and the player work together to create exciting and memorable stories.

It’s nearly the end of 2012, and I’d like to talk about the games I enjoyed the most this year.

These were my favorite games of 2012:

Pokémon Black & White 2

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-black-version-2-and-pokemon-white-version-2/

I’ve played over 100 hours of this.  The story isn’t very interesting, and there’s not much new content over Black & White.  It’s not the single-player story that’s fun, but the single-player and multi-player tournaments.  The multi-player system is mostly unchanged, but the single-player tournament system has been upgraded with the Pokémon World Tournament.  One can play 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 3v3 rotation battles against major characters from all of the previous Pokémon games, and also against AI -controlled teams of the actual 2012 World Champions.  The development system for players’ Pokémon has also been upgraded a lot, so making tournament-worthy Pokémon is more fun and less of a chore.  The “Join Avenue” feature, which is a combination of a Pokémon training center and a social network, is also pretty clever.  I find myself playing Black and White 2 a few times per week just to update and upgrade my avenue.  My big disappointment with Black and White 2 was the lack of new co-op play features.  Please, The Pokémon Company: please add more co-op modes, and PLEASE add Internet co-op modes!  Now that I have moved to Kauai, none of my normal play partners are available.

FTL: Faster Than Light

http://www.ftlgame.com

A lot of people have compared the feeling of FTL’s gameplay to Firefly, but I think it’s more like Blake’s 7, because every time I was boarded or I sent a boarding party, the “brooiiing” sound of the Liberator’s teleporter sounded within my head.  But I guess it is more like Firefly, because the Liberator was never under this much danger (well, until the second season finale, at least!).  Anyway, I love games with randomness and permadeath, and FTL is like candy for me: it provides a quick rush, but it’s over quickly as well, and then you just have to eat another one, and another… BUT THE BAG IS NEVER EMPTY!!!

Drox Operative

http://www.soldak.com/Drox-Operative/Overview.html

Yeah, yeah, yeah… 2012 was supposedly the year of Diablo III and Torchlight II.  Whatever.  The best action RPG of 2012 was Drox Operative.

Unlike Diablo III and Torchlight II, the world of Drox Operative is alive and dynamic.  There are several empires (plus rebel factions of those empires).  You don’t just go from dungeon to dungeon, linearly following somebody’s script.  Everything in the game owned by those empires exists for one reason or another.  There are colonized planets, supply lines, escorts, wants and desires, natural disasters…  As the player, you can choose to help one, some, all, or none of those empires.  If a food shortage hits a planet, you can deliver food to them or you can starve them by destroying supply ships.  Perhaps their empire is not one you wish to support, or perhaps you’re just being evil.  Maybe you run across a fleet battle of two or three empires fighting each other, but your ship is so powerful, you decide to annihilate every one of them.  Maybe you’ve decided to be a Johnny Appleseed and help the plant empire spread across the sector.  The choice is yours!  Among so-called “role-playing games”, it stands out as a game where you can actually role-play.

Also, it has optional permadeath.  

Endless Space

http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com

One of my favorite turn-based strategy games of all time is Reach for the Stars.  No, not the horrible remake from around 1997, but the original one released in the mid-80’s.  It doesn’t stand up well to modern turn-based games, though.  It’s not even close to the standard of excellence, Master of Orion 2.   RFTS was basically a spreadsheet with stars, and the combat system basically played itself, but those features were also part of its charm.

Endless Space feels like a cross between RFTS and MOO2.  It also reminds me of Ascendency, a game from the ’90s that was made by the studio (Creative Assembly) who eventually made the Total War series.  It feels like a spreadsheet, but it has modern touches like an interesting tech tree.  Its combat is pretty basic, but the developers added a card-based powerup system that does provide some good tactical moments.  It has warp lanes like Ascendency, but you can also jump directly to stars more slowly like RFTS and MOO2.  It has hero characters like MOO2, so you can customize strategies and tactics for different commanders.  Its most unique feature is its setting: the developers spent a lot of time crafting a back story and creating tons of atmospheric 2D art.

Eador: Genesis

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/eador_genesis

What the heck?!  This game came (almost) out of nowhere.  It currently sells for only $5.99 on gog.com.   I’ve been following Eador: Masters of a Broken World for a while on Facebook and game sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun, but I wasn’t really aware of the first game in the series, Eador: Genesis.  That’s because it was never released outside of Russia until December 2012, even though it was originally released in 2009.  Because it was cheap and the type of game I like, I decided to try it.  Now I’ve blown well over 100 hours on it!

It’s very similar to King’s Bounty or the Heroes of Might and Magic series.  Starting with a single castle, you explore the surrounding area, collect resources, develop one or more heroes to go on quests and raise armies, and vanquish all other rulers on the map.

There are two things that Eador: Genesis does very differently, though.  The first is how it adds durability to items, like in an action RPG or a roguelike.  A hero can only be out in the field for so long before his or her weapons deteriorate to uselessness.  It adds a sense of limitation to these otherwise powerful characters that is often missing in turn-based strategy games.

The second thing is a grand sense of discovery.  Exploration is a big part of how the game feels much larger than it seems.  The maps seem small for a Civ-style game, but the individual provinces have tons of locations to find and visit.  Furthermore, many random events happen in the game, so the world is often changing, and small changes add up.  You find new opportunities, adjust strategies to fit new events, and generally make tons of choices that add to the sense that you’re discovering things all the time.

I find Eador: Genesis especially notable as an example of how messed up the game publishing industry is.  In 2012, the industry has been scrambling to find hits.  However, they fail to bring over established hits with proven quality from outside Japan, North America, and Western Europe.  They’ve been doing this forever… In the ’90s, I waited forever for somebody to translate the Richman series from Taiwan (it never happened).  Space Rangers, another Russian game series, almost didn’t get translated, but I’m sure 1C is happy with the hundreds of thousands of sales they ended up with.  I’m glad Eador was translated, at least, and thanks to GOG, it was released worldwide.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

http://www.xcom.com

The title of XCOM: Enemy Unknown makes me laugh a little because I own both UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-COM: UFO Defense, both of which are the same game with different titles (the former for Europe, the latter for North America because of a silly trademark dispute).  I appreciate the way they combined the two title names.  I wish they had kept the dash, though.

This game was announced as a surprise last year.  One of the best developers of turn-based strategy games, Firaxis, announced they were remaking X-COM as a turn-based strategy version called XCOM.  This made a lot of people happy, since there’s another game in the works that is a reimagining of the X-COM series as a first-person shooter.  However, some people were put off by some of the streamlining that Firaxis did to the game design.  No more ammo clips!  A limit of six members in a squad!  Only one base!  No time units! A limited number of pre-rendered maps instead of random blocks!  OH, NO!!!  THE GAME WILL BE TOTALLY NOT X-COM-ISH!!!

When the game was finally released, many players finally got the chance to experience how those changes felt… and many of them were pleased.  I am one of them.  I recognized that X-COM was not about micromanaging all the little bits of inventory management and movement just to min/max everything and crush the aliens.  It’s about surviving with the resources you have and winning, preferably without saving and reloading all the time.   XCOM gets that feeling right.

You can’t make infinite money any more.  You have to make lots of sacrifices, especially at the higher difficulties, while in the original game, even Superhuman difficulty was a cakewalk once you had researched Laser Rifles.  You won’t be able to save everyone, and that’s how X-COM should be.

Changing time units to a move/fire system didn’t break anything (you can basically do the same things, except spread over several turns instead of one).  You can’t hire dozens of infantry as cannon fodder and use a small core group anymore.  Money and resources are precious, so you have to use them wisely.

The more limited inventory system does limit freedom of action, and that’s definitely one thing I miss, but it does promote more care of your units and their supplies, which I applaud.  Sometimes, I still wish one could still carry a teammate or an important captive in a backpack and then escape the map to get a Pyrrhic victory, but that’s a minor quibble.  I guess I also miss being able to mind-control an alien and make it pick up an alien grenade that’s about to blow, but I don’t miss the completely silly ability to toss a primed grenade across the map from soldier to soldier like a hot potato by exploiting the inventory system.

X-COM was nearly perfect, so I think Firaxis did the right thing by re-interpreting the series in their own way with XCOM.  If one wants the original experience, they can easily play the original game or the upcoming tribute game, Xenonauts.  If one wants a new experience with the same themes, they can play XCOM.  Everybody wins.

And My Choice For Game of the Year Is…

This is tough for me!  Up until December, Drox Operative was my GotY choice.  Eador: Genesis is soooo good and cheap, though!  I will still pick Drox Operative because technically, Eador: Genesis was originally released in 2009.

Drox Operative!!!

I left my full-time job at Big Fish Games Vancouver in October 2012 so my wife and I could move to Kauai, Hawaii!  I am available for freelance work again.