The Steam Files #E.1: Endless Space

Developer/Publisher: Amplitude Studios
Release Date: 4 Jul 2012 (Steam)

 







As a brief aside, I'm going to attempt to make my reviews more brief. After all, the intention of this series was to get me to go through my Steam collection. If my reviews seem shorter than they should be from this point onwards, that may be why.

Endless Space is an indie Space 4X strategy game. It follows in a very similar vein to Galactic Civilizations with all that entails. The design is a mixture of basic and artistic. The UI is quite minimalist and basic, making it very clear to read and understand what's going on, but at the same time not necessarily making it 'beautiful'. However, a lot of effort has clearly gone into making the artwork, where it exists, look 'in-universe' and rather unique. There's not so much of a brushwork feel to it that you get in artwork for more fantasy-oriented games, but the images in many screens do have that feel of fantasy. Ships can be created and customised by players, but looks rely on the selection of the 'base' model, each of which have unique styles for each race.

The backstory is also similar to the GC series, with artifacts of the Endless (the equivalent of GC's Precursors and Arnor) appearing periodically, and their unique 'Dust' resource featuring as the game's currency. Much like GC2, the game is turn-based, and you can set up production on planets, move fleets, and engage in battles, as well as create your own ships from researched components, plus the obvious research via a 4-branched tree (2 of which will trigger victory scenarios) focusing on different 'types' of tech, then Diplomacy.
An interesting feature of Endless Space is that rather than using 'Governors' you can recruit from a limited pool of 'heroes' that require upkeep, but will level up with experience (gained over time when running a system or through combat XP as a fleet), which makes them both more skilled and more valuable. Fortunately you can't lose heroes in battle, which makes investing in them for fleets very useful.
Production in systems takes one of three forms, and you can only construct one thing at a time per system. You can build any ship you've designed (and for which you've acquired the necessary resources,  for more advanced designs), system wide improvements, that grant bonuses at the cost of monetary output, and planetary exploitation, which involves the improvement of ancient artifacts, survey of the planet's moon (if it has one), or selecting from one of the 4 or so available planetary exploitations, which improve food, industrial, monetary, or scientific output. You can only build one main exploitation per planet, and some provide better bonuses depending on the planet's type.

Travel is similar to Sword of the Stars in this game, with fleets following hyperspace links between planets. You can also traverse wormhole/warp links once a special technology is researched, but moving through these links behaves differently. Whilst using normal links consume movement points whilst travelling, these links use all movement points in one go.

Combat is again somewhat like SotS, but Endless Space allows you to play a variety of Battle Action cards, which fall into different categories that can cancel each other, giving combat bonuses on top of stats provided by your ships' equipment. You can rely on auto-resolve or battle manually. I haven't spent a lot of time with manual battles, but my recollection was that it was similar but less complex than SotS, but the auto-resolve is usually reasonably fair with it's battle outcomes.

This game began life in an interesting manner. Amplitude is a studio founded by a few industry veterans who were keen on getting more community involvement in the game and it's development. As a result, Endless Space appeared on Steam in fairly early development as a 'beta', and invited people to join their forums and give feedback and suggestions for the game, to which they've done a good job of listening to. This has become increasingly popular with many of the 'indie' companies and we're seeing better games as a result, in my opinion. The studio is, as far as I'm aware, gearing up for other titles, but are committed to supporting this game in the future.

For my final verdict, I would say that there's now a lot of choice for this genre of game. I still stand by the original Galactic Civilizations and one of the genres classics, but Endless Space does well to cut through a lot of the clutter that makes other games bloated, whilst still providing a fairly polished experience. If this game isn't in your collection, it would make a pretty good addition, especially with on-going dev support.

The Steam Files #D.1: Dishonored

Developer: Arkane Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release Date: 12 October 2012 (Steam)

Dishonored was an interesting purchase for me. I'd ignored most of the hype and indeed most of the reviews (including PC Gamer's, sadly) which meant I wasn't as excited by the game as some were. I guess it was probably Totalbiscuit's WTF review and a little bit of impulse buying that lead me to pick this game up.

Whaling is big business in Dunwall.

So, Dishonored is a game set in a Victorianesque steampunk universe, with the vast majority of the action taking place in the capital city of Dunwall, which is also a major whaling city. You play as the character Corvo, a Freeman-esque mute protagonist charged with protecting the Empress. The prologue to the game is quite simple, establishing the watercolour art style and the Victorian Britain sides of steampunk with the large Victorian-style buildings and the guardsmen walking around in helmets resembling those of British police officers in a very dark blue uniform.
Aside from the art style it obviously also introduces the plot, which starts with the assassination of the Empress you are supposed to protect, along with the kidnapping of her daughter and heir. Without spoiling any more, it suffices to say that the player, who isn't responsible for the death, is captured and accused of her assassination.

You'll meet all the named characters in this section again. Except the Empress.

This leads on to a fairly straightforward tutorial segment that involves Corvo escaping from prison and eventually escaping through sewers and away by boat to meet up with a group of 'Loyalists' seeking to return the Empress' daughter to the throne. I'll leave it there in terms of the plot, as I don't want to spoil it for those that (still) haven't played it.

The tools at your disposal are quite interesting and varied. Your main weapon throughout the game will be a folding shortsword (although for parts of the game it'll be static, where you've been relieved of your fancy gear) with a variety of secondary weapons and abilities to choose from. The steampunk style is carried over quite realistically to the equipment, with the sword looking more intricate than necessary in particular. You'll also gain access to a pistol, which you'll only use when you're in trouble because of its shockingly bad range and being loud enough to attract any guard within a significant portion of whatever area you happen to be in. More usefully, you gain access to a crossbow with three types of ammunition. The absurdly rare sleeping bolt is your only ranged non-lethal attack in the game, and as far as I know the only way to non-lethally take down an alerted foe. The standard bolt is very accurate with a bit of drop over range, useful for causing distractions, smashing one of those strategically placed explosive whale oil canisters, or removing those annoying propaganda speakers from their tethers. I wouldn't use them against an enemy, because they do a lot less damage than a well aimed bullet if you miss their head (or they have a helmet). Finally, you have the incendiary bolt. I learned the other night playing the game that these bolts are actually quite handy for one purpose. Enemies that are on fire will tend to stop attacking you whilst they try to put themselves out. Which is helpful if you're perilously prancing along a ledge dodging grenades.

After the crossbow, you have a few other tools. The springrazor, for instance, is a proximity mine. It's also not especially satisfying to use compared to sneaking up on enemies and slitting their throats, but if you need to draw enemies away whilst you move, putting it next to a patrol path makes a very neat distraction. You also have the grenade, which is very powerful for more violent playthroughs, but obviously less easy to come across. As you may imagine these grenades can also be cooked to time the landing with the arrival of a large patrol, for instance. Finally (if recollection recalls), you have the rewire tool, by far one of the most useful and amusing tools in the game. Attaching one of these puppies to a security device will turn it against the enemy. This has the effect of disabling alarms, but more amusing makes Walls of Lights (like a pain-field, if that pain-field was insta-death), Arc Pylons (like Tesla coils, only significantly more pissed off), and Watchtowers (big rotating things with searchlights that'll fire explosive arrows at you using a repeater if it spots you.) against your enemies, leaving you intact. This works best when the enemy is blissfully unaware of the change of security, and often leads to much confusion, as there's no-one to blame!

So, leaving tools behind, Corvo is also granted access (via upgrades, no less) to supernatural abilities courtesy of 'The Outsider', a rather pagan/Wiccan-esque deity who appears in embodied form to the player (and by the Outsider's inference to others as well, although there's no real proof of that in the game). I won't go through the whole list, as there are quite a few, but all of these abilities can be acquired and upgraded by acquiring runes (usually hidden) throughout missions and have two levels.
The principle skill you'll be acquainted with is Blink, which is a short-range line-of-sight 'teleport'. The game itself suggests that it isn't actually a 'true' teleport but simply a means in which you travel fast enough to cross certain distances without interaction with such forces as gravity, and arrive almost instantaneously. This prevents what would otherwise be a rather game-breaking ability (not to mention technically difficult) to teleport through and behind solid objects, such as wire fences or open-back staircases. A few of the other abilities are quite fun, such as Devouring Swarm, which summons plague rats that attack the nearest unfortunate being. Possession is fun, especially when levelled up to control humans, but increases vulnerability when possessing critters, as you die if they die. Finally, Bend Time is always useful when used correctly. At the higher level you can stop time for longer, and no doubt you can use your new lease of time to amusingly implicate someone in their own murder.

So, overall this game is a massive hit for me, and I'm taking a more care-free approach this time to uncover the second ending (the first ending is given if you minimise casualties and help civilians). I did struggle at times with the limited non-lethal options available, which made some sections near impossible without murdering people. The only other downside is that the game is quite short, and didn't fully explore the depth of Dunwall's lore. Obviously that leaves room for expansion packs and DLC and possibly, but I hope doing it this way hasn't compromised the storyline in the long run, as the story behind Dunwall and the characters is part of the charm.

My final conclusion is that you should definitely buy this game, if you haven't already done so. Yes, that means right now.

PS: Images may be a tad bit lacking, but I realised that the longer I spent playing the game trying to get more screenshots, the less writing was getting done. I may add some at a later date.

PPS: Given that Arkane have claimed their protagonist's silent demeanour to be greater than that of the legendary Gordon Freeman, I feel somewhat obliged to examine that at a later date, so keep an eye out for that.

The Steam Files #C.1: Cortex Command

Publisher/Developer: Data Realms
Release: 28 Sep 2012 (Steam)

Okay, so this choice was a bit of a mistake.

It's got a nice art style though!

Let me clarify that though, because it might otherwise give the wrong impression. I love the concept of this game, where a disembodied brain controls a variety of robots via some kind of Wi-Fi/Telekinesis ability, pitting them in battle against a different disembodied head controlled by an AI (or indeed another player). You can buy equipment and robot bodies to deploy on the field, which are then delivered by a controllable dropship.

So, what's the problem, you ask? Well, the game gives the impression (and I believe this to actually be the case) that it's still a work in progress, which is very well and good but naturally means that the state the game is in can make reviews of it incredible unfair. The problem is that the game is somewhat unplayable against the AI unless you're some gaming god (sadly I am not), and in terms of multiplayer it seems to be designed mostly with split screen or delegated control in mind from a single machine, which I haven't had the opportunity to try out.

However, for an indie game this is a relatively unique concept with a good art style, a good resource system (you dig gold out the ground, and in the campaign you get gold income from any mining site you own at the end of a turn), and the way the rather primitive looking bipedal robots with jetpacks behave somewhat reflects what you'd expect to happen in real life.

The Campaign mode is interesting. It implies that there'd be a storyline, but there isn't. The premise is that you start a campaign where you have a number of gold mines displayed on a map, then you and other players spend resources to scan these sites and then build bases on them. If you encounter an enemy on a map, you then go into a fight where you have to take out the enemy brain whilst protecting your own. However, this area, like the rest of the game, shows sign of needing some work.

However, the game's flaws are readily apparent, the learning curve for the way the game handles is quite high, and the enemy AI is ruthless and punishing and surprisingly intelligent in most cases. Even a hardcore gamer would find this game to be an incredible challenge.

Sadly, I don't think in good conscience I could currently recommend this game at it's retail game (unless of course you like a challenge), but the fact that the game only recently made its Steam début, despite being on my radar for over a year. suggests that the developer is likely to keep supporting and updating it into the future. It's sad, because I do genuinely love this concept, and the base building that shows up in the campaign mode and map editor also show some promise too.

So, if you see a discount on this game, and you like the concept, it may be worth it just to see what the future brings for it, but don't expect this to be a game you can just jump straight into, like many other games I will review over the coming months.

You'll see this a lot. Yes, even in the damn tutorial.

PS: Neither FRAPS nor SteamOverlay works with this game, hence only two screenshots.

The Steam Files #B.1: Bioshock

 Developer: 2K Boston, 2K Australia
Publisher: 2K Games
Release:  21 August 2007 (Steam)

So I'll admit, I never really saw eye to eye with this game when it first came out, which is partly why I committed to reviewing this one first. This game only entered my collection about a year ago and hasn't really got a proper play through yet. I don't particularly tend to enjoy horror/thriller style games, which this sort of fits, so it's not really a surprise that I never got particularly far in it.

 On starting the game, you're presented with a main menu that shows off the style of the game perfectly, with the fusion of post-war and steampunk styles and technology. Mechanical gearing makes a very prominent display in the charming options menus, giving them a sense of character that makes sure that you achieve near-total immersion from the moment you enter the game. This same immersion is quite important, because without it you'd likely miss the feeling of wonder that distracts the gaze out of the game's many windows, showing the full might and majesty of the city of Rapture.

An 'in-style' options menu is a very nice feature.

 Which brings us to the beginning of the game. A short pair of 'title-slides' bookend an equally brief introductory cutscene, showing the player character upon an aircraft that then ditches into the ocean. Miraculously, the character emerges from the wreckage relatively unscathed and next to a suspect looking lighthouse in the middle of the Atlantic.

 Upon reaching the lighthouse you'll find a bathysphere waiting to take you down into the depths, and it is at this point we get a few glimpses of Rapture's immense size and majesty.

 And so the player enters Rapture. The station here serves as a tutorial location, where you get your first introduction to splicers, your 'bread-and-butter' enemies throughout the game. Splicers are horrific beasts, mutated both by surgical experimentation and perversion of their DNA by the way of 'ADAM'. ADAM is the name used for reservoirs of stem cells that are used to give people unnatural abilities in the form of 'plasmids', which in turn are occasionally found in vials around levels or purchased from the Gatherer's Garden machine (Incidentally, this also references the Little Sister's original name. Probably a good thing, as 'Little Sister's Garden' sounds a bit like a paedophile's codeword). You'll encounter a number of types of splicers throughout the game, but the Thuggish and Leadhead variants are the most common.

As part of the tutorial, the player will have their first encounter with a plasmid vial, which gives the player a bit of a kick, leading into a short non-interactive segment where a Big Daddy narrowly saves you from being eviscerated by splicers. This segment gives a first up close of the Big Daddy and Little Sister (Little Sisters' role is to harvest ADAM from corpses) and also possibly the only time you'll see the pair this close without getting your face shot to pieces or drilled into.

 With the tutorial covered, you're then free to continue the main quest in other splendid locations throughout Rapture and find Andrew Ryan. However, I won't spoil the story for those that haven't played it. But I will note one thing; the observant viewer or gamer will have noticed the tattoo on the wrists of the player character. This tattoo becomes particularly relevant later on in the plot, where you uncover a plot twist.

For the game as a whole, I was pretty impressed, given that this sort of psuedo-horror/thriller game genre isn't really my thing. The aesthetic of the game is fantastic, giving a similar sort of post-war and steampunk feel that is shown in Fallout 3. There are a range of plasmids that fulfil different purposes, but the one you'll use most is the electric shock, which stuns enemies and provides a damage amplifier, but also temporarily disables electronic security devices, allowing you to hack them and turn them to your side. The turrets are both formidable enemies but powerful allies when hacked. I will note that later in the game you get access to a plasmid that allows you to make a Big Daddy protect you. However, they take this to the extreme and will attack turrets even after you hack them, and if they damage the Big Daddy it becomes hostile again. It's an interesting gap in the AI logic, but that situation should be quite rare in the game, so doesn't pose a major issue.

The story throughout is quite interesting and captivating, and more often than not the audio logs that can be found scattered around levels are interesting to listen to, always providing an added insight into the world of Rapture and occasionally give a background into the equally interesting NPC characters you'll occasionally meet.

The 'conventional' weapons provided throughout the game are also quite interesting an varied, and they're all upgradeable. The means of upgrading them is by simply going to one of the somewhat rare one-use upgrade terminals and selecting the upgrade. However, the application of the upgrades touches a soft spot for me. Every upgrade made to your weapons introduces a physical alteration to the device, which is highlighted directly after acquiring it so you immediately notice the difference. Again, the upgrades always fit in the same style, and often have the appearance of a 'DIY' upgrade rather than something the manufacturer would provide. This hits a soft spot for me in particular because it shows how much attention to detail goes into the game, a point often lost in the magical environments and settings. The best part of a game's aesthetics are quite often the things most will rarely bother to look at, like the additional details and upgrade provides, or the cityscape that is displayed out of the windows

So, whilst I've not finished Bioshock at time of writing, I am very much happy with the experience. I can safely recommend it as a purchase now (or preferably during a Steam Sale) given the initial hype around the game has long since dissipated. Even if it's not a game you'd normally consider picking up.

I intend to review Bioshock 2 as part of this series, by which time I will have completed Bioshock and will include my final thoughts on the original.

But for now, I'll finish with these pictures:

The in-game Help covers a range of topics

This scripted encounter shows a protective Big Daddy unleashing on a predatory splicer.

The hacking mini-game is a slightly over-used distraction.

It's pretty much a more complex version of those pipe maze games that used to be popular

Active plasmid abilities (as opposed to the passive ones, which are called tonics) reward you with an infomercial when you acquire them

The loading screens are all in style too.

The water effects are gorgeous. In fact, the rank among they best in any game I've played.