Age of Wonders: Planetfall (PS4) – First Impressions

I snagged this for £6, having been intrigued for a while by the seeming mix of Civ and XCOM mechanics. But how does the sci-fi game stack up after a couple of hours of play?

Pretty well, actually. There are six factions available, of which I’ve only played the Vanguard (think humans with advanced war machines and laser guns). The others are the man-hating tree-huggers, insects without a hive mind, cyborg vampires(ish), human resource capitalists, and Russian space dwarves. You can customise your own commanders (who partake in combat) and there’s a decent array of options, from flags to vices.

There are two tenets of gameplay: a strategic world map, and tactical combat on a battlefield. I’m a console peasant but like the idea of strategy games (may get Stellaris next month) so I’m still getting to grips with all the strategic stuff, but so far I think it’s fairly intuitive and easy to follow. In addition, the research often leads to amusing little quotes, and it’s nice the game doesn’t take itself too seriously.

You start off with a planetfall colony, to which you can annexe adjacent sectors for more food, productions and other resources. It’s also where you create new units, including the coloniser to set up new colonies.

The tactical battles play out significantly faster than XCOM’s. Beforehand (when initiating, at least, unsure if it happens when you defend) you get to compare the relative strengths of the armies, which is very helpful. You can also have an auto-combat option, which simply gives you an automatic result. During the battle you can also hand over to the Machine God to run auto-combat from there (you’ll see the moves taken in this instance). There are options to cut down on the brief overhead intro and make enemies’ turns quicker, which I adopted to cut down on noise (see below).

A really nice feature is modding units. Research soon yields bonuses, from ammo that inflicts bleeding to hitpoint restoration abilities. You can apply these to units individually or en masse, giving that template a name (the suggested ones, such as Butcher and Eviscerator, are usually pretty good). That way, you can create these specifically upgraded units at your colony, if you want to. It also makes tier 1 units more useful later on, it seems, rather than just becoming obsolete.

The biggest drawback I’ve encountered isn’t the game, it’s the console. Fellow PS4 owners will be aware that the machine (I’ve got a fat original version) can be noisy a lot, and occasionally mimic a jet engine with alarming authenticity. It’s audible during the strategic map, but during the tactical battles it can get pretty damned loud. Can’t fault the game for this because I’ve had the same with many other titles, and it’s obviously a console cooling weakness, but if, like me, you get nervous of your console melting itself, this is a downside.

The game itself, however, is pretty good.

Thaddeus

A Day in Oblivion – Unearthing the PS3

The controller’s sticks had turned unhealthily gunky when I removed the controller from its stone sarcophagus. Not sure if the meltiness was because my room is south-facing or a side effect of encasing my old consoles in the cursed sarcophagus of an Egyptian mummy.

But would Oblivion live up to my memories?

I’m a little wiser and a lot balder than I was when I played then back in those heady days before global pestilence had returned. Would time have eroded the delight I recalled, or would the plucky older game hold up well? I heroically decided to spend Sunday finding out.

The several hours I spent in Cyrodiil at the weekend were laced with nostalgia, so it might jut be rose-tinted glasses, but I really rather enjoyed my stay there. I played as a Breton battlemage, going with the suggested class rather than the custom one that I habitually created way back when.

The graphics are still perfectly reasonable (bearing in mind the ag), the major exception being the character faces. One big plus I’d forgotten was that the hotkeying on consoles is miles better than Skyrim. In Oblivion you get 8 (via the D-Pad) whereas there just 2 console hotkeys in Skyrim (up and down, selected from the favourites list accessible by pressing left or right). This came in very handy as someone focusing mostly on magic.

Another nice touch I’d forgotten was the Black Horse Courier, which helped get me back into the world before the empire started falling to pieces. Quests unfolded naturally too, with a couple of people seeking me out in Skingrad (one of whom had walked from the Imperial City), and my nirnroot-harvesting leading to another. There seemed more freedom wandering about this way and that, and I encountered a couple of ruins which I successfully navigated by summoning undead to do the hard work for me.

It was also a little sad to see the Mages Guild in Skingrad appear to have more spells than in the whole of Skyrim.

One diametrically opposing difference was the clear lack of voice-acting variety. That said, the races do stand out a lot more, especially in height terms. In Skyrim, Bretons, Nords, and Imperials look pretty damned similar (although the beast races are orders of magnitude better).

It’s early days, but I really rather enjoyed my Sunday in Cyrodiil. Had to swap the console back for other reasons, but looking forward to joining the Mages Guild and crafting my own spells.

Thaddeus

PS And, for those wondering, a day or two of leaving the controller out plus an hour of playing degunkified my cursed controller.

Oblivion Reminiscing

Occasionally I go back to my old consoles and play games of yesteryear. I was considering doing just that with my PS2 and enjoying classics like God of War, Shadow Hearts, and so on. But lately I’ve been wondering about playing Oblivion.

Made by Bethesda in the good old days when paying for horse armour was laughable and games didn’t take over a decade to be released because studios were too busy dicking about with live service bullshit, Oblivion has a lot of points I remember really fondly. And one I loathed.

Skyrim’s got a more realistic world in terms of paths and mountains, but the infamous sideways mountain-hopping is far easier in Oblivion. What this means is you can go practically anywhere, which means the world’s a bit less realistic but players enjoy a lot more freedom. I’ve gone multiple different ways after leaving the starting dungeon, whereas Skyrim does more heavily lead you by the hand.

Another big plus is that the cities feel larger, and more distinct. The city size in Skyrim is significantly smaller than in Oblivion, and the cities tended to feel like they had their own identities more. Markarth is nice and different, but mostly the architecture and feel of Nordic cities is pretty similar. That’s not the case in Oblivion.

Quests are also better in the Elder Scrolls IV than the next instalment. I won’t spoil it, decade and a half old as it is, but the Dark Brotherhood questline in Oblivion is orders of magnitude better than anything in Skyrim. If you haven’t played it, give it a look. It’s engaging, enjoyable, and compelling.

Creating your own spells is a nifty feature you gain if you join the Mages, but for some reason it was stripped out of Skyrim. Why? It’s cool being able to create your own spells, and the range of spells in Oblivion, even without making your own, is substantially more too. And you can cast them whilst having a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Plus the touch spells make being a battle mage a cool option.

Character creation obviously comes with inferior graphics, but against this you can alter the colour and length of your hair, and even fiddle cleverly to make your orc red (move the relevant slider all the way right, then left, then repeat until he’s red).

These are all things I like. So, what’s the thing I didn’t?

Levelling.

Now, maybe I’ll view things differently if I ever go back, but from memory the levelling system pissed me off. Enemies level as you do. Which can work. But if you don’t get your skills right then you become relatively weaker, making you less powerful as you level up. Which is insane.

I’m currently replaying Divinity Original Sin 2. Undecided if I’ll take a hiatus upon leaving Fort Joy or keep going, but it’s interesting to consider going back to Oblivion.

And the PS3 also has Dragon Age: Origins as well. Ah, happy days…

Thaddeus