Look, Ma, Not Every Goddamn Game is A $50, DRM-Riddled Disaster!

Yes, it is indeed that rarest of rare…a POSITIVE blather about gaming by me. I know, I know…take a minute, collect yourself, it’ll be okay. Unless of course you have a heart condition, in which case I hereby issue an apology to your next of kin for that whole pesky ‘killing you’ thing. My bad.

As most who read this (at gunpoint, I’m presuming, otherwise you need to look in a mirror and ask yourself what the fuck you are doing with your free time) no doubt know, I am somewhat of a computer gamer. I’ve been known to play a few of them. However, since most people can’t afford to drop $50 on a regular basis, they may feel that pretty much takes them out of contention for playing much of anything aside from those generally awful Flash games what are ‘fun’ for about 30 seconds. As someone who recently decided I am sick of SecuROM crap to the degree that I will no longer be financially supporting any game with that garbage on it, I kinda thought maybe I was officially out of commission. However, I’m happy to have found that that’s not the case. I’m just gonna point out a few games that I’ve been playing that are not only pretty damn fun, they are also under $20 (that’s under $20 base price…I’m not getting into tax on top of purchases, or exchange rates now that our dollar is rapidly declining to Suckville again).

FREE : Yep, you read that correctly, free. The price point ANYONE can afford. If you find that free is beyond your means at the moment, it’s probably time to start considering that perhaps you’re somewhat of a failure as a human being. Some of them are fan made games (though good ones), and some of them are titles that, for whatever reason, the producing company has released as full fledged free ware.

In the former category are a few that I still play on a somewhat regular basis. The first…Battle for Wesnoth.

Go forth, cliche Fantasy archetypes, and slay yon dragon-like creatures!

Think Heroes of Might & Magic and you’re on the right track. Build up and develop your army as you travel through your campaign, slaughter evil, protect good, all that tasty stuff. Not the most original idea, but it’s fun. There’s also a LOT of fanmade content…sprite packs, campaigns, everything you can think of, and the existing material would probably take a good year to work through.

Next up is UFO : Alien Invasion. If you liked Xcom, you will like this, since it’s basically a fanmade ‘remake’ of XCom, but with more shit to mess with. I’ve found that the tactical battles at landing sites and such are actually a lot more fun, since both your guys AND the aliens tend to trade a lot of fire if you save time units and set some guys to cover (ESPECIALLY with fun shit like sniper rifles and grenade launchers). Now that it has the full UFO interception model built in, it pretty much IS XCom…just better, and prettier, and with more detail.

Gary had fucking had it with that dirty window

For example…you can now buy the design docs for your guns, then set your engineers to work figuring out improvements or nastier ammo for them. Lots of little things like that. There are a few other XCom clones out there, but I didn’t like them as much.

Then there’s there’s Frets on Fire. Basically a poor man’s Guitar Hero, except you cannot fail when playing anything, so you just play because, dammit, you like it. It really is a lot better with a guitar (especially the older 360 one with the USB…plug it in, and because it’s a damn Microsoft controller it auto-downloads the drivers within seconds), but it’s fun regardless. There are a sick number of songs available online, though a lot of them are difficult to the point that your brain might explode. I’m not going to put in a screenshot, because I can’t think of anything amusing to say about colorful lines.

Finally, we have Armored Brigade. One lone guy is making this game by himself. It’s a modern or Cold War era combat game…think part way between Steel Panthers (which I mention later) and Close Combat.

No digitized background can save the turreted camo-blocks now!

No, it isn’t super pretty, but for one guy to build what he has in about 10 months is pretty fucking impressive…and he’s still working on it. It’s also really intuitive and fairly simple, so if you can’t download this and figure it out, you’ve pretty much confirmed that you are a retard…go buy a helmet for everyday use.

Now for the commercial stuff. First up is Area 51 by Midway. It’s a Sci-Fi FPS that basically has nothing to do with that really cheezy, almost lamentably bad, light gun arcade game of the same name from about 10 years ago. I played it on the Xbox and liked it fine enough. Midway released it as freeware for part of what’s supposed to be ‘ad supported gaming’.

The nameless space marines prepared to be inundated with copyright infringement lawsuits from EVERY SHOOTER EVER MADE!

Now, only AFTER downloading almost 2 GB worth of this and trying to run it for the first time did they deign to tell me ‘Oh, by the way, this is only for the US market’, to which I said…yeah, we’ll see about that, bitch. So, go HERE, use any North American mirror you want, then find your way to Area 51 and download the Area 51 1.0 Cracked .exe. Unzip that, and move everything from it to the main game folder, and say yes to overwriting whatever it wants to. Create a new shortcut off the new .exe and SHAZAM, it works like a charm now (AND without the ads the damn Americans have to see because you’re still not in that market. Huzzah!). Anyway, it’s not a bad little game…the story’s kinda neat, and the voice work is pretty solid.

Next up is an RTS game called Rise & Fall : Civilizations at War. This one didn’t sell that well because it’s sort of the poor sister to games like Age of Empires or Empire Earth. It’s not a GREAT game, but it isn’t bad, and it’s free, so quit whining already. This one, as the title sort of alludes to, focuses more on combat than most games like this, and doesn’t do a bad job of it.

Woodstock 350 AD was not the Festival of Peace & Love organizers had hoped for

A few little quibbles I had with it…1. You don’t get a lot of options for when to build what structures…it’s a pretty narrow path in that regard. You’re sort of forced in a certain direction, which can be a bit annoying. 2. Hero mode. Each of the Civs you can take has their ‘hero’ character…example, Caesar if you’re the Romans. For some dumbass reason, the makers of the game (huh, also Midway) included a mode where you control just the hero from a slightly behind the back 3rd person view. You’re pretty much Rambo in sandals with a sword…the number of enemy you can slaughter while staying very much alive makes 300 look like an historically accurate period piece. I tended to avoid this mode completely, since it totally unbalances the entire game. Anyway, still worth a look.

Lastly, I will once again throw some love the way of the Steel Panthers series. There are a few directions you can go with this. SP : World at War from Matrix covers 1935-1949.  Pretty simple…you take one side, in a single scenario, a long campaign, or for the length of the war if you wish, and fight against the other. From Shrapnel Games there’s SP : WW2, which also covers the 2nd world war period (there are some gameplay differences between it and WAW, WAW still has quite a development community working on it, which are the reasons I play it over WW2. Both are good titles, though), and SP : Main Battle Tank, which tackles 1950-2020, and tackles it well (All 3 games ARE fully free, though there are also bigger versions you can buy). There are something like 147 countries’ military orders of battle in that bad boy, which is insane. Now, none of these games is anything pretty…Hell, they’re based on game code that’s about 12 goddamn years old…

As armor clashes in the East, graphics whores everywhere cry

That would be a collection of Russian T34′s barreling through a smokescreen and obliterating goosestepper halftracks, by the way. Anyway, they’re really not as massively complicated as they first appear, and they’re very enjoyable if you like turn based war games. If you DO go for one of these, be sure to download all of the patch updates as well.

$10 Or Less – First off, we head over to Paradox Games (who I’ve been known to rave about on occasion), to check out Europa Univeralis 2, which is one of the top 3 or 4 computer games that I have ever played in my life. Basically, you choose a time period(Starting in 1419, ending in 1820), then choose a country to BE in that time period (180 in all)…then you run them. Every aspect of them. I know that sounds REALLY daunting, but once you play a few times and go through the Tutorials and become comfortable with the interface, it’s actually really intuitive.

Is there anything more fitting than the French lands being yellow? They must get a +20 Surrender Bonus.

Also, you don’t get bogged down in minutiae…you control the big shit. Wanna go to war? You send in the armies, but they fight…it’s not a typically stupid strategy game where apparently the president becomes a One Star General all of a sudden and starts controlling every single platoon he sends in to harm’s way. You have to think BIG. For example…just go declaring war n everyone and your own country will either go completely broke, or several provinces will break away as Republics because you’ve pissed your own people off. So, you need a reason, a casus belli…so create one. Maybe treaty up with one of your target country’s weak neighbors and hope they attack it…then you strike at THEM purely as a reason of ‘treaty loyalty’. Or get them to attack you by screwing them over economically by barring them from your Center of Trade, if you have one. It’s a great game, and since real historical events happen all over the place, you will actually learn (hopefully while crushing the Godless French. Also fun, taking the Ottoman Empire and heading off tor crush Christianity, or vice versa. Woohoo for Holy Wars!). Now, also from Paradox are some older titles for one single, solitary buck. The original Europa Universalis, a game called The Two Thrones (War between Britain and France) and Crown of the North (Try and form one powerful nation out of the various countries that make up Scandinavia) . Obviously, they’re a bargain, but I’ve never played them so I have no idea how they area. Still, it is ONE DOLLAR. (One note about Paradox…all of their stuff is sold through Gamers Gate. In fact, all the links to their stuff are the Gamersgate links. To buy from them, you first have to download and install the Gamersgate downloader…I would really suggest trying that BEFORE paying for anything, since a few people do have serious problems getting it to work right).

Also under $10 we have Puzzle Quest. This is going to be rather hard to describe, but I’ll try. Take your standard Action RPG basic character…build him up, equip him with weapons and spells and all that…only, whenever you have an encounter and enter combat, rather than hacking and slashing you play a game of Bejeweled against your foe. Lining up Skulls result in attacks. Lining up like-colored crystals build up different types of Mana (each with a matching ‘school’ of magic). Line up stars for experience points, and coins for money. This positively bizarre concept works really, really well…the damn game is SCARY addictive. It’s also out for pretty much every console known to man, so if you have a 360 or a Wii online you can get it for them as well. They’re already working on a couple of sequels.

Then there is every single title available from the Good Old Games website. Nothing over $9.99…no DRM (even if it originally DID have some, it doesn’t any more), download and install and burn as many damn times as you feel like, all of them run on Vista and XP. Lots of decent stuff on here…Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics, Operation Flashpoint, a lot of Jagged Alliance titles, the Descent and Freespace series, Earthworm Jim, Gothic, Sacred, Soldiers : Heroes of WW2, Conquest of the New World…and they keep adding more and more publishers to the list.

Under $20 – Welcome to the land of the independently developed game. When I gave up on ever buying anything laced with SecuROM, I thought I’d be running dry on games soon…then along come the small companies to save the day (some big titles also fit here…The Witcher and CoD 5 are 2 I may get at some point)!

First up, Hinterland. This is another one of those games that sort of straddles several categories. You start off alone, in a new world, with a house. At it’s heart, the game is an Action RPG…go around, kill bad guys, take resources. However, at regular intervals your ‘town’ is visited by others…farmers, herders, guards, merchants, healers, wizards, etc. If your town meets the criteria (certain level of development, certain resources under your control, certain amount of money/fame, etc.), you can pay to build them a house and they JOIN your town. Now, not only do they provide their typical service (farmers grow food, merchants sell your stuff), you can also take them out WITH you on raids…which leads to tough decisions. Can you afford to be without one of your farmers for 3 days so you can bring him with you? Combat helps train up your people to defend themselves, so they can act as a militia when YOUR town is raided.

When Ray got focused on farming, he tended to miss things going on right next to him.

Unfortunately, they can also be wounded, and basically bedridden for whatever period of time it takes to heal. Sure, you can throw them out of town, but your Fame (built up through combat, succeeding in quests for the king, and development) will plummet. Two other factors make this game fantastic. 1. Tilted Mill is going to issue regular expansions and material for it. 2. Every time you play a new game, it generates a random map. There is no way to ever really get a permanent ‘lay of the land’ because the land is laid out differently every time you start it up. This one’s download only through Gamersgate, Steam, Impulse (Stardock’s download service) or Direct2Drive.

Second up…World of Goo. Yes, Goo. That’s what it says. It’s weird…I know. Get over it.

[youtube]0hpWv41z0S4[/youtube]

It’s a puzzle game with a simple concept, but it’s a lot of fun. You form geometric shapes with balls of goo (there are different kinds with different abilities), to try and get a certain number per level across a chasm/trap/spinning cog/saw/whatever and in to a pipe somewhere else in the level. In case this seems really stupid, and sounds like something nobody would like, allow me to share some ratings scores it’s gotten.

Gamespot – 9/10, IGN – 9.5/10, GameSpy – 5/5, Wiiware World – 10/10.

Everyone loves this damn game! This one is also on the Wii, so, again, you can get it for that one, too (and is available for purchase/download for PC everywhere Hinterland is AND at Greenhouse Games). And the 2 guys who made it have also released a level editor, so there is high potential for more material to just keep appearing on the scene for this one.

Finally, we have Ricochet Infinity. Take Arkanoid…now add about 7 Bazillion powerup items, and levels that shift and move all over the screen and consist of about 5700 different tile types that all do different things. It takes a few levels to figure out what does what, but once you do, the game’s a blast.

This is the result when Arkanoid has sex with Awesome.

It comes with 216 levels in one long pseudo-campaign. There are literally several THOUSANDS more you can download from withing the game. You can play forever. It really, really wants you to.

$29.99 – Not even my own rules can constrain me! AHAHAHA! Anyway, I’m shattering them because I also really wanted to mention Armageddon Empires. If you read Penny Arcade (speaking of which, both the Penny Arcade Adventures chapters fit in the Under $20 category. Get me if you’re a fan of the strips!) at all, they were in love with this when it launched a year or so ago. I’m a little behind, fucking sue me. Anyway, it’s part card combat (use standard decks or build your own, though card order is always randomized), part Catan-style tile board (with a different lay out every play) , part post-apocalyptic strategy title. You need to explore and find/take resources, build up military power, research and develop weapons/genetic tech, and develop bases and towns on the map.

I HATE being attacked by Monstrosities on the Freeway of Death!

You also have to beat your opponent(s) to the punch all the time. With everything as randomized as it is, you might get favorable early cards and good location near resources and do well…of course, you might also consistently lose every start of turn dice roll to determine turn order (earlier gets more Action Points) and your opponents will simply take it all from you anyway. Really fun game, and really unique. (worth noting…Cryptic Comet’s next game, Solium Infernum will be set in Hades…Satan’s gone, and there’s a war to fill his throne. Is anything as badass sounding as ‘War In Hell’?). (Also fitting in at this price point is an open world RPG called Mount & Blade. Constantly evolving world, armies to expand and command, sword combat you control, a character you develop…it sounds pretty badass, and it’s gotten favorable mention on a lot of web forums I frequent. It’s followed the Hinterland model of constant update and expansion, and it’s definitely something I plan to grab in the near future).

So, there you have it, several games that should amuse anyone. What they ALL have in common is that they’re well designed and they’re fun. Some don’t look great, some are ugly as sin…but who cares? Think about it…how many times have you put a game down for good because the gameplay sucked, or the controls were annoying, or the camera angles were awful? Have you EVER put a game down for good that was good in all those categories but didn’t look pretty enough? Didn’t think so. Nobody ever has…the only people obsessed with graphics are the game developers, who have everything ass backwards.