Regulation Gaming

Guerrilla Warfare Series

There are precious few games that attempt to authentically model guerrilla warfare. Plenty pay lip service to revolt theory, and you can't walk two paces without stepping in a “ragtag group fights against an overwhelming force” plot, but few model the logistics or tactics of a violent uprising.

Therefore, the next few Regulation Gaming essays will be an ongoing series exploring those few games that do try to model guerrilla tactics or strategy. Though I can't guarantee I will complete every game, I will play them enough to learn the systems and knowledgeably point out which mechanics coincide with real guerrilla warfare theory, and which mechanics do not.

I will mostly use Hans von Dachs’ seminal text Total Resistance as a reference, which is still in print and a highly recommended read. Although it is a post-World War II military manual, it will be relevant for this discussion since most of these games do not deal with the internet and modern surveillance technology. This antiquated text will line up very well with what these games hope to accomplish.

Here I will provide, as a preview, which games you can expect to be explored in this series. This is not a definitive list, but an idea of what kinds of games you will read about.

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

This open-world character action game set in Tolkien's iconic world does not burden the player with logistics or supply lines for any revolutionary movement the protagonists may be involved in. However, it models the enemy military hierarchy in fascinating and dynamic ways thanks to its powerful “Nemesis System”. By manipulating the enemy military political structure, the protagonists can disrupt Sauron’s officer corp in amusing and satisfying ways. Additionally, the focus on stealth, the danger of the combat, and the various tools available for ambush and diversion give the game a unique and not wholly inauthentic take on guerrilla tactics.

The two-in-one protagonist provides a decent abstraction of a small guerrilla force operating in occupied territory. Talion is the human undead ranger, and Celebrimbor is the deceased elf whose spirit also resides in him, giving him otherworldly powers. Talion's superhuman combat endurance and Celebrimbor's magical abilities give them the means to conduct a one (or two) person resistance, but not in a way that overpowers their clever and numerous enemies.

Jagged Alliance 2

This is the celebrated strategy/tactics game about revolution in the 3rd world. I suspect the politics will be unsavory and the representation of an actual grass-roots violent uprising on the strategic-level will be inaccurate, but this game is a classic. I imaging there will be a lot in its favor as far as how it represents the tactical side of guerrilla warfare.

Dark Reign

This 1997 RTS is an ambitious early attempt at asymmetrical faction design. Said faction’s names are as subtle as a jackhammer: Freedom Guard and Imperium.

That said, Dark Reign has unique ideas about line of sight and the role of reconnaissance in a guerrilla/counter-guerrilla conflict. It also puts the strategic considerations in the hands of the player, so they must handle resource management and logistics in a way that is very similar to other RTS titles. The factions, though ostensibly diametrically opposed on the tactical side, are similar on the strategic side, meaning the lighter, weaker, more mobile Freedom Guard has a rather centralized infrastructure, similar to the heavy, powerful Imperium. Hans von Dach would not approve of this model of a revolutionary or resistance force.

I'm excited to see how the game’s promise of creating an asymmetrical conflict will play out. How essential will stealth and ambush tactics be? How important is reconnaissance? How effective will the Imperium's heavy shock tactics be as a counter-revolutionary tool?

House of the Dying Sun

Here is the darkly cynical tactical space shooter cousin of the inspiring classic RTS Exodus allegory Homeworld, which I've written about on this site. Aesthetically, although House of the Dying Sun is a cockpit-perspective space combat game with tactical elements and not an RTS, the similarities are striking. The nebula is plentiful and colorful, the ships leave lazy trails behind their thrusters as they maneuver, and the radio chatter is subdued and professional.

Thematically, these two games are nearly polar opposites. Homeworld is about a people single-mindedly working together unwavered by constant trials. House of the Dying Sun opens with a simple message: That your emperor has been assassinated, and you, the Royal Guard, must execute his final command. You must conduct vengeful terrorist strikes on his enemies and their people.

At first, you assassinate high level officials, which doesn't seem so bad, but by the end of the game you will have assaulted some, we'll say “soft” targets. After every strike you must escape the retaliatory heavy reinforcements. It is necessary to strike and fade.

I hope this illustrates the premise of this series. If you have any suggestions, comments, or anything at all to share, please contact me on twitter @petebarbero1 or email regulationgaming1@gmail.com. Let’s talk about games nobody cares about!

Knights in the Nightmare

What's the value in remembering? Is there value in forgetting? If you could forget the things you regret or bring you pain, would you?

A soul is freed by an armored maiden. He travels, sometimes accompanied by her, sometimes alone. He does not wander the land, but, remembering nothing, is driven mysteriously toward the stately castle perched on a cliffside.

Immediately the soul is beset from within and from without. From without by the monsters that have emerged from the Underworld, surprising and defeating the kingdom. The wisp, who is controlled by the player, is suddenly accompanied by incorporeal soldiers who acquiesce to his command. They briefly materialize to unleash their ghastly attacks on the monsters. Unseen they fight, raging and vengeful. However, as the wisp find items that were important to these ghosts in life, they give their loyalty totally, accompanying him on the rest of his journey.

The wisp is beset from within by questions attached to an uncanny dread.

What draws me to the castle?

Do I truly want to see this journey to the end?

Do I want to reclaim my memories?

Do I want my questions answered?

Sting is the sort of developer that is highly valued. They took the Gameboy Advance, PSP, and Nintendo DS seriously, launching boutique, opulently beautiful, and thematically tragic JRPGs. Their games look and sound gorgeous, and they feature gameplay that's so inexplicably bizarre, that for the first hour or two, you'll wonder what you're doing. They always return your investment with fun, white-knuckle combat systems that perfectly accompany the plot.

The game I'm exploring is Knights in the Nightmare on the Nintendo DS. It could be the most impenetrable game I've played, however, the beautiful art and music make a powerful impression. They were what spurred me on to make the effort, enormous though it was, to learn the game and unravel the riveting, apocalyptic, out-of-order story.

As you, the wisp, continue your journey with Maria, the armored maiden, you begin to piece everything together. First, the feelings associated with remembering are cataclysmic, yet oddly triumphant. You learn that the kingdom has fallen even before you woke up. You don't know what your attachment to the kingdom is, but the tragedy is palpable. You also learn that the specters that fight by your side are soldiers and knights belonging to one of the several knightly orders of the fallen kingdom. They continue to avenge, seemingly empowered by the wisp.

Between battle scenarios there are no towns, no dungeons nor overworld to explore, just story vignettes. They always are viewed in threes. You witness the last moments of one or more characters you will meet in the upcoming battle. This seems to communicate that as you approach the resting place of these individuals, you experience their trauma and memories. Eventually these past events go beyond the characters in the field and deal with your own past. You will also see the current situation from the enemy's point of view. There is then a brief text interstitial explaining, in enigmatic terms, the current situation. These are set against a black background and accompanied by some haunting, painfully beautiful piano music as the crests of the knightly orders of the kingdom fade in and out behind the text. Finally, you see the wisp as it approaches the battlefield.

At first, the story is purposely disjointed, dipping into the past and the present with abandon, evoking the fragmented memories of the wisp. Thankfully, memories of the past are viewed in black and white, communicating that what is seen is a past event. The story pacing is also swift, so it won't take long before you begin to put the puzzle together.

The vignettes build emotionally, bringing home the bravery of those who died defending the kingdom. This makes the contributions made by these same dead knights to your own party even more powerful.

The unconventional battle system further communicates the ethereal, otherworldly presence of your participants. This is where the game gets strange.

Before each battle, you're told you must achieve victory within a certain number of turns. You place your allies in set spaces on the battlefield, then begin the turn. You control the wisp as a cursor with the stylus in real time on the touchscreen while the action takes place on the top screen. It feels quite disconnected at first and takes getting used to. You must move the wisp over a friendly unit, causing them to materialize in the physical world. This charges up an attack which unleashes when you lift the stylus off the screen. The enemies, unable to attack your unseen comrades, instead attack your wisp with arcade shooter-style bullet hell patterns, which you must dodge. If they touch you, they will take away your “time”, which, contrary to what it sounds like, is actually a resource that governs how many actions you have per turn. When the time reaches zero, that turn ends. Each scenario ends in failure if you cannot achieve victory in the given number of “turns.”

At the end of each turn, you have a chance to swap members of your party, switch items in and out of your inventory, and, in a way, choose which enemies you will face in the upcoming turn.

Your units normally do not move. Rather, their attacks cast out upon the board in set patterns. Normal attacks do almost no damage to the enemy, but they cause them to drop gems, which fill a meter when collected by the wisp. If the meter is full, you can drag a weapon from your inventory on the side of the screen to a character, charge up an attack, and do actual damage.

There is also a polarity system. Through a switch on the bottom-right of the screen, you can shift the world between lawful and chaotic states. This changes your units attack patterns completely, and most weapons can only be used in one polarity or the other. On top of all that, you must consider your enemies’ elemental affinities and use weapons bearing a opposite element to that of your enemies’.

To achieve victory, you must essentially play tic-tac-toe. On the bottom of the screen is a grid, each enemy present on the map takes up a space on that grid. When you defeat an enemy, it's like making your mark on the board. Between turns, through a roulette system that you have some control over, you can choose which enemies will appear on the board next turn. Through this you can choose to place enemies that line up on this grid and defeat them. It is confusing and I mention it not to try to help you understand, but just to show how absurdly dense, for good or ill, Knights in the Nightmare is.

It realistically takes around an hour or more to learn. It can be a huge obstacle, and potentially appeals only to a very specific type of player. However, underneath all the baffling layers is a battle system overflowing with frantic arcade gameplay and careful tactics. Unit placement, an awareness of units’ attack patterns in both polarities, and learning enemy behavior and attack types are highly important skills in this game.

In the battle maps are objects that can be destroyed, revealing items you can pick up. Usually they are weapons, but sometimes they are Key Items. These are the aforementioned items that held importance to the dead characters when they were alive. In every map, you will meet one soldier, who will fight as a guest. If you picked up the item that corresponds to them in a previous battle, you can give it to them during battle, which lets you permanently recruit them. There are also several non-combatant characters on the maps. You can give them their key items, for which they will give you weapons in return, but the real value in giving them their trinkets is to further impress upon the mind how darkly tragic everything is. They are there in spirit, which means they died there.

These NPCs will not join your party, as they do not fight, but reading a line about that broken shovel or faded book or toy doll from its slain owner is heart-rending. The amount of impact achieved in a single sentence is a clinic in storytelling economy.

The minor characters tend to be fairly broadly painted, and the villains are pretty villainous, although there are a few more relatable exceptions, but they all are wonderful. The cast is so large that I didn't mind rapidly assessing the essence of each one. Additionally, Sunaho Tobe’s character designs are breathtaking. They feature anime characters toting oversized weapons and armor, and she imbues them with charisma, dynamism, and intricate detail. There is joyfully jarring juxtaposition between the choking weight of the plot and these very appealing looking characters, sharpening the impact the plot already carries.

As the wisp comes across more of these characters, the memories continue to trickle in. Pride and melancholy give way to deep regret as the truth gradually gets uncovered.

You are King Wilmgard, monarch at Aventheim Castle, and the Arbitrator, a recognized authority by both the underworld and Asgard meant to keep balance between the two. You were assassinated by your trusted advisor, then your soul was placed in a prison as the denizens of the underworld, led by the serpentine beast Zolgonark, pour fourth. They decimate your stalwart kingdom in hours.

In life, you were loved by your people, and you always worked to put them first, even at the expense of the marginalized half-human half-dragon Tiamat. For generations, your people dominated them, regarding them as second-class citizens.

Years before, in response to this oppression, the Tiamat and the Lemonoug, a similarly oppressed group of “lower-class” humans, built a Tower of Babel-esque structure attempting to reach Asgard so the gods would hear their plight. They are instead punished by the gods for their audacity. Their tower is brought low, and they are forever branded heretics. Your people then had further reason to oppress them, as they did it in the name of Asgard.

King Wilmgard worked to ease this oppression. He wished to blur the class lines and create a more equitable society. He often said: “We must put the citizens first”. Unfortunately his noble desires could not all be fulfilled. Such drastic societal change is not easily realized.

Maria, the armored maiden who frees you, has her own painful secrets. She is in fact Marietta, archangel of Asgard, sent to discipline the people for building the tower. She selfishly wants more power, so she cuts a deal with Zolgonark. However, Zolgonark tricks her, stealing her chaotic half and making her work for him. Her chaotic half becomes Melissa, and Zolgonark promises the power she sought, securing her loyalty to him. Maria immediately realizes her mistake and uses the wisp to help her reacquire her holy staff, Ancardia, which would allow her to return to Asgard. Although she would be surely eternally punished for her unwise decision upon returning, she is prepared to face the consequences.

King Wilmgard never realized how many enemies he made until after his death. Marietta tried to improve herself by gaining more power. In their journey of self-discovery, they experience the pain and disappointment of their own actions. How can one cope if their journey of self-discovery reveals uncomfortable truths?

In the ending that I experienced, Zolgonark is defeated, leaving a serpentine spinal column and massive cavernous ribs, all speckled with his blood. Melissa then challenges you and Maria, taking on Zolgonark’s power in the most awesome way possible: lifting his enormous bloody husk and laying it across her shoulders, prompting her to call herself Melad Margus. The image of the fallen angel adorned with the skeleton of a massive beast will stay with you.

This circumstance requires Maria to kill a part of herself. From here the pain continues to stack. The monsters are defeated, but there's nothing left. Nothing to hold the king accountable. Maria, having failed to retrieve Ancardia in this ending, cannot return to Asgard to face her mistakes. The wisp and Maria wander the desolate wilderness alone. Never dying, never reconciling, always thinking of who they hurt, what they should've done differently. Peace is forever out of their reach. Can they ever put it all behind them? What does it say about them if they can, or cannot?

There are more endings in Knights in the Nightmare. The “best” shows the wisp and his corporeal remains with Marietta at the gates of Asgard. Marietta explains that her sins are unforgivable. She will go to Asgard to face her punishment and be banished. The wisp is reunited with his remains, becoming revived. The reanimated Wilmgard, once “feared for his lineage” then goes to the “home he yearned for”, as the expository text explains. In this good ending, the King would have also saved Algiery, his lover and a head knight. The game ends with her showing up, also alive, and their embrace.

It is sweet, but still bitterly so. They embrace in an empty hall, in an empty castle, which overlooks an empty kingdom. Hardly an ideal new beginning, but perhaps it is still a beginning. Maybe it is what replaces the stench of death with a subtle aroma of hope.

Perhaps it's telling that I prefer the darker ending.

Driver

The engine rattles my bones. My nondescript automobile is swift and nimble in my hands. I release a held breath as I scrape against oncoming traffic, crossing into a nearby alleyway, crushing the trash strewn by careless pedestrians. Suddenly, the peal of the sirens fades into a distant wail, lamenting my escape.

“We lost him,” the police radio barks. Transmissions emit from twisted, mangled machines.

How could it be? It was 1999. We did have good driving video games by then. We'd driven in somewhat open worlds in Carmageddon and Midtown Madness, and we raced away from the police in Need For Speed, just to name a few. Therefore, Reflections’ Driver: You are the Wheelman and it's sequel, Driver 2, are not without precedent, and at first glance, don't seem very special.

The inspiration is clear. The French Connection, The Blues Brothers, and perhaps most of all, Bullitt. Yes, this game had its own plot, but we're not here to discuss that. This game is a tribute to action movie car chase scenes, and this purity of focus is where its strength lies. Thus, beyond lackluster first glances, one sees the power and beauty of these first two Driver games: The efficiency with which they evoke celluloid car chases.

It does this in 4 major ways. First, you are, with few exceptions, driving run-of-the-mill cars with a top speed of about 85 mph. This fits as the setting itself is quite grounded. Additionally, this places the emphasis on driver skill and cunning rather than the supercar fantasy.

Second, the controls are arcade driving controls, but with a few extra inputs that provide important functions. You mash the gas and steer with the d-pad or arrow keys, but the ability to engage the handbrake or perform a burnout provide important options for cinematic artistry while maneuvering the traffic-laden city streets.

Third, the physics are deliciously exaggerated, with cars bouncing around on very loose suspension, and sliding around with lax traction, both of which give it a very dynamic, film-like quality. The lack of tire friction is consistent and predictable, and in no time you'll be handbrake-turning around corners and slipping into dusty alleyways regularly.

Fourth, “Director Mode”. After every run, be it a story mission, a freewheeling “Take a Ride” session, in which you drive the open world without the shackles of objectives or time limits, or one of the challenging “Driving Games”, you may place cameras throughout your path and, in this way, edit your run as your very own action movie car chase scene. The array of tools is impressive. You can place a tripod camera, choose whether it tracks your car or your pursuer's car, choose a driver's seat view or a chase camera’s view etc. You may also employ a “CPU Director”, which randomly changes the camera every certain number of seconds. For the creatively blocked or impatient director, this can still be a viable way to create a template that they may then adjust to their tastes by editing the cameras as the scene plays out.

There are limitations, however. You cannot cut footage. There are no playback speed options, so you cannot employ a slow-motion effect. All cameras are static, including chase cameras, which act as if they're fixed to the vehicle. Even so, the great interface makes it a breeze to author some stunning scenes showcasing your getaway skills. If I'm not spending 20 minutes directing the cameras after every 5 minute run, I don't feel I'm playing Driver correctly.

Choreographing these chases is the most fun and important portion of the creative process. As you get to know the cities, you begin to choose your favorite places to get into a chase. For example, the steep hills along the trolly lines in Driver's San Francisco map, which allow you to get airborne and use the median barriers and trolleys as obstacles, scraping the cops off your tail, often resulting in almost Blues Brothers levels of absurd police car pileups. Or perhaps La Plaza de la Revolución in Driver 2’s Havana map, which features a large hill topped with a massive obelisk monument. This is perfect for slamming the breaks as you reach the peak, allowing your pursuers to fly over you as they soar off the hill at top speed, or pulverize themselves against the José Martí memorial perched on top. Driver's Miami map has a charming suburb area begging you to powerslide through residences’ lawns, leveling their picket fences with a satisfying rattle-crunch, the splintered pickets popping over your car's hood as you plow through them.

The destructible fences, parking meters, and road signs add to the kineticism of the chases. The people enjoying a pleasant afternoon at the café quickly escape as you barrel through, leaving the outdoor seating in shambles.

Both games have their frustrations. Having a flowing, white-knuckle series of maneuvers halted cruelly by a slight miscalculation and a telephone pole is no fun. Neither are some of the completely senseless and short time limits placed on you in the campaign missions.

In fact, the campaigns in both games are an enigma. Driver’s campaign features a nearly impossible opening mission, some enjoyable and thrilling missions alongside some that are less so, and some truly dreadful CG cutscenes. Driver 2, which features the ill-advised ability to leave your car and hijack any other, has a campaign that's made up of about 10% decently designed and fun missions, 30% missions with good concepts, but that are hobbled with poor execution or bottomless frustration, and 60% missions that are awful all around. Most of Driver 2’s mission problems are found in its outrageously strict time limits, and most of the time, these limits make absolutely no sense narratively. For example, there is a mission in which you must bump an explosives truck (which does not respond to your impacts and magically matches your vehicle in speed, despite being a big, heavy box truck) until the driver abandons it. This allows you to steal it (which reveals that the truck is not actually fast) and drive it back to your hideout. However, there is a time limit to get the truck there. What difference does it make if I'm a block away and the timer runs out? It is maddening.

It is a shame that you must play the campaign to unlock the rest of the excellent maps for the “Driving Games” or “Take a Ride” modes, which allow you to actually have fun in them. If you decide to play Driver and Driver 2, consider, if possible, using cheats so you can choose the backdrop of your expertly directed car chases straight away.

The maps are large and have their own distinct identities. They're modeled, remarkably closely for the time of the game's release, after real-world cities and are mostly successful in capturing what makes those cities unique. Driver 2 even introduced curved roads, making the scenic coastline highway of Havana, quaint suburbs of Las Vegas, cramped roadways of Rio de Janeiro, and Chicago's highways even more convincing. These are great compliments to Driver’s Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York maps.

The strongest, most consistently enjoyable Driver game is the PC version of Driver: You are the Wheelman. You may increase the draw distance, traffic and pedestrian density, and there are more NPC vehicle types, including vans. These options fill out the world and makes it much more visually appealing and challenging. The original PSX version has some unfortunately light traffic, short draw distances, and only feature one type of traffic: the same sedan in different colors. Driver 2 makes the traffic denser, with many more vehicle types including trucks, vans, and busses, giving a much richer world. But the draw distance can be so short it's distracting and the frame rate at times suffers badly. Also, the music is very, very bad. Setting-wise, however, Driver 2 is wonderful, featuring locales outside of the United States. The curved streets in the Latin American cities and the highway systems add much character and still make Driver 2 well worth all the trouble, though the PC port of the original Driver is still superior.

The activities you can partake of outside of your car are limited in the sequel, and non-existent in the first game, yet this points to Driver’s aforementioned purity of focus. The graphics are rudimentary, yet in motion, it's so fluid and movie-like, with the way the car gently sways, leans, and bounces. The controls, which have no analog option, are perfect. Using digital controls ends up being ideal for deftly navigating the gridlike city maps. The physics evoke the analog control mechanisms of real automobiles. This an important strength of the early entries in the Driver series: it's economy of evocation. How much it does with so little.

Many games nowadays encourage the player to create; The Driver series is a fascinating earlier example, since its creation tools are not for building landscapes, maps, or even tweaking colors on the cars. They serve the extremely specific ability to direct an action scene from your run. You create your art by first playing a very simple to learn, difficult to master arcade driving game with fun, yet grounded, physics for a tense few minutes. You then place cameras. That's the loop with Driver: play a fun car game, play a fun director game. Rinse. Repeat.

I would occasionally create a scene I would want to keep forever to show all of my friends. The stellar run, complete with near misses, breathtaking stunts, and eye-popping police car pileups, all later meticulously directed to perfectly and artfully capture the chaos, would provide a moment of crystalized magic, waiting for me to press play.

Homeworld

This piece is about the original 1999 release of Homeworld. For clarity's sake, this is not about the remastered version released by Gearbox. Note, however, that the remastered collection allows you to play the original versions of Homeworld and Homeworld 2 as well as the remastered versions.

When Relic unleashed Homeworld in 1999, no one had seen anything quite like it. It was a beautiful, fluid, cinematic 3-D Space real-time strategy game. Homeworld gained recognition for its graphics, abundance of strategic texture, and its expertly presented, deeply evocative, and forlorn plot.

Gameplay for Homeworld is, on its surface, a standard gather-and-build real-time strategy game. You'll research technology, build resource gathering units, command them to mine asteroids and space dust, build units and attempt to attack your opponent. Like most great strategy games, there is plenty of room to explore tactical possibilities, and there are great tools with which to do so.

You may assign a group of units a formation, and most formations have a specific purpose. You may assign corvettes bristling with turrets to escort your resource gatherers in a “sphere” formation, allowing them three hundred-sixty-degree coverage to easily repel small scale attacks on your resource operation. You may command a squadron of bombers to assume the “claw” formation, allowing them to fire an additional bomb per strafing run on an enemy capital ship. There are several formations, and mastery of them can turn the tide against a similarly composed opponent.

You also are able to assign a tactical stance. There are three to choose from, evasive, normal, and aggressive. The normal stance gives the squadron a balanced profile. They will remain in formation, increasing firepower by concentrating the whole group’s fire on a single target, but still travel quickly. The aggressive stance diverts power from their engines to their weapons, increasing firepower but decreasing maneuverability. Evasive tactics causes them to ignore the assigned formation and break into groups of two. Their firepower is decreased, but they will be as fast and maneuverable as possible. This is an effective tactic for stalling the enemy or distracting them as you move a heavier force to finish them off.

The battles in Homeworld are so fluid and dynamic that at times you'll want to find a good camera angle to take in the majesty of the melee. The free camera movement allows the best possible tactical awareness while letting the game show off its staggering graphics. The backgrounds are striking, usually with prismatic starlight filtered through nebulae in the distance. There is one map that has what appears to be an impossibly massive ruined artificial structure in the background, the starlight colored by the nebulous haze peeking through its ruptures. It seems such a great distance away, yet its scale is so incomprehensible that you seem to be almost inside of it.

You can focus the camera on a single unit, then you may zoom and rotate the camera freely. This allows you to appreciate the care taken in the ships. Turrets animate, the textures are sharp, and the designs are attractive.

As you zoom in close to a craft, be it a swift interceptor or a hulking destroyer, the soundscape changes. The engines swoosh, the computers beep, strange encryptions chatter. On a capital ship you can hear the throaty grind and clunk of the massive turrets turning, tracking their targets, artillery booming as they engage.

It must be mentioned here, that one thing that goes a long way to making these engagements so dynamic is that every projectile fired is a true projectile. That is, Homeworld does not rely on percentage chances to hit. The guns, from the small interceptor autocannons, to the heavy battlecruiser artillery, to the guided missiles of the fearsome missile destroyer, actually launch the projectiles and they fly through space. A battlecruiser could attempt to fire on an interceptor or a scout, but it likely won't hit the target because it's turrets can't track it fast enough and it can only shoot one projectile every so often. However, occasionally a strike craft will judge its approach wrong or the gunner will get lucky, and a shot will land, the heavy artillery shell obliterating the tiny craft. This is just an example of an extreme case, but one could see that this sort of ballistics modeling makes the formation and tactics systems very impactful. It is difficult to hit a squad of scouts assigned to take evasive action, not because the percentages say so in a computer, but because it's challenging to track and hit them as they flit about.

When the Kushan, the people of the harsh desert planet Kharak, discovered a mysterious stone tablet within an ancient spacecraft, they thought they had found an opportunity. The tablet contained two critical pieces of forgotten knowledge; hyperspace technology, and a star map leading to the planet Hiigara. “Our Home”. The discovery of their ancestral home quickly unifies the people of Kharak, and they endeavor to rapidly develop hyperspace technology. After a century, they finalize the construction of the Mothership. There was, however, a problem that plagued the engineers. Since they did not have the means to develop a CPU powerful enough to manage all the ship's systems and subsystems, Karan S’jet, a neuroscientist, offered an unconventional solution. An organic computer. She sacrifices herself by physically merging with the Mothership’s central computer, becoming Fleet Command.

The other character introduced from the beginning is an unnamed male voice who represents Fleet Intelligence. Though you don't see his face nor know his name, his voice, in all its calm professionalism, is the one you most often hear. Fleet Intelligence is responsible for briefing you on your objectives and updating you on the current battlefield situation.

The game begins with the Mothership still attached to the orbital shipyard where it was built. You, as commander of the fleet, successfully and uneventfully conduct the first of two initial tests to ensure all her systems function properly. This first phase culminates in the hyperspace test. However, the support ship that was supposed to be waiting at the jump destination had been destroyed by bandits. After fending off the bandit ambush, the Kushan fleet returns to Kharak to find it burning. The Taiidan Empire, whose existence was up to now unknown, had descended upon Kharak and conducted a comprehensive orbital bombardment. This was in response to an ancient treaty unknowingly violated by your Kushan people to never develop hyperspace technology. The only Kushan still alive are the six hundred thousand still in suspended stasis in cryo trays near the shipyard. You must fend off the initial Taiidan assault on the trays, load them into the Mothership, then jump before reinforcements arrive. Your journey home begins now, unexpectedly expedited though it may be.

The ship destroyed by bandits and the holocaust of Kharak immediately demonstrate the emotional range of Homeworld. It is more than a pretty face or a good strategy video game, it tells a hopeful and crushing story of loss, perseverance and resilience. The weight comes across in the excellent voice performances as well. Throughout the entire game, Intelligence remains unflappable and professional. Upon witnessing the genocide on Kharak, the faintest, almost imperceptible crack in his voice can be heard. Though he remains stalwart, not even he can be completely clinical as he reports the extent of the decimation of his and your people. It is a subtle, yet utterly heartbreaking moment.

From this moment on, realizing that they would be buffeted at every turn, the Kushan immediately research defense technology necessary to develop nimble strike craft, versatile gunship-esque corvettes, sturdy frigates, and lumbering capital ships, all built from resources mined from asteroids, dust, and nebulae. Each ship serves a purpose, and commissioning a balanced fleet is necessary for a successful homecoming.

The dichotomy of cold melancholy and firm hope is present throughout. The sense is that every survivor is pulling together toward the common goal of survival and arrival at Hiigara. Even the voices of pilots you command convey this. Similarly to the voice performances for Fleet Command and Fleet Intelligence, the radio-crackled voice barks of the pilots you command are quiet and matter-of-fact despite the danger present. It is an inspiring depiction of steadfastness in the face of crisis and terror.

Along the way, the Taiidan will attempt to thwart you. You will also meet the defenders of the Garden of Kadesh, a sinister nebula held as sacred by those who live in it. Once you desecrate it by simply entering, you cannot avoid fighting these offended devotees despite begging for peaceful passage. It is another moment of tragedy, this time unintentionally perpetrated by you and your people.

You will also meet an ancient race called the Bentusi. They offer aid in the form of new technology and advice. If Fleet Command is your pillar of smoke in the day, then it can be said that the Bentusi are your biblical pillar of fire in the night.

Indeed, Homeworld's plot and themes strongly echo the biblical Exodus. The Children of Israel traveled many years to a promised land having escaped captivity. During their journey they experienced hardship, saw miracles, invaded foreign lands and made war. The similarities are there, but there are contrasting elements that perhaps make the struggle of Homeworld a somewhat idealized version of this narrative. The Children of Israel exhibit many unfortunate, but human qualities such as fatigue, forgetfulness of the miracles they'd witnessed, and a propensity for complaining. On the other hand, the Kushan always seem focused, professional and selfless, demonstrating a strong sense of purpose. From both stories, we can gain many lessons.

Among those lessons, we can learn redemption, resilience, faith, collaboration, compassion, leadership and many more. The power in these stories is obvious, but it's remarkable that Homeworld evokes this important piece of Judeo-Christian religious history while adding its own elements. In some ways, it is a cleaner version, with the protagonists demonstrating more heroic qualities, but then again, there is the incident at The Garden of Kadesh.

The Garden of Kadesh is Homeworld's Canaan, though there are differences. In the Exodus story, it is said that God instructed the Israelites to purge the Canaanites completely, not leaving any man, woman, child, or beast alive, in order to claim the land for themselves. It is a very difficult story fraught with challenge for modern minds and sensibilities.

In the Homeworld story, you attempt to move through a nebula to bypass imperial defenses. Your simple appearance immediately offends its inhabitants and protectors. To preserve the sacred nature of the Garden, they must destroy you. You never wanted this, and insist you mean no offense. You request peaceful passage, but they'll have none of it. The result is a savage melee among the foggy nebula with the inhabitants of the Garden using swarming tactics and small, highly nimble strike craft which are heavily reliant on mobile fuel pods due to their small fuel capacity. The tactic used by the Kushan is to target the fuel pods, leaving the tiny “swarmers” inert. The unfortunate result is a massacre, made even more tragic by its absurdity and senselessness. The inhabitants of the Garden instigate the conflict, but we must recognize that the Kushan are not sinless victims.

Homeworld plays and looks great, even by modern standards. There is sufficient strategic and tactical texture for any armchair strategist-tactician to sink their teeth into. If you're not into strategy games, the themes of Homeworld are powerful and inspiring enough to spark the interest of just about anyone. The occasional sparsely animated hand-drawn cutscenes are striking and moving. Additionally, the graphics are colorful and cinematic while the voicework is about as good as it gets. The plot is simple, but thought-provoking, expertly delivered, and truly inspiring; The game is also balanced, intuitive, and enjoyable to play, so if you enjoy strategy games, this is an essential work. If you're not a strategy game player, you may still consider experiencing the wonder, majesty, and subdued refinement of Homeworld.

E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy

The Aon Center, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, No Man’s Sky, E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy.

In the world of artistic endeavor, there are countless examples of ambition colliding with cold business reality. Streum On Studios’ E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy seems to be one of these examples, but in a slightly different way. Unlike the breathtakingly expensive failures mentioned above, the only checks E.Y.E. can’t cash are its visionary ones. It simply attempts too much, often falling flat on its face. For this reason, It likely is not worth your time. However, oddly, it has been worth mine.

Is this because our times have different value? No that's not what I mean. I mean that E.Y.E. has so much to offer me, that despite the big problems it has, I've found much value in it. These big problems are likely to be too much for most players, however.

For me, writing about E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy is an intimidating prospect for a few reasons. First, this game is huge. The campaign spans several areas, usually urban or industrial type environments, each of which are very large and nonlinear, with multiple objectives to complete.

Second, the game is dense. It manages to put a lot of pathways and possibilities in all the maps. You'll hack, leap high and far, create clones of yourself, sling fireballs, sneak, and shoot. A lot.

Third, the plot seems to want to be an important part of the game, but it's borderline unintelligible. Streum On Studios is a French developer, and one can assume that the offensively poor dialog is just a shabby localization job; Reportedly it wasn't very good to begin with.

The final reason why it's tough to write about E.Y.E. is that, despite the fact that it is so difficult to recommend, I really love this game. Apart from being unintelligible it's also unstable, confusing, and it does a horrible job of teaching you its various systems. On the other hand, it is an infinitely fascinating, systems-filled FPS/RPG hybrid with astounding, though inconsistently executed, visual expression.

Somehow it manages to make so many head-scratching design decisions that you wonder if they're intentional. Even more puzzling is how it manages to hold together.

Of course, whether or not it holds together is up for debate. E.Y.E. is much more stable now than at release. However even now, the many systems do not always interact together in as satisfying a way as they would in Deus Ex or System Shock, clear inspirations for this game. In these foundational games, the systems line up such that you may solve all or most problems in many ways. Usually sneaking, hacking, or battling through the scenarios. In E.Y.E., You may sneak or hack, but the sneaking is almost completely ineffectual without using the cloaking power, and the hacking, though fun, is too time-consuming to use as a solution to a scenario. If you hack, it's usually to support yourself by turning a turret on your side or something similar.

This article is about the current version of the game. A major stumbling block for this game was how, at release, it was not only unstable, but poorly executed. For example, Stealth was impossible since enemies would see you from across the map through the fog, and ping you with pinpoint accuracy as they ran directly at you in single file. They were deadly, yet stupid. Now, although the enemy respawn rate is still obnoxious, and stealth, as mentioned, still won't work much without cloaking, enemy behavior is more believable while still putting up a stiff challenge. They'll even use some light squad tactics. Attempting to pin you down, flank you, or flush you out with grenades. It’s not perfect, but it's a much more satisfying experience.

The setting of E.Y.E. is quite impressive. Apparently set hundreds of years in the future, it evokes a sort of crushingly oppressive post-post-post-apocalypse. At first, in any given environment, the only living creatures you tend to see are violent looters, trigger-happy Federal Police, and a couple varieties of creepy-crawly critters that pose you no harm (but can be victimized in the crossfire. Pro tip: avoid killing them)

This world’s architecture is imposing and almost always incredible to look at. You'll see huge grungy dystopian skyscrapers and trashed housing projects laced with neon and impregnated with a polluted haze. The titular organization's HQ, which is referred to as a temple, is towering, its halls lined with large statues, its catwalks so high you can't see the bedrock below you, its walkways broken up with what one may assume are cyber-techno security checkpoints that flash green as you walk through them.

It's in a league of its own, even though there are a few hiccups in execution. For example, in an early mission, there is an otherworldly luminous green fog that hangs in the air, making it difficult to see distant enemies. It's like an artist's rendition of a tiny city inside a green neon light bulb. It's very odd, yet I choose to accept this as future cyber pollution.

Without a doubt, the most striking element of the visual design is the character models. In the E.Y.E. organization, there are two secretly feuding factions. Your faction, called the Culter Dei, adorn themselves a sort of black Crusades-era armor that is full of decorative elements like gold trim, little lion heads, and even ornamental cyber halos. It's an eye-searing mix of medieval religious warrior and neon techno-soldier. Some evoke heavy metal album cover art with skull-shaped helmets.

The rival faction are the Jian. They share some of the same color palette in their fashion, that is, gold adornments on black armor, but draw a striking Asian silhouette. Many wear a beautiful conical douli brimmed with a rich gold trim, their cyber eyes glowing from underneath the hat’s shadow. Others have vaguely feudal Japanese Samurai style skirted helmets with a crescent tilted on its side which give the effect of golden bull’s horns. Both factions are beautiful and almost obnoxiously ornate in design.

The plot is confusing and poor, but I managed to barely get a sense of it.You are an agent of E.Y.E. which, as mentioned, is divided into two secretly warring factions: the Culter Dei, and the Jian. You awake with amnesia after failed mission and immediately scramble back to your HQ. Your commander wants to continue the campaign against the Jian, but your mentor wants peace, supposedly to unite against the Federation, which might be evil. There is also extra-dimensional force that is imposing itself onto the real world. This means monsters are bursting through portals and attacking anyone in their way.

So is E.Y.E. an Illuminati-esque string-pulling secret organization? Hard to say. What is their purpose or mission statement? Couldn’t tell you. Why do they send you on these missions? Because you’re available. What is does this extra-dimensional force have to do with anything? This isn't ever explained satisfactorily that I saw.

The hub of the game is the E.Y.E. headquarters, where you can purchase weapons, cybernetic upgrades, read up on the extensive history of the world in the archives, and of course, receive missions and launch them.

The first couple missions take place in cities, but not every mission area is urban, there are some vast outdoor environments that seem to defy what I thought the Source engine could do. Even if a few of them are pretty barren, they contain at least a couple interesting and intimidating landmarks. There are a few military base-looking structures, industrial complexes, and other sorts of areas too. These are always less impressive than the city environments, which feature stunning derelict tenements, under-city waterways, sewers, alleyways, catwalks et al. However, every map is sprawling, vertical, and multi-leveled, usually with multiple paths leading to any given area, each one rife with possibilities.

Except these possibilities usually mean mowing down a lot of people. The tools to do so are hit-and-miss. The 3-round burst medium-range assault rifle is useless, especially in the missions where the ethereal mutant monsters continuously pour in boringly from various spawn points on the map. On the other hand, the HS 010 is a Mac-10-esque machine pistol with a brain-rattling report and an absolutely blinding rate of fire. It features an alternate firing mode that doubles its already blistering firing rate. E.Y.E.’s HS 010 sets a watermark for video game submachine guns.

There are other rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols and melee weapons. They’re mostly fine. The Magnum “Bear Hunter” variety of pistols are fun, and the silenced semi-auto sniper rifle is quite useful. In a very nice touch, you can dual wield a pistol and a sword, either the default Katana or the mighty Damocles, which is useful for a gentleman Samurai-wizard player.

As mentioned, you’ll mostly shoot, but there are a couple other things you can do.

Depending on stats involving your psychic prowess, you can access the aforementioned extra-dimensional force to perform what amounts to magic. You can magically jump very high and far, shoot magical projectiles, create magical replicas of yourself to help in combat, and other tricks. If you choose this path, it's possible to become a very powerful cyber-wizard.

There is a bizarre research system in which you remotely assign scientists to investigate things, usually items and substances strangely dropped at random by fallen enemies. It takes real-world time, which can be adjusted based on how much money you want to invest in it. Sometimes the research will yield nothing. Usually it will unlock useful items and abilities.

The best activity not involving shooting, however, is hacking. In E.Y.E., hacking is a menu-driven affair akin to a JRPG battle system. An overlay appears listing all hackable items in range. They can be ATMs, computers, turrets, or even people. Once the target is chosen, you see a menu listing five “viruses” which amount to an attack and various buffs for you and debuffs for the target. Also seen are your “cyber HP”, attack power, and defense power, as well as those of your target. Once you commence the hacking, the target will attempt to hack you back in self-defence. It is a thrilling and tense real-time chess match of buffs, debuffs, and choosing when it’s wise to attack. It’s made even more intense by the fact that the game will continue around you, so you may be seen and attacked in the middle of a hack. Luckily, this action can be easily cancelled.

If your opponent bests you in the hack, you may end up hacked yourself. Your vision will be shrouded in a purple haze and a giant smiley face with X’ed out eyes will taunt you. The only cure for this ailment is to open the hack menu again and hack yourself.

If you are successful, then many of the expected things happen. The turret now works for you, the locked door opens, etc. However the most fascinating thing happens if you hack a person. You can choose a few actions here. Some are expected like immediately destroying them or turning them to your side to fight alongside you, or you can do some less expected things like mind control.

This manifests in unexpected ways. You don’t directly control the victim, but you see their view in the UI overlay. There are five mouse-controlled buttons: Move forward, turn left and right, and target/fire weapon. The indirect way you control the target implies the digital, holding-on-by-a-thread manner in which you’ve taken over their faculties. It is a sick thrill to order your victim to walk right up to their captain, target them, and gun them down. Usually the screen will immediately cut to static as his startled companions eliminate the unexpected traitor.

The campaign has its fun moments by itself, but it gets rather wild when played in co-op. E.Y.E. has a rather unique claim to fame in its ability to accommodate up to 8 players in co-op in some game modes. Fascinatingly, the entire campaign can be played with up to 4 players.

Aside from campaign co-op, any of the maps can be loaded in solo or co-op, and mission objectives will be randomly generated. There are many objective types: such as hacking a terminal, placing a bomb, or assassinating a particular enemy. It is a surprisingly enjoyable way to repurpose your favorite campaign maps.

In fact, most of the enjoyment from E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy comes from doing this. Whether solo or in co-op, the random mission generator is surprisingly robust, and the map conditions are likewise randomized. If you’re unlucky, then the extra-dimensional monsters will flood the map, turning it into a painfully poor Left4Dead game. More likely, however, you'll get a better outcome, such as a VTOL gunship hovering overhead, searching for you, or a roving band of Jian elite shock troopers sweeping through the map, creating an interesting tension and challenge.

So is E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy worth your time? If the flaws bother you too much, then no. If you're only interested in story and characters, then definitely not. If, however, your looking for a unique and varied FPS experience in a striking world, lots of great shooting, and fun co-op, then E.Y.E. has a lot to offer.

Bangai-O Spirits

I’ve had a topsy-turvy journey with Bangai-O Spirits for the Nintendo DS.

I'd heard of Treasure’s Bangai-O series before. The Japan-only release on the N64 and the port to Dreamcast fascinated me. The videos I'd watched showed enormous dancing missile salvos so gigantic that it would cause the frame rate to crawl, which seemed to be more a deliberate cinematic decision rather than hardware limitation. Additionally, the game was otherwise so fast and mesmerizing, that this slowdown actually gave the player a split-second to assess the situation and escape or retaliate as appropriate.

It was a 2D side-on action game where you play as a little tiny flight-capable mecha blasting through levels full of enemies. It also seemed to have a delightfully outrageous story about fruit contraband or something.

You see, the original Bangai-O is pretty expensive nowadays, so I've never actually played it. I'd still like to pick it up someday to experience that bonkers story, but I'll be patient. For those who are on a budget like me, there is a great and affordable alternative: Bangai-O Spirits.

When I fired it up, it left a great first impression. Graphically, it looks very similar if not identical to the earlier N64 game, so not very impressive (the Dreamcast version looks much slicker and has a better frame rate). It's sprites are rather pixelated, especially the larger enemies. The explosions are very bare-bones and the missile trails are just simple colored lines. However in no time I realized that less was more. Less fancy graphics means more missiles. In the dancing motion of the frame rate-killing amoebic mass of projectiles lies the visual beauty of this masterpiece.

This isn't a port, but rather a stand alone product. It's a somewhat different experience in that there is no story outside of the great tutorial, and every one of the over 160 levels is available to experience from the start and completely unrelated. As I actually played it, things that were obscured by the craziness became clearer. The “EX Attack”, for example is the aforementioned massive missile salvo (or a time-freeze ability or reflect projectile move, among other possible special attacks). The way it works is very clever. The number of enemy missiles that are on screen at the time, mixed with how long you hold down the “EX Attack” button, determines how massive your shot will be. Basically, the more you put yourself in danger, the more effective your “EX” will be. A gauge tells you whether or not you can use this attack, and it's recharged by taking damage or collecting fruit dropped by enemies and destroyed objects. Yes, fruit.

The spectacle satisfied me for a while. I was enjoying building up my “EX” and unleashing unstoppable swarms, but after a while it began to feel like that was all I was doing. Despite the bullet hell trappings, it didn't seem like I could actually do much shooter-style dodging. If I couldn't pass a level, I'd just move on until I’d find another that I could play by using the exact same strategy. That is, no strategy at all. I took breaks and periodically picked it up whenever I wanted a quick game of anime mecha shooting action, but it's luster had somewhat diminished.

Suddenly the solution became obvious. I should try out the levels I’d skipped. I should understand that maybe my weapons and strategies weren't adequate. Maybe I should experiment.

Among these skipped missions were some very clever puzzle style endeavors that required box pushing or whatever and sometimes didn't even have enemies. These are cool but aren't what ultimately caught my attention.

As I toyed with my weapons load outs and began to consider the tactics necessary to have a chance in the levels I'd skipped, the ceiling blew off, and I began to glimpse what high-level play might look like. Before, I felt I couldn't dodge the solid wall of missiles, but I realized that as I shot them down, Macross style, I could carve my own path, danger skimming past my head and under my feet, missing me by mere pixels as I inject my tiny mech defiantly through the heart of the guided explosives to destroy their source, my enemy. Then, with unfriendly missiles homing in on me, I could unleash my “EX” at maximum possible potency, leaving a giant smoking crater where death resided only a moment ago. It’s my house now.

You are a one-mech army, but I eventually found that every missile shot I produced could be used like a squamate. The enemies react to your shots largely exactly like they would react to you, maneuvering and engaging as soon as they enter line of sight. That means you can functionally pin down enemies or distract them. Learning this opened another tactic for me as I would draw the attention of a group of enemies by shooting at them from a hidden position. This allowed me to flank them quickly from another angle to ambush them while they're distracted.

The thing is, all these tactics must be executed very quickly. Sometimes, depending on the map layout, you can engage on your terms, but once the fight begins, it's easy to get overwhelmed. To survive, you may need to perform tactical retreats fairly often, using the terrain to either break line of sight and hide to re engage when you want, or just find a more favorable position to pin down your pursuer until you decide how to proceed.

Which brings me to map design. As I said, there are more than 160 maps on the tiny DS cart, but it also has a very extensive map editor. It seems like all the tools the developers had are available for you to build levels. I was able to construct a large, challenging, and interesting map in just about 15 minutes. I've since made 2 more at time of this writing. I think it's brilliant and flexible.

Even the way you share maps is ingenious. The map data generates a sound file, which can be played into another DS’ microphone, thus passing the map on to your friend. Challenging others and being challenged by them is a unique experience, and here it’s not tied to any servers that will be taken down a few years from now. This game is eternal.

If I ever get the original Bangai-O for the Dreamcast, you better believe I'll write about it. For now, despite the lack of story mode or any traditional progression systems, this game will provide endless fun for me. I think about it all the time, I invent solutions to difficult situations when I'm not playing, then try them out as soon as I get back to it. I adore the map editor and think of new ideas for maps constantly. I can't recommend this title enough. It's still very affordable, and has no business not being in your DS library.

Space Hulk

The idea we tend to have about horror entertainment is that the more powerless the protagonist feels, the heavier the dread weighs on them. In video games, this vulnerability is often expressed by the need to manage limited resources and a hindered ability to go toe to toe with the beings that threaten the avatar. On the other hand, there are many horror themed games that are not interested in these survival elements. Instead, they empower the player to commit gruesome violence on faceless monsters. Horror is in this case only a facade, as the threat facing the heroes of these games differs in many ways to the threats present in a more survival-oriented horror game with a more relatable, frail protagonist.

The Space Hulk series of computer games manage to perhaps be the only horror games that balance on the razor-thin edge of empowerment and sheer terror. The atmosphere is heavy, with suffocatingly cramped labyrinthine spaceship corridors, the sounds of unseen stalking monsters, and the black interiors, lit only by your Terminator armor floodlights. However, the characters the player embodies form a squad of highly trained, genetically engineered, ancient power-armor wearing religious crusaders capable of mowing down many of the horrendous ”genestealer” monsters that terrorize derelict spacecraft.

With heroes like the squads of zealous and bulky Terminators, this would seem to be one of those aforementioned action games with a spooky veneer. however, despite the potency available to you, Space Hulk proves right away how authentic the game's unique flavor of horror actually is.

Board game enthusiasts will probably recognize Space Hulk. It is a spin-off of the venerable Warhammer 40,000 sci fi tabletop wargame which features many factions. The Imperium of Man and the Tyranid are the two that also show up in Space Hulk. You control one or two squads each of five Imperium “Terminator” Marines, who wear oversized mechanized armor and board abandoned spacecraft. These desolate “space hulks” house the Tyranid genestealers. Resembling somewhat the aliens from the Alien series of films, these fearsome creatures use their claws to rip through Terminator armor like a sneeze through toilet paper. Their blistering sprinting speed, strong melee capabilities and overwhelming numbers make them a truly terrifying opponent.

Once they destroy their prey, genestealers deposit eggs into the corpse. The resulting offspring takes some genetic characteristics of the victim. The genestealers continually labor to perpetuate themselves, this is why they take refuge in abandoned spacecraft. They seek to guide the craft to populated space, where the monsters can take full advantage of a new breeding ground.

To prevent this, the Terminators -- the Emperor's holy arm against this terror -- were created. These brave souls board these dark, cold hulks to keep populated space safe and eradicate the scourge.

The board game was a 2 player competitive affair with each player controlling a side. The rules won't be covered here, but the computer games will be explained, and their rules are largely analogous.

The 1993 DOS release, developed and published by Electronic Arts, differs by being single-player only. However, it also takes advantage of the possibilities the computer medium provided at the time in important ways while apparently staying true to the board game. The game is played largely in two phases, a planning phase and a first person action phase. These can be toggled between at any time during the mission. Though it is rather archaic in nature, you likely won't struggle with the interface despite its age. Planning tactics is a breeze.

The hard part is making correct tactical decisions. If you don't properly cover your firing angles, the genestealers could possibly flank you and cut through your entire squad in a second or two. This game is extremely difficult.

There is no safety to be found here. The enemies pour in infinitely from set spawn points and sport some great tactical AI themselves. They swarm isolated squamates, stack up around corners to ambush, flank, retreat, etc. You can never defeat your enemy, you must complete objectives under an incessant onslaught.

Furthermore, your verb set is very limited as a player. You can walk forward, backward, turn left and right, pick up mission-critical objects, and fire your weapon. In fact, it's these limited moves that go a long way to make Space Hulk one of the most tactically satisfying squad-based tactics games ever made. This, together with the geometrically simple, grid-based maps, take the guesswork out of overwatch tactics and squad coverage. Each Terminator is responsible for covering their companion. If you get caught out, it's mostly because, unless your weapon jams, you failed as a tactician, not because an enemy dropped down from an out-of-sight balcony.

A brilliant wrinkle is that the damage the genestealers can absorb is somewhat randomized. Often they'll go down in one shot. Sometimes they take two, sometimes five. This means they even if you have a long firing arc down a hallway, enough genestealers can still close the distance if a few of them are tough. As the strong ones advance under a hail of explosive shells, the rest follow closely behind, taking several steps closer to your squad with each passing second

As mentioned before, Space Hulk’s missions usually involve completing a specific objective. Before each operation, you receive your briefing from a man whose mouth animates at warp speed (it's hilarious paired with his serious British accent) and he'll tell you whether or not the map will be revealed, what your objectives are, and where the Tyranid threat will emerge from, meaning their spawn points. You also receive your objective, such as retrieving an artifact, burning the enemy spawn points with a specialized napalm thrower, or rescuing a member of your team.

These missions, especially the “purge with flame” types, require intricate squad movement at key times, yet it never feels fastidious since the planning screen is so clear as to where your squad will move, the path they will take to get there, and the direction they face once they arrive. This means every moment is richly marinated in a most satisfyingly tactical sauce. You can't let your attention waiver. You must always consider how to move to maximize survivability.

Space Hulk especially shines as a tactics game in those few missions where you take command of two squads. In these missions, you can only be aware of one squad at a time. In order to increase situational awareness, the squadmates will call out when they're in danger, referring to their number. Hearing “coming in on six!” just before an agonized scream will have you frantically fumbling for the freeze-time button, because squad member number six was covering an important flank, and now you must immediately shift coverage to compensate for his death.

So often, things go quite well, although never too comfortably well, until the home stretch. For example, you may have completed the objective and begun making your way to the exit point. You must now simply extract your squad. You liberally use the ”freeze time” feature to meticulously protect every member of your team. You place the point man at the far end of the last room and turn him around to cover his companions as they file slowly toward the extraction point. Suddenly, a ghastly roar erupts as several genestealers decide to rush you all at once.

Just as the last Terminator stomps past, the man responsible for the protection of the squad finally has a clear shot down the hallway. He opens fire on the onrushing mob, storm bolter shells lighting up the dank corridor. One Tyranid falls, then another, but they quickly close on his position. He can hold out no longer and is brutally felled.

Upon hearing the cries of his slaughtered brother, the retroguard Terminator halts and turns to face the incoming enemy. He buys just enough time for the other three to escape, but must also nobly sacrifice himself. The last Terminator slams the door shut just as the Tyranids thrust toward it.

Wipe the sweat from your brow. It's over.

**This game’s sequel, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, will be covered in the future

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries

I must admit, I'm quite intimidated by the thought of writing an essay about my favorite game of all time. Mostly because it's my favorite game of all time, but also because it's a game that tells the story of an important turning point in the history of a mind-bogglingly vast fictional universe that encompasses video games, a series of novels, a storied and beloved tabletop wargame, a classic tabletop RPG, and my own bewildered imagination.

I must mention that there were three Mechwarrior 2 games. Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, it's expansion Ghost Bear’s Legacy, and the real topic of this trip down memory lane, Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. All were developed and published by Activision.

Actually, few games have fired up my imagination quite like the original Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, which is where my story begins (actually it would officially begin with vague memories of watching my brother play the original DOS Mechwarrior, released in 1989. I played it much later and it's actually really great, but I digress). Perhaps it was the stark, textureless, yet breathtakingly smooth and colorful 3-D graphics. Maybe it was the calm voice of my Mech’s computer alerting me of a critical hit an enemy landed on me. It could have been the fascinating soundtrack (still one of the all-time greats), or the buzzsaw cacophony of twin missile batteries unleashing their payload. Whatever the concoction of all these elements was, this game got under my skin.

The games are simulations of the fictional walking tanks of the Battletech universe, which range in mass from 20 to 100 tons. Important elements of gameplay include some impressively robust pre-mission mech customization, carrying out a variety of combat missions from a first person perspective, ammo and heat management during combat, and possibly ordering friendly mechs to help you complete objectives. Since these games play like simulations, there are many details that come together in very satisfying ways. The Mechs feel very weighty, as the cockpits are rendered fully in 3-D and subtly bounce as your bipedal super tank trudges on. If you get hit by a missile salvo or auto cannon blast, the cockpit will appropriately shudder and knock about. The many planets you conduct operations on have very different environments. Aside from the terrains being diverse and interesting with their towering plateaus, icy plains, small villages, urban environs, cratered landscapes, deep canyons etc. each environment also has its own ambient temperature and gravity. Both of these have severe gameplay implications.

Gravity affects the top speed of your mech and how effective jump jets are. This can be very useful since jump jets are can be used directionally as well. One great thrill is jetting forward in a particularly low gravity environment, constantly gaining speed to the point of losing control.

Ambient temperature is tied to one of the primordial elements of mech combat: heat management. You will conduct combat on the surface of a cold, atmosphere-less moon much differently than on a hot desert because each weapon fired, jump jet used, etc generates heat. You may counteract this by installing heat sinks, but generally the more firepower you have, the more heat you'll generate. If your mech overheats, it will begin an automatic shutdown protocol. You can press a button to override this process, but if you continue to use weapons, the unchecked heat will eventually trigger an internal ammo explosion, destroying at least a whole section of your mech and, by default, tripping the automatic ejection feature, which ends the mission.

Another great thrill is toeing the line when you're outnumbered, barely keeping your mech from shutting down or melting down, destroying the last enemy just before you erupt into flames, manually shutting down your mech to encourage cooling, and watching the enemy burn from your darkened cockpit.

A great disappointment is when the identical situation plays out, but you took it just a little too far, and as you nervously bite your fingernails inside your mech, praying it cools off in time, your missile stores can't take it anymore and explode from within, destroying everything.

Individual limbs and parts have damage modeling and can be destroyed independently along with any weapons or systems (like heat sinks) attached to them. This creates opportunities for micro strategies and encourages knowing thy enemy. If you know the gangly Marauder carries three powerful Particle Projection Cannons -- one in each gigantic arms as well as one above its cockpit -- you can significantly weaken its offensive power by shooting its arms off. Those arms are big targets, so the pilot of this devastating mech must beware, as their opponent may want to target those arms at first sight.

Or they may want to target it's lanky, gigantic leg… this is actually a bit of a polemical subject because in 31st Century Combat, if a leg is destroyed, the mech remains upright like a PPC-laden flamingo. Of course it's mobility is slashed unless it has jump jets, but it's pretty ridiculous and unfortunate. It isn't until Mercenaries that your mech actually topples over when a leg is taken out. This is of course ideal.

31st Century Combat and Ghost Bear's Legacy both tell stories from the perspectives of tribes that collectively are known as the Clans. In the Battletech universe, of which Mechwarrior is a part, the Clans are a group of competitively tribal yet similarly structured caste-based societies where everyone is “pureborn”, or grown artificially from genetic material, rather than “freeborn”, a dirty word akin to “muggle” which refers to those who are born by natural means. To the clans, the mechwarrior is among the most honored castes, destined from birth to be perfectly apt to pilot an advanced battlemech.

Finally, we can talk about Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries

The last Mechwarrior game produced by Activision was indeed the aforementioned Mercenaries. This was a stand-alone product and ditched the honorable trappings of the Clan point of view for the cutthroat world of mercenaries operating in the Inner Sphere. The Inner Sphere is the main setting of the Battletech universe. It is dominated by the five “great houses” or nations that make up many worlds each. They are almost always at war, as each claim to be the rightful government that was established before the political fracturing that lead to the Inner Sphere. They are far more technologically primitive than the Clans.

If you’re interested in seeing all that Mercenaries has to offer, you will play in “Mercenary Commander” mode, which changes the game from a linear mission-based sci fi vehicle combat simulation to an open-ended economy management game that also includes all the action. You will name your mercenary company and begin receiving correspondences from factions that have need of your services. Usually you must choose between several contracts, all of which have different objectives, payments, salvage rights, and agendas. Many missions are randomly generated. These are generic and quite boring compared to the hand-crafted ones, but serve a purpose as they provide opportunities to test out a mech configuration or newly hired squamates in a fairly low-risk environment. They also pay, which is incredibly important here.

Economic considerations

Yes, in the world of Mercenaries, the mighty C-bill is what governs. You often must pick sides in a conflict, and if you're properly equipped for the risk involved, your only motivation is how much it pays. You begin with a single unremarkable light mech. From the outset, if you'd played 31st Century Combat, the differences in technology between Clan and the much less advanced Inner Sphere are sharply apparent. Though you'll be fighting small and primitive mechs like your own at first, you quickly realize that you are very fragile. A few solid missile impacts can fry your cockpit instantly ending your short career or knock out your leg, toppling your mech and leaving you prone, unable to move or retaliate, until you eject or are destroyed, also ending your short career.

This game is hard.

Once you get your feet under you and begin making good money, it is satisfying and terrifying. The fragility aspect is always present even as you procure heavier and sturdier mechs. As you do that, you naturally will want to take on more missions that pay better, which means they're more dangerous.

This becomes necessary. Everything you do costs money. You must have a good stockpile of ammunition (especially when you go on extended campaigns), which cost money. You will need to make repairs. Those cost money. You need to hire fighter aircraft pilots and mech pilots to accompany you. Money. You need to buy mechs as better ones become available or you need replacements for destroyed ones. Cha-ching. Even customization comes with a fee.

Additionally, one of the most important aspects of merc life is salvaging the wreckages you generate on the battlefield. Ripping lasers and heat sinks off dead mechs is very important. If you are a good gunner, you can even target the cockpit to kill the pilot and leave the rest of the mech for you to take home. You can then repair it ($$) for use later or sell it to make extra dough.

From the outset it's clear how masterfully all these elements come together. These, along with the dog-eat-dog atmosphere, made this the best MechWarrior yet. The razor's-edge feeling of disaster just around the corner isn't so dissimilar to something players of Fire Emblem might experience. You sure did a good job saving up your money for that 80-ton Mauler assault mech. It's a shame that group of teeny tiny battle armor soldiers waiting in ambush inside the bombed out office swarmed you and whittled it down to a burning pile. You may have ejected safely, but that big mech and all those fancy weapons are now gone with the payment you'd have received had you been successful.

Plot

Mercenaries’ plot moves leisurely enough in the beginning. There's nothing particularly happening in the Inner Sphere apart from the normal warfare and political shifting. You get news through your office news terminal which also updates you on certain supply shortages and changes in the economy that affect the price and availability of weapons and systems. It all serves to add a good backdrop to the action, and each individual situation is pretty interesting, as are your involvements in them. Then like any good mercenary, once the job is done you move on. Plot is not the focus of Mercenaries, and it's fractured by nature, which isn't bad. You're not interested in the plights of any individual but yourself anyway. At least you shouldn't be.

Then the Clans come. Remember them? Yes, they arrive in the Inner Sphere full of fury.

It's then you realize the plot and stakes thereof are wonderfully set up. The Clans come out of nowhere and your mercenary company is among the first to witness their mighty technology in person. You can get a great head start if you manage to defeat the Clan mechs and salvage some of that Clan equipment. Selling it nets you serious cash, and using it gives you a tactical advantage.

For me, the emotional response of seeing the Clans arrive was based on playing 31st Century Combat and knowing about the Clans and their tech. Staring at my favorite mech from that game as it turned to attack me was terrifying because I knew what the fearsome Timber Wolf was capable of.

At this point the plot congeals into something cohesive. The main players in the Inner Sphere form an alliance to counter the Clan invaders, and you begin carrying out sorties against the pureborns. By now the plot stakes are higher, but so are the gameplay stakes. Confronting the Clans requires care and every dirty trick in the book. You'll need to use your fighter-pilot-for-hire to conduct air strikes before you engage, target the legs, engage at range when appropriate, any below-the-belt tactic you can dream up. Eventually if you manage your operations well you'll acquire enough Clan gear to be able to brawl with them in a wider variety of circumstances.

This ramp up is very satisfying. By the time the Clans are driven off, you will likely have a lot of resources and the prestige of your mercenary company will be cemented by your operations against them. In a nice thematic touch, the ending cutscene depicts a group of Inner Sphere mechs, members of the regular army of one of the great houses, defeat a “star”, or squadron, of Clan mechs. It sends a most appropriate message. Despite your role in the war, at the end of the day the victors make their own heroes. Indeed, history never remembers the contributions of the unsavory and flagless mercenaries.

The Specialists

Ever since the advent of the first person shooter, there have been fan made modifications meant to alter the game experience in minor or major ways. Most have attempted to insert realism and a tactical focus, but there has been a super-diversity of experiences, especially with the legendary Half-Life scene. Though decidedly fewer in number, there have been several notable attempts to create especially cinematic experiences. Perhaps the first important effort to replicate action cinema in a deathmatch game was during the also legendary Quake II mod scene. The fan-made mod Action Quake added stunts and real-world weapons to the already frantic Quake gameplay. Action Quake later became Action Half-Life, which was bloated with things like locational damage and the need to use a finite number of bandages to stop bleeding. We saw other action movie mods as well, most notably the rivetingly stylish and painfully awkward Hong Kong themed mod The Opera.

Though The Opera's heart was in the right place, it lacked balance and smoothness, and Action Half-Life became too much about the gaudy action cinema of the western hemisphere.

Then there was The Specialists

The Specialists is one of those games that inevitably turns into a series of anecdotes when describing it, like the time you dove through a window in slow motion and blasted two opponents with both sawed-off shotgun rounds before hitting the ground. And the time this player jump kicked your friend's gun out of her hand, dove through the air -- catching it in mid-flight -- then headshotted her... before they hit the ground. And the time you slid on the floor into a room, downing 3 players with your pump action Mossberg before anyone even saw you...

You get the idea.

The Specialists features around 30 deadly, interesting, and mostly loud real-world weapons in a variety of categories such as pistols, submachine guns, knives, assault rifles, etc. The weapons have a very high lethality and behave surprisingly realistically for a game that is otherwise so over the top. Accuracy is unaffected by movement, but recoil is very convincingly modeled, making for perhaps the most satisfying gunplay of any game containing code from Quake.

There are many unique details as well. For example, by default the rounds are not ray-traced, but "missile" objects (in the Half-Life context) that actually travel through the air in a trajectory, not instantly arriving at the target like vanilla Half-Life and many of its mods do. For this reason, when the slow motion power-up is activated, the bullets are actual visible objects zipping through the air. Another interesting and satisfying decision is in how the iconic pump-action shotguns are handled. Not only is the spread tight in the non sawed-off shotguns and therefore quite realistic, but the process of shooting and pumping is modeled thus: click to shoot, click to pump, click to shoot again. It allows for more player expression and style, since it's so satisfying to punctuate a frag with a cinematically timed shotgun pump.

The balance is commendable. The gun is not more dangerous than the katana, and the unarmed combat is very deep, a viable and lethal weapon in and of itself. Indeed, opponents adept at Kung Fu are often completely unencumbered by the weight of weapons and are therefore faster moving, and can be some of the most deadly and frustrating to combat.

The other defining characteristic of The Specialists is its impressively flexible stunt system. There are several stunts one can execute at any time. Namely, the dive, the flip, the wall kick (for wall climbing to inaccessible areas and gaining a height advantage), the roll, and the wall flip. The height at which one points the reticle determines certain factors in the execution of these stunts.

A "high dive" is distinguished only by the height and length of the dive stunt. However, a "low dive" will cause the avatar to slide across the ground in an exaggerated manner, allowing the player to enter a combat situation underneath the aim of their opponents while also avoiding being entirely stationary. One can execute up to 3 wall kicks, then a wall flip to reach high ground or present a difficult target to other players. A flip will result in the player ending up on their back, unless they execute a high flip, which is a full flip that lands them on their feet. The player can roll out of a medium or high dive to avoid being stationary afterwards, just to scratch the surface of possibilities. The diversity of tactical options and deception is vast, and perhaps the most unique factor in The Specialists, providing each round of play with ample cinematic narrative.

The most cliché manner to characterize The Specialists is to say something akin to: "it's like playing a John Woo movie". This is completely valid, but deconstructing that description is useful here -- The Blood Opera genre established by John Woo is an emotional action genre like much of Hong Kong action cinema (martial arts movies and the like). The nature and emotional state of the characters is presented through the choreography as well as the rhythm and tone of the firearms. This creates the signature "opera of gunfire" John Woo is so rightly celebrated for. The real triumph of The Specialists is the fact that it achieves all this operatic and emotional expression without set choreography. The player is simply presented with the meticulously balanced tools to create their own opera spontaneously in the heat of combat, all the while harmonizing their chosen armament with that of their opponents, locking themselves in a delicate dance of stunts, knowing any false move could spell the end at the hand of a lethal opponent with an equally lethal weapon.

Its a great experience all these years later, one that we can now definitely say was far ahead of it's time. Even now it's rare to see slow motion implemented in online deathmatch, and never as elegantly. The Specialists should be more influential. Unfortunately it may end up being the best designed deathmatch FPS we all forgot about.