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17 Mar 06
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all. Maybe you had a bit of the luck of the Irish today (or tonight). Enjoy. I have a little Irish in me so I was proudly sporting my green. Of course, my wife had more green on even though she doesn't have any Irish on her side of the family. I can't complain though since my father's side doesn't have any either, but that doesn't stop him from using my mom's Irish to march in the annual parade.
I wish I had something great for you today, but it's the end of Spring Break around here. I think my mind has turned off. Of course, it could be the allergy medicine as well. The only thing I've been thinking about is my disappointment with The Outfit. First the demo didn't really impress. Now the reviews are basically awful. The one bright spot in the reviews has been the multiplayer, but people are already complaining online about no one playing it. It's too bad, I really like Relic. I guess I'll hold out hope for Company of Heroes on the PC and hope Lucasarts and Pandemic come through with Mercenaries 2 with some good competitive multiplayer.
If you need something to do this weekend, Battlefront.com is having a DropTeam public multiplayer test. It looks interesting.
Jason
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16 Mar 06
Did you see the games that Take Two and 2K Games unveiled today? Wow. A Civ IV expansion, a Civ spin off, and a new version of Railroad! Assuming their financial problems don't get any worse, Take Two is looking good as a publisher.
Here's a quick update for you. The game formerly known as Ghost Wars is now Field Ops. It seems Freeze Interactive is picking up the pieces from Hip Games death. I'm glad to hear the game survived.
This week's game is a near future RTS. It's Alliance - Future Combat (official site) from Gameyus Interactive. Yes, the makers of Will of Steel are back with a new RTS set in the Middle East. It seems that a friendly democratic government has allow the United States to build a secret base in their territory. Once the terrorist learn of its existence, they gather forces and launch a surprise attack. The overwhelmed base needs help so the US Government sends in the AEGIS rapid response team. One interesting feature is near complete voice control as an option for the player. Regardless how you choose to control your troops, your high tech troops will be in for non stop action. There's no resource gathering; it's all down to technology and tactics. Gameyus is promising around 20 missions with some of the most detailed vehicles ever seen in a strategy game. Look for Alliance soon.
Jason
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15 Mar 06
I guess there's no question about the big story today. It was the delay of the Sony Playstation 3. It will now be launched simultaneously in the three major territories in November this year. They're blaming the delay on finalizing the Blu-Ray copy protection and supporting updates to the HDMI specification. Whatever.
Final dev kits don't need the drive or HDMI, so why are those not coming out until June (ok, some reports have May)? Clearly there have been some problems. The date itself isn't crushing since that's pretty much what American gamers were expecting. I'm sure the developers are happy (at least once they get final kits) since they'll be able to release more than glorified tech demos and some 360 ports. No, the big problem is another year of crushing shortages.
The installed base of the Playstation 2 is at least four times that of the Xbox. Even if half the people who struggled to get a 360 were platform agnostic, you'll have to presume the numbers wanting a PS3 for the holiday season will be at least double the 360 numbers. It's going to be ugly and the bundling borderline evil.
I must admit I don't understand the pricing concerns. The press conference revealed a Japanese price not less than 50,000 yen. That's about $425. If it follows the PSP model (where the analysts screamed $300), that means the US price will be $400. Given that that's the price point of the comparable Xbox 360, I'm not surprised. I guess I should be surprised by analysts screaming $500.
The rest is interesting. The 60 GB hard drive standard preinstalled with Linux sounds good. The free "Playstation Network Platform" (PNP?) as an answer to Xbox Live sounds good. Full backwards compatibility sounds good. It sounds like a solid system. They just need to finalize the hardware, and we can start drooling. I'm sure they'll have that much done by E3. Be sure to be well hydrated by then.
The big question remaining is the list of launch games. What games are going to be out there to make it worth my while to fight through the difficulties involved in finding a scarce console. Frankly it's got to be better than the PS2 launch list. I don't foresee the 360 being in as weak a market position as the Dreamcast at the next Playstation launch. Sony is going to have to fight for this next generation. The coming months should let us see if they have what it takes. I hope so. I firmly believe competition makes products better. Let's not forget about the Revolution either. You know me, I think it's a great time to be a gamer.
Jason
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14 Mar 06
I've finally posted the first batch of stories from the anniversary contest. Just click on over to the games section and read through all the stories you haven't read already. Enjoy. I'll try to have the rest up by the end of the week.
I think all the winners have received their prizes by now. I was impressed that air mail to Denmark was the same speed as priority mail to Idaho. I'm not sure what that means.
However, speaking of the Post Office, have you noticed the new mail services they've started offering? They're teaming with other shipping companies to deliver packages. The delivery companies ship your package from hub to hub (say a nearby large city) then they turn it over the the Post Office to deliver with your mail. It makes a lot of sense since mail delivery is probably running out there anyway. It means other shipping companies can focus more on high priority (and high profit) packages while keeping costs down by not having as many trucks going to far flung locations. The Post Office gets more business on routes they'd have to cover anyway. It seems like a win-win.
The problem is tracking. All these companies have great package tracking systems. Then they turn the package over to the Post Office. It falls into the black hole known as postal tracking. Usually the only time postal tracking updates is on package delivery. That's when the information is pretty much useless to the recipient. I realize this may not be the most interesting topic to everyone, but this is one of those 'real strategy' things I end up thinking about. Maybe this cash inflow will be the kick in the pants the Post Office needs to implement real tracking. If I can be the quantum butterfly that gets this storm blowing, just call me 'Flutter.'
Jason
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13 Mar 06
I guess there is some interest in having a contest for that copy of the collectors edition of Galactic Civilizations 2. I was thinking about a dual stream entry approach. Hmm. That sounds vaguely dirty. Anyway, I was thinking about perhaps giving you the opportunity to enter twice. It seems some people don't feel comfortable entering stories. Would something like posting a comment to the announcement to enter the contest once and submitting a story for a second entry work for you? That way anyone who has or is willing to register can easily enter the contest, but you increase your odds if you enter a story as well. There's only one prize so that sort of simplifies things. Let me know your thoughts on the matter.
I thought I'd give you a brief site update. If current numbers continue, we'll have had more page views and visitors in the first quarter of this year than we did in the entire first year. Thank you for the support. The one thing that's most clear is that I still haven't made the place quite compelling enough for people to come by all the time.
I don't necessarily picture this place as your central gaming hub. I think of it as a place you'll stop by a couple times a week to keep up with what's going on. Maybe read a story, post a story, ask about a game, comment on the game you're playing, etc. I'd like to keep the content level up to where you don't hesitate in recommending Talk Strategy to a friend or acquaintance. Let me know what I can do to make that happen. I'm always looking for good ideas.
Jason
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10 Mar 06
I thought today I'd update you on my Civilization IV pitboss game. If you recall, I was losing badly. I was desperately trying to get someone to come to my aid and declare war on the civ that was besieging me. That didn't work. Anyone who was interested was too far away. Everyone else had their own enemies or just didn't find it in their interest.
The weird thing was we'd reached a temporary impasse in the war. I built my city walls that gave me a defense bonus and had grown to where my city could crank out a few units. My opponent was growing his civ pretty quickly and keeping me holed up with a handful of units, but he wasn't ready to spend the resources building the army that could take my fortified city.
It probably would have held that way until he he got construction and catapults. Once they arrived I would be toast (eventually). I started trading technology once people got writing. It wasn't too hard since because of my pleas for help, everyone knew I wasn't a threat. I became the honest broker. I was able to keep up technologically, but without being able to build infrastructure, I was doomed. I launched two desperation plans to stay in the game. One involved, building my barracks, trading for resources, building some higher level units and making a desperate push to evict the invaders. The other involved a last ditch effort for peace.
The latter sort of worked out. I ended up making what I call the 'trail of tears' deal. The Americans give up their ancestral homeland in return for peace and some building blocks for starting over. It was a tough deal to swallow, but given our pending doom, it was the only reasonable choice. There's still a great chance of being annihilated, but an opportunity to stay in the game, even slight, is worth the risk.
So now I'm trekking off into the wilderness to found our new homeland. We have an agreement to keep us at peace for a while. No government would ever break an agreement with an abused and transplanted people would they? Hope springs eternal.
Jason
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