Mateo

With 6 shopping days left before Christmas, now is the time to make the final recommndations for you list.

In part 2 of the Christmas list, I laid out some gift options for the Strategist.

The Tactical Gamer community, however, does not fall into neatly defined categories.

We have flight and tank simulator grog nards, we have role-playing gamers, and cross-genre gamers such as myself, that play a little of everything.

So if you are have one of the other titles I’ve posited, check out one of the following. To my mind, the titles here represent some of the best gaming of the year. Full stop.

Let’s start with you Simulation junkies.

For Simulation, it’s been a lean year. The year has been rife with lame ports of racing games, promising, but buggy, Tank Sims, and little else.

That is, until Falcon 4.0 Allied Forces was released.



According to the press release:

The latest in the popular Falcon series, Falcon 4.0: Allied Force uses an advanced and dynamic campaign engine to deliver a powerful and realistic combat flight simulator. Simulate an entire war on your PC and experience the action in an F-16 Fighting Falcon. Blast away with AMRAAM and Sidewinder missiles as you go up against challenging enemy forces that employ real attack and defense tactics. Experience authentic air traffic control procedures via the aircraft's radio and call AWACS for assistance at finding targets and defending against interception. The battlefield is the sky, and you'd better be ready, flyboy — this is no walk in the clouds.

That doesn’t really get to the heart of the matter.

The game is immersive, and deep. There is a very steep learning curve: this is not some arcade flyer. Expect to become familiar with a realistic cockpit, actual flight dynamics, and realistic missions.

To help, there is a 1/2 inch thick “Getting Started” guide, and another 716 page PDF (thanks Fuzzy!)on the disk.
The more time you spend with the game, however, the more the game rewards your efforts. You can train, enter campaigns, and dogfight, all of which are engaging (puns are always intended).

If you are a Sim-fanatic, or have forgotten what quality gaming is like, put this title on your list. At $30 per copy, this should be in everyone’s library.

Now, for the Role Players.

Role Playing is a hit or miss affair. For every good title, like Morrowind, there are 10 bad titles.

When they are good, however, they can be some of the best gaming going.

Take for example, World of Warcraft:

Take on the role of a Warcraft hero and begin a quest across this vast world. There are more than 1,000 handwritten quests to be completed. Battle against the fiery dragons of Blackrock Spire, cleanse the undead from the ziggurats of Stratholme and take part in many other adventures. Explore environments that immerse you in this unique and legendary land. You will join with thousands of other players in one world and either join forces or battle against each other. The content of the game will constantly change from month to month with new challenges and adventures created by a dedicated live team. Begin your own epic quest in a unique online world.

I resisted the siren call of World of Warcraft, after having played the Beta. It just didn’t interest me at the time. And you had to pay a subscription fee to play.

Now, a year later, I have to say: Blizzard has a real winner here. World of Warcraft has superlative game design, a truly immersive world, challenging missions, and a decided bent towards group experiences.

Now, you know that I am a jaded reviewer. I don’t get impressed easily. This game, however, has consistently impressed me with both the quality of play, and the quality of execution. How many games can I actually say that about over the last 3 years? A handful at most.

If you want to recall what happens when developers go for broke on a title, put World of Warcraft on your Chistmas List.

As an aside, Blizzard is running a promotion over the Holidays to celebrate their 1 year anniversary: existing subscribers can give out coupons for up to $20 off a retail box.

Ask a Tactical Gamer guild member to give you one. Your loved ones won’t see much of you after you get the game, so at least save them some money.

For a stocking stuffer for the role player, I suggest Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition.

Bioware’s description is as follows:

Neverwinter Nights: Diamond collects the entire roleplaying saga in one complete package. In addition to the original game, you get all three expansion packs: Shadows of the Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark and Kingmaker. Nonlinear storytelling and alternate plot paths keep the action fresh and exciting through multiple replays. The customizable Aurora toolset from BioWare allows precise control during hours of stimulating gameplay. If you have been waiting to purchase the classic Neverwinter Nights or its expansions, this is your chance to own it all.

Let’s get this out of the way first; you are buying the engine, not the game. The game is faithful to the Dungeon and Dragons setting and rules, but the single player campaign is…how shall I put it?....not too interesting.

The expansions are a little better, but only just. The key here is the engine and the tool set, which the AD&D community has been having a field day with. There are many quests, settings, and add-ons lifted right from the existing campaign settings, AD&D modules, and the rule books. To say that the game now has depth would be an understatement.

For $30, you get a lot of gaming.

Now, TacticalGamer has had a NWN server for quite some time, although I’m not sure how active the server is at this point.

Bioware is expected to release the sequel to the game sometime in 2006 (or maybe 2007) which gives you enough time to get into the game and get up to speed.

The last stocking stuffer on the Christmas list comes out of left field: Darwinia.



Developed by Introspection, the creators of titles like Uplink: Hacker Elite, you’d expect something unusual,, and innovated. What you get, is something that is completely different from just about everything else.

In the game, you play an anti-virus squad leader that is set to save the inhabitants of the virtual world created inside a failed game console concept. Trust me, it’s even weirder than it sounds. Once inside the game, you are transported into a game world that is at once retro and modern: 2D Tron-like graphics, done in 3 dimensions.

Your job is to eliminate the viruses, and lead the sentient life of Darwinia to safety. Easier than it sounds because your resources are limited, and the opponent is smart, and mutates as the game goes on.

There isn’t a multiplayer component, strictly single player. That’s a small penance for a thoroughly original title.

I hope you found something to spend your loved one’s money on. There are a lot of choices in these three sections, hours of great gaming to be had.

After the holiday, I’ll tell you what is coming up in the coming year that you might want to save those Gift Cards for.

Merry Christmas everyone!

TychoCelchuuu

Yep, pretty good rundown there. Careful 'bout World of Warcraft though: it's a crazy huge time sink. Hours and hours, straight down the drain.

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|TG-Irr|TychoCelchuuu

Vinzalf

It's all a matter of perspective.

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RAWGRLRLRLRRLGLRL!!!

Nations are like individuals: they achieve more when they plan to plant a tiny tree, and do it, than when they propose to raise an entire forest and then fall asleep in the furrows.

I AM socializing artard, I'm logged on to an MMORPG with people from all over the world and getting XP with my party using Teamspeak

jex

Time sink? Try Falcon 4 lol, at least though when you know how to fly Allied Force, you know how to fly a real F16!

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Jex

TychoCelchuuu

Well, Falcon 4 is an obvious time sink. It's as close as you can get to flying one. World of Warcraft gets so much reputation as a casual game, it's easy to think of it as something you just play a bit of every day or so. In reality, instances and stuff take hours and hours, and you have to do it in one sitting, which means WoW takes HUGE chunks of time that other games don't.

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|TG-Irr|TychoCelchuuu

Mateo

How many rounds of Battlefield do you play each night? At 60 minutes per round, 2 rounds/maps=2 hours. Many play 3 rounds, or all night, depending on their time constraints.

Ask my wife: all games are time sinks.

TychoCelchuuu

I play about a round each night. Sometimes less. The idea, though, is flexibility. I can play 4 rounds or I can play half a round; my squad isn't going to hate me forever if I have to help my brother study for a test or let someone else use the computer. In World of Warcraft, if we're halfway through Dire Maul and I'm the main tank and decide I have to go, nobody is ever going to trust me again. Sure, I can do it once or twice and they'll forgive me, but I can't devote 3 hours at a time, in a row, EVERY time I want to play a game.

All games are time sinks, but not all of thing require you to sink that time in one giant chunk, and if you only do 4/5ths of the chunk, you get no reward.

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|TG-Irr|TychoCelchuuu

Delta_Swift

I've played both FPS's and MMORPG's online. The one advantage FPS's have in time committment is that you can jump online and get right in the thick of the action fairly quickly. In MMORPG's it takes a while to get people organized for a quest. Of course that's just for big quests. Little quests don't require as much effort.

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VegaBond

Yep, the WoW instance grind is hard on some folks.. Just sitting there over 3+ hours and even MC 5 hour runs is a grind... but if youhave the time good luck then.. Does the TG do the DKP system in WoW?

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|TG|Ryan

time is accelerated by about 200 times while playing WoW, when you aren't looking, your RL clock is flyin, and next thing you know your hearthstone is up ( meaning an hour has passed) , crap i gotta run to so and so city, 10-15 mins etc, its a HUGE time flyer, you dont know how many times ive stayed up way later than i intended because of that game thats why it was time for me to /quit

so i did, and im glad i did too lol

beep

TG's WoW guild does not currently use the DKP system (that's Dragon Kill Points if you must know!). We've researched various schemes for implementing it and are ready to do so when it's needed. It is better-suited, we think, for end-game raid focused guilds. We are doing some end-game content, but that is not our exclusive focus.

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Beep


Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. - (Isaac Asimov)