Infinite Space

So I got the US version of Infinite Space. Nice game so far, with really tactical combats, despite the rock-paper-scissors system that many sites pointed out.

Timing and position are the soul of combat: an overconfident order could leave the fleet open for a while, with catastrophic consequences.

The story is mildly satisfying: too much non-linearity hinders the pace of the plot and the lack of a quest journal is pretty annoying if you play the game occasionally when on the move. It’s still epic but it should be staged a lot better, in my opinion.

Customization is impressive and the sheer management of crews, officers and ship facilities will keep you going for a while! The game sports about 100 distinct ship types and boast a wonderful 3D graphics powered by CriWare.

The galaxy it’s very huge, even if it’s scaled down to DS-manageable system clusters. It really delivers the impression of exploration and adventure. There’s always something to see or to encounter in the space lanes out there! Despite the differences in execution, Infinite Space can communicate the same sense of wonder of classic space simulator like Elite or modern masterpieces like Nexus: The Jupiter Incident or Homeworld.

It’s not your typical RPG, it’s a masterful mix between a simulation game and a japanese text adventure. The result is an innovative and interesting take on the genre.

Infinite Space is a game for Nintendo DS. It will be out in Europe in March 2010

[Dragon Age] Going full circle

BioWare’s Dr Greg Zeschuk:

For example, I was playing Dragon Age on the airplane, and so I’m having to find the ashes of this dead god in the game, and I’m there at this temple and priests have been chanting and one of my characters – this irreligious character – makes some snide comment about the god that is contextually appropriate, and it just ties together so well. If you didn’t have that depth, it would be, “Go get this thing and bring it back.” It’s like the classic fetch quest from an MMO: get me five pelts. But if the pelts have an important meaning in the world and the creature who has them is mythical in nature and has special powers and they’ve been around for this long and they’ve played this part in the world, that makes it a lot more worthwhile to get those pelts.

Never played a recent MMO, right?

The full, interesting, interview about Dragon Age is here

State of my Game

I passed by quite some weeks!

With holidays, work, more work and different kind of parties I was dragged away from anything I did regoularly. This period helped me to learn the value of microblogging: even in an hectic week you can always find time to tweet something about your relevant activities and get get in touch with friends in the industry.

So, just to keep on, here’s what I did these weeks:

• Almost completely ignored E3. I was on vacation that week and I grew bored of boasting marketing events…
• Get back on track in EQ2 (PC). Maintaining high level toons is an hassle, especially if you were away for months. To be honest, I still need to sort my home out but I was able to reach 77 with my main and my two alts now are in the middle of 40s, despite the little time available.
• Mass Effect (X360). Started playing it the first day of my holidays and I’m still playing it every morning, before going to work. I’ve to wait about 30 minutes between thyroid pills and breakfast so I try to keep myself occupied playing something. Waiting was never so nice. The game shows that Bioware tried to best the technological gap between Jade Empire and Mass Effect but it’s still a very good game. I can’t wait for the more mature and story-driven Mass Effect 2…
• Oblivion (X360). I’m not the best fan of post-Daggerfall Bethesda and I’m most likely remain that way at least until I’ll try Fallout 3 seriously. Oblivion is not a bad game but it’s a great game just in the way Morrowind was: it was a launch day title with hardly no other merits. It seems like yet another MMOG without any people playing. I find funny that many Ars Ludica players who hate MMOGs with all their hearts player Oblivion and Morrowind for hundred of hours doing inane random fetch quests and trying to best a glitchy AI (that was dumbed down because it was too efficient in early alpha builds, mind you). Poetic justice? I’ll try to end it anyway, maybe late game it’s better.
• Chromehounds (X360). As you can see, I tried to catch up with older, neglected games. Chromehounds received a tiepid response from the press, still it has one of the best mech multiplayer ever and it is a more playable substitute to the freakish Armored Core online mode. It’ funny to see hundreds of players online while AC server are almost always empty. The persistent campaign is just too great to be dismissed as yet another match-based multiplayer game. I you were a Mechwarrior maniac, this one it’s a must! 🙂

That’s pretty much sums up my late activities.

Recently I’m scanning free to play strategy games to refresh my knowledge of the state of the art, to anticipate a client’s request. So I rediscovered Pox Nora and Dofus Arena, two games I contributed, supported and plaied a lot in their early days. I will plan a full fledged come-back at least in Pox Nora, since I have a nice memory of it.

Oh, and BTW, I will probably roll a toon on the American D&D Online (the one going free to play). I hate the game but I will be able to catch up with some old guildmates with no expenses.

Old school beating

Today, while commuting, I started again Might & Magic: Secrets of The Inner Sanctum, with the idea to finish it. Since I deeply hate old-school western RPGs that don’t feature automapping, I opted for the NES version, using my faithful PSP with NesterJ.
What I found was old school beating! God, the NES version is insanely difficult with lots of new and powerful monsters and slightly different maps…

I’m not pretty sure if a steeper difficulty trades off with much better graphics and a streamlined interface (full of submenus, though).

Tales of Phantasia, at last!

After years of waiting, the fan translation of Tales of Phantasia PS1 is ready! I tested it for good and can assure you that the patch not only works but it is completely compatible with the PSP, so look for a Japanese version of the game (I suppose it won’t come out cheap for a while, but several store owners are still selling it for its real value that is pretty low since there are tons of copies still around), grab your favourite PSX converter and start playing on the go!

The project took an insane amount of time and a huge hacking effort but in the end the quality is simply unmatched by anything else in the realm of fan translations.

Let it be just another monument against years of region locks and stupid product placement policies that deprived (and still ocasionally deprive) lots of gamers of their favourite titles.