The Barbarian
Liturgist
Codeforce's Distant Worlds is being released tomorrow, or the day after! For those who suffered critical soul damage from MOO3, here is an opportunity to redeem the 4X (space) genre.
Essentially, Conan is informed that this is a pause-able, real-time 4X game of epic, manly scope (think Europa Universalis style, but... in sexy space).
The developer is a tiny team based out of New Zealand, where Gods fear to tread. A dirty land. Let us speak no more of it. Conan himself lived there for five long years, in his early life. It would be manly to support people who bear the burden of residing there, and yet manage to create a game for Conan to sexualize.
Here is a link, comrades:
http://www.codeforce.co.nz/
The graphics are poor, but Conan hopes that the gameplay is rich, sensual chocolate. He might even commit to a Let's Play, if he deems the game worthy.
THE REVIEW
Conan has now had ample opportunity to taste the exquisite fruit of Codemaster's loins, and he comes back to report his findings, to men of value. The Barbarian had an easy time of installing the six hundred megabyte game - although he was unpleasantly surprised by the release day patch. Such a deeply un-sexy message to send out, developer support notwithstanding. In any case, after Conan returned to his hearth from various conquests afield, he started the game up, jerk-off arm at the ready.
At first glance, the graphical quality of the sexperience was generally decent. Some nice use of lighting was spied by Conan's vigilant eye, and he was all-in-all pleased by the quality of the artwork. The UI, as Conan saw it, was a mixed bag. The theme was just a trite - a smidgen, even - underdone, yes. But Conan's chest suffered pains when he saw the Windows-style scroll-bars. Conan then knew, in his heart of hearts, near his balls, that he was playing a budget game. Still, he battled on, selecting a galaxy, choosing his sexy vagina-conquering empire (Conan picked the humans, because his mother was human, and on a later run-through one of three insect species... just because) and then defining his opponents. There was sadness in Conan's soul that racial customization could not be done on the trot. Instead, to create Cimmerian ubermen, Conan would have to edit files in the game directory. Not overly complicated, but not sexual at all.
Once the Barbarian had defined the parameters of his spiritual razziah across the galaxy, he jumped in. At first, he tried to do everything himself. This proved difficult, because Conan had not read the manual, nor attempted the tutorials. He is too much man for that. So, he decided to put the fabled automation features to the test, and to watch the AI grow Conan's penis across the galaxy. Speaking of which, Conan was pleased to see that the galaxy was simply rendered, but lovely to behold. It was very nice. During the next six hours, Conan was exposed to all: the good, the bad, the ugly and the sensual.
He will start with the good:
The Galaxy - it lives!
Conan was most pleased to see the automation AI spread his seed across neighboring star systems efficiently. Explorers made their way across the sector (the galaxy chosen was 1,400 systems large) on their own, sensor-ing various sexy stellar objects and being attacked by space crabs. Vessels of war patrolled, formed up into war fleets, resupplied and upgraded of their own accord. Civilian freighters of all sizes, passenger ships, resupply ships and more buzzed around various mines and colonies, making it all look very busy. The atmosphere proved excellent. Conan was lost in his e-Penis. His growing empire was a hive of activity, and Conan's input was, by choice, minimal.
Conan says: +++
The Editor
Sitting next to the options button, Conan saw something strange. It was an in-game, full-blowing editor, allowing players to do anything they can imagine to the game, as its running. Adding planets/systems/sectors is no problem. New alien empires? Yes, Conan was able to do this. Alter existing ones? Of course. Ultimate God-mode was at Conan's fingertips. To be fair, this is status quo for Conan, but it is nice to see a 4X game recognize his inherent superiority.
Conan says: ++
Automation
The Barbarian was most pleased when he found that everything could be automated. It was gratifying. It made his balls tingle. Oh, how they tingled. The player can choose which aspects of his empire to run, and which to leave to the AI. If he so chose, Conan could have run just one ship, and sexualized that way, almost as if he was playing a different sort of game. The concept, overall, is good.
Conan says: +
Now, for the bad:
The fucking Automation
On the other hand, Conan spent many a minute being, at best, displeased with the automation feature. Why did his huge 4th Fleet penis tendril not move to engage the enemy he had declared war upon? It just sat there, in one of Conan's neighbor's dickjuice refueling stations, in the Bumfuck Nowhere system. Playing for some time proved one thing to Conan: the AI handles an empire peacefully expanding across the galaxy well enough. It can also respond to singular threats well. Space slugs, pirates and the like were exterminated with pleasing panache. Yet, smashing up an alien vagina empire half as strong proved beyond its capabilities. On another occasion, when it chose to directly engage the enemy, it took over his home system, leaving the rest of the empire between Conan's border and there (i.e. the entire empire) untouched.
What villainous dickery. Yes, Conan could have conducted the war himself. But he wished to see what the AI would do, given half the chance. The answer was: raid a research station, over and over again.
Conan says: - -
Micro-managment
When the automation taste test fails, the player can always resort to manual control. Conan attempted this, but it was a homosexualized experience. The vaunted automation masks the extreme micro inherent to this game. Fleets can go anywhere, do anything, and need refueling (Crom, why?!). For the armchair God, that translates to baby sitting. Conan has a semblance of a life, and vaginas to conquer. He cannot be sitting there for five hours making sure every little detail sits right when Task Force Superdudes is preparing to war against Conan's enemies. Worse yet, the automation features are way too general. Space Empires III + IV had automated resupply ten God damned years ago. Not Distant Worlds. If you want automated resupply, that whole fleet is doing everything auto. From resupplying, to sitting there doing nothing.
Conan says: -
And now, for the ugly:
BUGS! Damn you!
No, Conan does not speak of the insectoid races. They are sexual. Instead, Conan refers to the game crashing, and losing him three hours' worth of progress, because there is no auto-save feature. Conan would think that an auto-save solution to a real-time game could be making it automatically save every so often. A player might even be granted the right to choose. Conan does not know, although it seems less complicated than it appears. That was bug number one, and Conan forgave. Number two was more perplexing. Brows were furrowed. At a certain point in the mid-game, Conan's second runthrough was halted by the game running out of memory. On Conan's 8GB RAM quad-core. A 2D game. Conan slew the game's developer in his dreams, that night.
He understands that native 32 bit applications are not friendly to more than 2GB RAM. But, why was a 1,400 star galaxy made available to the Barbarian, if it was destined for unplayability? Was it to make Conan angry? Was it to make him jerk his bacon angrily? Why?!
Conan says: - - -
Overal grade: =
The game needs developer support, badly, Conan thinks. The bad things can be ironed out. There is a gem here, waiting to come out. Conan lives in hope, and frustration.
Essentially, Conan is informed that this is a pause-able, real-time 4X game of epic, manly scope (think Europa Universalis style, but... in sexy space).
The developer is a tiny team based out of New Zealand, where Gods fear to tread. A dirty land. Let us speak no more of it. Conan himself lived there for five long years, in his early life. It would be manly to support people who bear the burden of residing there, and yet manage to create a game for Conan to sexualize.
Here is a link, comrades:
http://www.codeforce.co.nz/
The graphics are poor, but Conan hopes that the gameplay is rich, sensual chocolate. He might even commit to a Let's Play, if he deems the game worthy.
THE REVIEW
Conan has now had ample opportunity to taste the exquisite fruit of Codemaster's loins, and he comes back to report his findings, to men of value. The Barbarian had an easy time of installing the six hundred megabyte game - although he was unpleasantly surprised by the release day patch. Such a deeply un-sexy message to send out, developer support notwithstanding. In any case, after Conan returned to his hearth from various conquests afield, he started the game up, jerk-off arm at the ready.
At first glance, the graphical quality of the sexperience was generally decent. Some nice use of lighting was spied by Conan's vigilant eye, and he was all-in-all pleased by the quality of the artwork. The UI, as Conan saw it, was a mixed bag. The theme was just a trite - a smidgen, even - underdone, yes. But Conan's chest suffered pains when he saw the Windows-style scroll-bars. Conan then knew, in his heart of hearts, near his balls, that he was playing a budget game. Still, he battled on, selecting a galaxy, choosing his sexy vagina-conquering empire (Conan picked the humans, because his mother was human, and on a later run-through one of three insect species... just because) and then defining his opponents. There was sadness in Conan's soul that racial customization could not be done on the trot. Instead, to create Cimmerian ubermen, Conan would have to edit files in the game directory. Not overly complicated, but not sexual at all.
Once the Barbarian had defined the parameters of his spiritual razziah across the galaxy, he jumped in. At first, he tried to do everything himself. This proved difficult, because Conan had not read the manual, nor attempted the tutorials. He is too much man for that. So, he decided to put the fabled automation features to the test, and to watch the AI grow Conan's penis across the galaxy. Speaking of which, Conan was pleased to see that the galaxy was simply rendered, but lovely to behold. It was very nice. During the next six hours, Conan was exposed to all: the good, the bad, the ugly and the sensual.
He will start with the good:
The Galaxy - it lives!
Conan was most pleased to see the automation AI spread his seed across neighboring star systems efficiently. Explorers made their way across the sector (the galaxy chosen was 1,400 systems large) on their own, sensor-ing various sexy stellar objects and being attacked by space crabs. Vessels of war patrolled, formed up into war fleets, resupplied and upgraded of their own accord. Civilian freighters of all sizes, passenger ships, resupply ships and more buzzed around various mines and colonies, making it all look very busy. The atmosphere proved excellent. Conan was lost in his e-Penis. His growing empire was a hive of activity, and Conan's input was, by choice, minimal.
Conan says: +++
The Editor
Sitting next to the options button, Conan saw something strange. It was an in-game, full-blowing editor, allowing players to do anything they can imagine to the game, as its running. Adding planets/systems/sectors is no problem. New alien empires? Yes, Conan was able to do this. Alter existing ones? Of course. Ultimate God-mode was at Conan's fingertips. To be fair, this is status quo for Conan, but it is nice to see a 4X game recognize his inherent superiority.
Conan says: ++
Automation
The Barbarian was most pleased when he found that everything could be automated. It was gratifying. It made his balls tingle. Oh, how they tingled. The player can choose which aspects of his empire to run, and which to leave to the AI. If he so chose, Conan could have run just one ship, and sexualized that way, almost as if he was playing a different sort of game. The concept, overall, is good.
Conan says: +
Now, for the bad:
The fucking Automation
On the other hand, Conan spent many a minute being, at best, displeased with the automation feature. Why did his huge 4th Fleet penis tendril not move to engage the enemy he had declared war upon? It just sat there, in one of Conan's neighbor's dickjuice refueling stations, in the Bumfuck Nowhere system. Playing for some time proved one thing to Conan: the AI handles an empire peacefully expanding across the galaxy well enough. It can also respond to singular threats well. Space slugs, pirates and the like were exterminated with pleasing panache. Yet, smashing up an alien vagina empire half as strong proved beyond its capabilities. On another occasion, when it chose to directly engage the enemy, it took over his home system, leaving the rest of the empire between Conan's border and there (i.e. the entire empire) untouched.
What villainous dickery. Yes, Conan could have conducted the war himself. But he wished to see what the AI would do, given half the chance. The answer was: raid a research station, over and over again.
Conan says: - -
Micro-managment
When the automation taste test fails, the player can always resort to manual control. Conan attempted this, but it was a homosexualized experience. The vaunted automation masks the extreme micro inherent to this game. Fleets can go anywhere, do anything, and need refueling (Crom, why?!). For the armchair God, that translates to baby sitting. Conan has a semblance of a life, and vaginas to conquer. He cannot be sitting there for five hours making sure every little detail sits right when Task Force Superdudes is preparing to war against Conan's enemies. Worse yet, the automation features are way too general. Space Empires III + IV had automated resupply ten God damned years ago. Not Distant Worlds. If you want automated resupply, that whole fleet is doing everything auto. From resupplying, to sitting there doing nothing.
Conan says: -
And now, for the ugly:
BUGS! Damn you!
No, Conan does not speak of the insectoid races. They are sexual. Instead, Conan refers to the game crashing, and losing him three hours' worth of progress, because there is no auto-save feature. Conan would think that an auto-save solution to a real-time game could be making it automatically save every so often. A player might even be granted the right to choose. Conan does not know, although it seems less complicated than it appears. That was bug number one, and Conan forgave. Number two was more perplexing. Brows were furrowed. At a certain point in the mid-game, Conan's second runthrough was halted by the game running out of memory. On Conan's 8GB RAM quad-core. A 2D game. Conan slew the game's developer in his dreams, that night.
He understands that native 32 bit applications are not friendly to more than 2GB RAM. But, why was a 1,400 star galaxy made available to the Barbarian, if it was destined for unplayability? Was it to make Conan angry? Was it to make him jerk his bacon angrily? Why?!
Conan says: - - -
Overal grade: =
The game needs developer support, badly, Conan thinks. The bad things can be ironed out. There is a gem here, waiting to come out. Conan lives in hope, and frustration.
