Robot.Floss

Thanks to an article on Wired.com about great geek gifts, I came across the game Settlers of Catan. I’d never heard of the game or even tried it, but after asking a few friends about it, I discovered that a small group of friends play the game on most Fridays. I went. I played. And now I’m hooked.

The premise of the game is that each player is a settler of an island called Catan. The island is composed of hexes which can produce one of five types of resources: lumber, woold, brick, ore, and wheat. Because the hexes are laid out randomly each game, you’ll never encounter the same game board twice. The players build towns, cities, and roads between the hexes of the island in an attempt to gain 10 victory points before their opponents can.

The best part about the game is that it is elegantly simple, and it is the most well balanced and strategically diverse game I’ve yet to encounter. The only flaw is that the board game needs at least three players. Thankfully a version of Catan can be downloaded from XBLA for 800 credits.

AI Opponents
As with most games, the computer AI is the biggest frustration of the game. There are several AI opponents available to play against on either easy, medium, or hard difficulty settings. However, the difficulty seems to only influence how an AI opponent will trade resources with you. On easy, the opponents will make almost any trade, no matter how absurd (e.g. it most likely will give you 2 bricks and 2 lumber for one 1 wheat in return); on medium the trading is a bit more realistic; on hard the AI opponents will refuse to trade with you once you’re in the lead, but will freely trade with each other.

The oversight here is that the developers haven’t taken the time to make the computer opponents consider each other opponents. The hardest AI setting is equivalent to playing 3 on 1. It might work better if you could select the AI level of each individual opponent.

Game Achievements
There are a decent number of achievements to unlock, such as completing ten games with control of the Longest Road card or the Largest Army card. But clever achievements don’t exist, such as end ten games with control of the Longest Road card AND the Largest Army card, win 10 games against easy AI opponents, win 10 games against medium AI opponents, etc., Steal 15 resources in one game with the robber. Collect ten victory points without building additional towns (you may only upgrade to cities or build roads).

Online Play
You can play up to three opponents online in either casual or ranked games. None of the online aspects are amazing, but the experience is okay. The nicest part is that if an opponent drops from the game, he or she is replaced by an AI opponent. However, I’m not sure how this affects your ranking in matched games if you defeat an AI opponent that has replaced a dropped player though.

Problems
As with most games these days, no one has taken in to account that you might be playing on a non-HD tv. For instance, on my television it is almost impossible to tell what the dice roll is, because the numbers on the dice are approximately one pixel across. It is damn irritating, and there is no excuse for it. I’m presuming this only happens on non-HD tvs, but it might happen on HDs too.

Second, in each game you can keep track of different stats, such as number of dice rolled, resources collected, the distribution of the dice rolls, how various points have been collected or lost, etc… except the on-screen display offers no legend for the icons used to indicate each stat. You can figure it out on your own, but it isn’t something you should be asked to do. It would be great if you could see accumulated stats for all of the games you’ve played. Also, the columns on the displays don’t all line up and some labels over-lap on to each other.

Overall: A decent game, but if you’ve never played the board game, then you probably won’t enjoy the XBLA version.
Good: The game is true to every aspect of the board game, and I find myself playing at least once a day.
Bad: Poor AI, lack of quality/creative achievements, and programming negligence (lack of legends on certain screens)

Score: 3/5 (decent)

Popularity: 2% [?]

Contra is one of the most loved gaming series created, and Contra 4 continues the saga of the ultimate side
scrolling, left-to-right, shoot’em up action game. You’ll always be holding the trigger button down as you
spew bullets and testosterone in your onslaught against anything that moves, and there’ll be a few moments
of cursing as you fight through the moments of ball breaking frustration that eat up all your continues.

The game offers three levels of difficulty: easy, normal, and hard. These affect not only the number of lives and
continues you receive, but also the firing pattern of weapons, and some of the challenges in each level. For instance,
on easy the spread shot has a wider spread. And on easy there are no falling boulders in Stage 2′s vertical waterfall
section.

If the difficulty of the game had ramped up as the levels progressed, the game might feel more consistent. Instead
the levels, mini-bosses, and bosses tend to vary from almost jokingly easy to insanely frustrating. Nothing is
ever of medium difficulty it seemed. Then again, frustration and death are hallmark features of each Contra game,
and no one picks up a Contra game expecting to beat it on the first try, which brings us to game length. I think it is
perfect, but every other reviewer has already bitched about it being too short. On the other hand, if this game had been
3 levels longer, they’d all complain about being bored the last few levels.

There is a decent pace to the game and you’ve always got something to shoot, but I’d have liked a little more intensity
to the action. For example, in Contra III: Alien Wars, even the transitions between the levels are seamless and packed
with action. Whereas in Contra 4 the screen goes black and you are magically transported to the next stage, which
detracts from the pace of the game.

Boss fights in the game are solid and usually involve several phases of action. As usual, the fights revolve around
the “Owned or Screwed” scenario where you can easily beat the bosses in under 15 seconds with the correct weapons,
but you’ll be fighting forever if you’re stuck with the standard rifle. Unlockable bonus bosses would have helped.

One of the best additions to the game is the challenge stages. These are quick action levels that you try to beat
by various means such as not firing your weapon, obtaining 100% weapon accuracy, taking out a certain number of foes,
etc… And as you progress through the challenge stages you can unlock the original Contra and Super Contra. I was pumped
about unlocking the levels, but in actuality they’re not overly entertaining or worthwhile as they have terrible
graphics, which I’d hoped had been revamped a bit. Aside from that, I feel they missed out and should have included
Alien Wars as an unlockable.

Overall, the game is solid and I enjoyed it. But unless you’re a fan of the Contra series already, it probably won’t
appeal to you after you’ve played through it once or twice.

Popularity: 1% [?]

At Christmas I’d hoped to receive the game Contra 4, but due to an issue of phonetics and identical numbers, I received Call of Duty 4. When I loaded the game in to my DS, I didn’t know what to expect, but I feared I’d discover a great console series that had been butchered down to get quick sales on a hand-held system. I’m not a big fan of FPS games on the DS, for the simple reason that nothing beats the PC FPS experience. Besides, I find the genre a bit too worn and the DS presents a valuable creative outlet for developers willing to experiment. Either way, the developers at n-Space have done a solid job with COD4.

Graphics and Sound
I won’t dwell on this topic long. The graphics are good for the DS, but they aren’t mind blowing. If I had to use one phrase to sum up the graphics: think counter strike. They’re not mind blowing, but they’re good enough. The animation is smooth, the framerate didn’t seem to drop off during play, and I found the explosions satisfying. Of the games in my DS library, the sound quality of COD4 is the best I’ve experienced, and it lent a nice pace to the game.

Levels
The game starts with the stereotypical Call of Duty training level: grab a gun, practice shooting, throw a grenade through a window, etc. Then it transitioned straight in to the first level of real combat. The transitions between the checkpoints of each level are smooth and thought out. They reminded me of the transitions in the Contra series. The levels are fairly long, have plenty of checkpoints to save your progress, and present you with a pleasing variety of tasks: shoot everyone in sight, plant a bomb, get to a jeep, secure a nuclear missile, make a hasty get away while manning the turret on your way to victory.

AI
The enemy AI in the game is not impressive. You’ll die a few times, but you’ll never have a problem killing your intended target. Enemies don’t tend to move or reposition themselves, which makes them a bit too easy. They respond a bit like the Nazi’s in the original Wolfenstein, except on occasion they crouch behind cover instead of standing directly in your line of fire. The enemies did seem to excel in one area: catching my grenades and throwing them back with the accuracy of an all-star quarterback.

Controls
The controls are simple and well done. The top screen displays your main view. Turning and looking is controlled with the touch pad, which also displays a map of the level and indicates the position of nearby enemies. Forward movement and strafing is controlled with the direction pad. The shoulder buttons are used to fire your weapons. And the bottom screen also doubles as inventory management. (A good strategy seemed to be to ditch the standard-issue hand gun and replace it with an enemy AK-47 – you’ll collect plenty of ammo from your defeated enemies).

Overall: COD4 is well done. It has great sound, easy controls, an appropriate length, and enough variety to keep you from slamming your DS in to the nearest loved one.

Good: Solid FPS for DS. Great sound. Entertaining with a lot of easy action to jump in to.

Bad: Unresponsive AI.

Popularity: 1% [?]