Free Candy For Everyone

In between all my other gaming (*cough* World of Warcraft), I’ve found time to play through Civilization Revolution. This is the newest in my long beloved Civ series, first time ever designed from the ground up for consoles. I got the Xbox 360 version because I love achievements (love them!). Today I wrapped up my achievement collection, getting the last one to bring me to the full 1000 tally. Now that I’ve done that I feel like I’ve pretty much finished the game and could give my thoughts.

It retains the general flavor of a Civ game - you start from the dawn of civilization with a single settler unit to build a city with. A lot of the general gameplay is quite familiar to long time Civ players, but the presentation is very much for the console. The graphics are bright and colorful, the interface is streamlined, and you have less micromanaging to do.

Overall, I think they did a really nice job, conceptually. The flow of gameplay is nice and the console controls work well. But I have a few major problems with the game. The first is a bit insurmountable, I’m afraid. I like all the complexity of the PC versions of Civ. All the streamlining they did to put it on console removed a lot of the gameplay that I quite like. Overall, the console version can’t quite win my heart away from the PC. But for newcomers to the game it will probably be a great introduction.

The next two problems are with game balance and bugs. I feel like the game forces you to play a particular way. You can either rush and take out your enemies before they build up their culture, or you can settle in for the long haul in which case you better have enough culture or you will lose. Culture is a concept the Civ series introduced in its third installment. Basically, buildings in your cities generate culture, and each city has a cultural border that grows out around it. As this cultural border comes up against other civs, it can swallow them up and cause their cities to become yours without a single act of war. In the PC versions, there are more ways to prevent the cultural flip than there seem to be on the console. I found that going for a military strategy in the middle of the game without any culture was totally futile as I’d take a city only to have it flip back to its previous owner a couple turns later. Argh.

And then there are the numerous bugs. The pathing is really bad. I’ve seen two major issues - one where you send a unit to a far away destination and it starts going in a direction that won’t actually get it there. It then will go back and forth until you stop it, never getting to its goal. The other is that sometimes it doesn’t pick the shortest path. I have to micromanage the legs of the journey to keep my units from going the longer way around. Grr.

Last negative is big for me, considering I’m an AI engineer. The enemy AI is just frustrating and bad. This is a game that should be in large part about diplomacy. But the opponents in this game just hate you if you’re winning and hate you if you’re losing. If you have a lot of gold, they demand you give it to them and go to war if you don’t. If you have a lot of culture they might just declare war on you because that pisses them off. There’s no way to have an amiable relationship with anyone except by constantly giving in to their demands. Plus I’ve seen the AI try to send settlers repeatedly in the wrong direction, where they’re getting trapped by my cultural borders but they could just go the other way instead and settle plenty of open land. I think the diplomacy could have really been improved, it was so much better in the PC versions. Maybe Soren should have been called in as a consultant!

Anyways, I certainly played a lot of it, gathering up those achievements. I haven’t played multiplayer at all yet, though I checked out some forums today and it sounds pretty unbalanced, like there’s only one really strong winning strategy. Doesn’t sound compelling to me! So I’m probably done with Civ Rev for now, until they patch it or something. Maybe I’ll go play a game of Civ 4 instead…

I’ve become enamored of So You Think You Can Dance, Fox’s dance competition reality show. In general, I don’t like reality shows. They’re frequently populated with manipulative people seeking fame (or infamy) whatever it takes. They want their time on camera and have little to share other than that empty goal.

I’ve been watching American Idol since the first season and it’s full of those people. I watch it for those few people who stand out for their genuine talent and lack of guile. They stand there and just shine with the thrill of singing. Watching those people find their voice and get better and better is always a joy for me to watch. I can’t stand the people who make it through week after week because of the hordes of tween fan girls dialing en masse because the guy has good hair. But despite what I want to see, I’ve noticed that the singers are almost entirely lacking in heart when they sing.

A little while ago I went to see The Swell Season in concert. This is Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the two stars of the fabulous movie Once, which I cannot say enough good things about. I was so moved by their performance that I was in tears on a few songs. I almost couldn’t catch my breath a few times, it was just that passionate and amazing. After seeing them, going to watch American Idol was just that much more empty.

So when a friend recommended So You Think You Can Dance, I thought, “eh, another empty reality show.” But wow, was I wrong. On American Idol, anyone who was lucky enough to be born with fantastic pipes can walk into the audition and get on with a chance to win. Once on the show they get vocal coaches and stylists, but they didn’t have to put anything in to get there. Not the case on Dance. These people are all phenomenal dancers before they ever get on the show. They have to be amazing, with great training to even get past the first audition.

But even more incredible to me than their talent was their attitude. Watching the opening auditions, the auditorium was full for each performance - with other contestants I assume? The cheers and applause they gave each other were so fantastic. And watching the contestants that made it on the air, to the top 20, they constantly impress me with their extreme passion for dance, their genuine heart, and their graciousness under all circumstances. At the end of the show when the people are sent home, they’re given an opportunity to speak and they always talk about what an honor it was to be there and have that opportunity, to dance with these people. Now, that’s heart.

It’s refreshing to watch people who actually love what they’re doing and you can feel it in everything they do. I leave you with a fun number from the first week’s performances.

Ok, I don’t mean to be turning into the all-about-Amazon blog, but this made me laugh so hard I had to share. One of the best things about Amazon are the reviews of some things that need no reviews. It began with the milk reviews. Oh yes! Go check out the Amazon page for Tuscan Whole Milk. Nothing currently at the top there that is all the hilarious, but the sheer amount of reviews for it are hilarious in and of themselves.

But yesterday my uncle sent me something to top it all. Denon has apparently come out with a completely silly new audio cable. It costs FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS and is really completely unnecessary. People have decided to go to town in the reviews of it. I cannot remember when I laughed so hard at something so silly.

Some choice quotes for your enjoyment:

“A caution to people buying these: if you do not follow the “directional markings” on the cables, your music will play backwards.”

I installed one of these cables between my gigabit ethernet switch and my Canon Pixma 6700 color printer. I know it’s not a sanctioned use, but I was looking for the ultimate in speed and color fidelity. I’m freaky that way.

The first time I downloaded a picture to the printer over this cable, the bits moved so fast the printer collapsed into a naked singularity, right there in my office.

Since then, I can’t find the cat, and my entire set of VAX/VMS 4.7 documentation (DEC Will Rise Again!) (Mmmmm, orangey!) has gone missing.

Please, for the love of God, please, do not use these cables! The very existence of Earth may depend on your decision!

This bit is great for all the Star Wars geeks (like me!):

“Marked down 1 star because it still won’t let you do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.”

Go on over and read them, it’s just great!

I like to stop by Amazon every now and again to see what books and music and more it recommends for me. It has a huge database of books and items I’ve bought, plus years ago I spent a long time rating items for hours on end (I can be a bit weird, I know). Today I stopped by for the first time in a while and clicked on the upcoming releases recommendations. Here’s one of the ones it had for me.

Yup, Amazon recommended the game I’m working on to me. I found that amusing. It was the only game recommendation, actually. I guess that’s kind of cool!

It’s that time again, and I’ve signed up to walk in AIDS Walk San Francisco. Last year I managed to raise over $600! Thank you everyone who helped contribute. This year I’m hoping to break $1000 so go on over to my donation page and help me out!

If you’re in the area and want to walk with my team, Let the Wookiees walk, send me an email and help us out! For more info on the AIDS Walk and where your money is going, check out the official website.

Check out my pictures from last year’s walk over on my flickr stream. Here’s one to give you a taste!