Street Sovereignty

So in spite of myself, I appear to now be liking Ingress, the Google Citizen Monitoring System masked as Augmented Reality Game. That it is recording my every move for some sinister future purpose, I do not doubt, but figure that Google already know my… well, pretty much everything that I do online and over email anyway by now, so where is the additional harm?

The thing still seems to be in beta, but I don’t recall any NDA being mentioned and don’t generally care about those anyway. Basic gameplay is somewhat new and interesting to me, never having had a phone capable of this stuff before. Two factions, the Enlightened and the Resistance are battling it out in a secret invisible and made-up world, trying to have the most territory under their control at any given time. Something to do with Mind Units, which isn’t sinister AT ALL!

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Reviewlets: A30 Walker & M60 Bulldog

Two guns for my newest favourite Planetside 2 vehicle, the Galaxy. The Galaxy is a highly situational choice; a twelve-man troop transport VTOL aircraft and is very iconic, being a firm favourite from the first game. Unless you just want to use it as a flying kamikaze bomb to burn up otherwise unwanted Aerospace resources, you’ll want at least five crew for this plane to get the most out of it; a pilot and four gunners. Seven additional passengers can be loaded for the full 11-man paradrop on target facilities, and the whole paradrop thing is the Galaxy’s primary purpose – rapid redeployment across awkward or distant terrain. Everyone except the pilot is protected from falling damage when jumping from this plane, at any height. Static and regular squads should be looking to have a few members practice and pimp their Galaxies to increase squad mobility in general. To beat the Acquisition Timers and Resource Costs, have several Galaxy Pilots work in rotation.

The secondary purpose of the plane is a bit more hit and miss; the ‘Galaxy Gunship’ concept from PS1. With all armaments upgraded from the stock M20 Drake average-at-everything heavy machine guns, can the Galaxy become a potent offensive unit in its own right?

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How To Murder Time 2.13

This week we discover we don’t like ARGs. Other games, movies and TV shows we discuss are:

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How To Murder Time 2.12

This week we return with another look at what we’ve been doing. We even mention a boardgame this week! We really should play more of those…

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Thoughts on Squad Leading

Planetside 2 continues to entertain, and like most of these MMOs for me these days, seems to shine as a venue for good friends to have quite casual social hijinks of an average evening. Some of us are better than others at the whole shooty shooty thing, but there’s a good general atmosphere on Mumble in the Fire Rounds Rapid outfit of which I seem to have become somewhat in charge of.

We’re there to have fun, of course, but there is an actual game going on too, and I’m slowly learning what is involved in leading a squad in PS2. One of the great and unique selling points of PS2 over, say Borderlands, Halo or Battlefield 19-whatever is the sheer scale of the fighting. These are really large maps, with a LOT of participants, dozens at any given base and likely thousands overall. Making some kind of sense of it all is very much part of squad leading. Continue reading

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How To Murder Time 2.11

This week we return with another look at how we’ve spent our week, and includes the worlds least useful quick rundown of what’s wrong with a long list of iPhone games. We really should have continued that career in games journalism…

Is this a new record for the number of games we’ve covered?

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Reviewlets: Saron HRB & G40-F Ranger

Two ground vehicle weapons today. These are a funny thing to review well, especially in the multi-crew vehicles, since you, the paying customer, will rarely be using them yourselves. The person who spawns the vehicle is also the person who gets to fit all the modules and weapons on it, including the big ticket unlockable turrets. This basically ends up with you putting down cash in a game for the better enjoyment of other people, which is an odd state of affairs.

Naturally, this will appeal to regular squad-folk more than determined soloists, although perhaps those with an eye on bigger empire-wide picture may see the benefits in acts of cash-shop altruism which give random gunners the tools to perform better. Very hit and miss, literally! I’m lucky enough to have a fairly large squad of regulars for our nights out in there and this opens options for effective coordination in the multi-crew vehicles, which we use a lot; Sunderer, Galaxy, Magrider and Liberator.

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Reviewlets: Solstice SF & Eidolon

So here we are in an F2P Age, more or less; a state of affairs which generates mixed feelings among many. I always liked the idea in principle, but with provisos. Opportunities for idiocy and avarice certainly do exist more now than under the one-monthly-fits-all age, and it’s very much up to us to evaluate all new cash shop offers carefully, with an eye to what is right for us. I always thought that this would be our new role as MMO bloggers; to highlight and scorn the stupid, but also to assess and praise the good ideas too, in the form of mini-reviews of the new and more granular level of consumerism we now have in front of us. The dedicated LOTRO blog and podcast Casual Stroll To Mordor illustrates what I mean, with regular reviews of specific items and deals, along with recommendations (or otherwise) from folks who know a bit about what they’re talking about.

I’ve found those helpful in the past and would love to see more of this sort of thing across the whole genre; expert players giving detailed scrutiny to specifics, rather than the same old tired ‘All F2P is Bad/Good’ rhetoric.

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How To Murder Time 2.10

This week (well, technically last week because Jon was too busy to post it) we have been looking at the following massive list of games and things and stuff:

  • Star Trek Online
  • Proteus
  • Cases for the X-Wing miniature game
  • Planetside 2
  • Final Fantasy XIIIIXIII-2
  • Android phone games

Despite the list being so small we still managed to talk for an hour. It’s like we’ve trained ourselves to do it now without thinking.

How To Murder Time 2.09

This week Tim has been playing Planetside 2, Enslaved: Journey to the West and Tropico 3, while Jon has been far busier and played Farcry 3, Catcha Catcha, Temple Run 2, The Cave, Anno 2070, Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Farming Simulator 2013.

Please release more big games please,  that’s far too many iPhone and job simulation games.