My Complicated Relationship with Real Time Strategy Games

I have a love / hate relationship with RTS these days. I started out thoroughly loving RTS. I remember the day my father got me to play a demo for the original Age of Empires (1997)... all those little Hittites chopping wood, mining gold, spearing fish, and the 'Fred Flintstone' looking axemen who would hack and kill the red guys. Something about RTS made perfect sense to me.

I played through all of the campaigns and expansions for Age of Empires, Age of Kings, Age of Mythology, and Age of Empires III. I started online play with Age of Mythology one fateful Sunday morning... I lost that game but oh my goodness did I ever have fun! I spent hours for nights on end in 1v1 match ups. I read every strategy post on the HeavenGames website and wrote a few of my own. I studied my replays and picked up new and better ways of playing from players who were better than me. All that information buzzing in my head, how many guys to put on resources, what military unit countered what, raiding, responding, anticipating, countering... so fast, it was mental stimulation that I couldn't get anywhere else. By the time I finally found another person who was interested in a LAN party I was so good at the game that nobody wanted to play against me.

The same thing happened with Age of Empires III. At my height I was a major (10th rank in a 17 rank system). The same thing happened with Starcraft II, at my height I was a 1v1 Platinum league and 2v2 Diamond League player. I had clawed my way all the way up from bronze league with my Zerg and was quite proud of my accomplishment.

But something always happened that stopped me. Something always got in the way and made the games no fun. I hit my peak and the game became super stressful instead of exciting. Then I would watch or encounter a real pro at the game and I realized that no matter how much I played I would never be as good as that guy. I tried though, I reached out into the community for help with improving my gaming skills and the response I got back was "Um... wow you suck. You're actually a very bad player." Let's just say I didn't really see the point of hotkeys until late in my RTS gaming.

I'm not sure what it is but where other players would get stoked or psych themselves up for a game against a skilled opponent I just get all stressed out and then fall apart early in the match. I wouldn't play to the best of my ability and drop down the ranks until the psychosis wore off and I started playing good again. It didn't make any sense to me. I love these games, why did I dread clicking the ready button to start a random match?

I still don't know. Maybe it's because I am afraid of losing (silly I know). Maybe fear of the unknown? Something psyches me out.

In any case I still love RTS but I also avoid them now. I've gone through the 'claw may way up to as high as I can get and then get psyched out and tumble back down' cycle enough times to realize that I will actually enjoy other less competitive games more. I am also leery of the time commitment an RTS can require. 15-20 minute matches used to be nothing to me, Now that I have small kids 15-20 minutes of undisturbed time is something I don't get until late evening and I'd rather spend that time either with my wife or doing something more important / relaxing. There is also my social life to consider... I have a difficult time meeting people as it is and if I did have the time to play competitive RTS maybe I should invest that time into friendships instead.

I tried to get into Planetary Annihilation, and it was incredibly fun when I did get to play it, but it seemed like every 2nd or 3rd game something would come up and I would have to leave. Eventually I got the hint. No more RTS for me. I just don't have time and right now they are not healthy for me. Maybe later, when the kids are older I will have time again. The question then will be "is it worth it?"

Greg Recommends Age of Empires III Complete

Price : $39.99

Website : http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Age-of-Empires-III-Complete-Collection-PC-Game/productID.253711400

I grew up with Age of Empires and have played every game in the series to death. I remember standing in a long line in the cold to pick up a Boxing Day special for AoE3 at Future Shop and then spending more than what I saved taking my parents out for breakfast as bribery payment for getting me there at an ungodly hour and then waiting for the store to open. It provided me with years of quality entertainment so I think it was a good investment. I achieved the rank of Major (above average) in the online competitive ranking system but had to let it go when more important life issues came up and haven't been able to justify the time commitment to play competitively since.

For those who have never heard of the series, Age of Empires 3 is a real time strategy game set within 1500 - 1800 in "The New World" (North / South America). The original AoE3 allows you to choose between 1 of 8 different civilizations while the War Chiefs expansion adds 3 more and the Asian Dynasties adds another 3. Each civilization has unique strengths and weaknesses that will greatly affect how you play the game but the basic gist of it is "gather resources from the map, build up a base to create military units and then use your military to burn down everyone else's bases and kill all their people." That is every RTS in a nutshell but Age of Empires 3 has a few things that make it stand out as an RTS title.

The first is an Age of Empires hallmark, being able to advance through the ages. An 'Age' in Age of Empires represents a significant advancement in history and technology. There are five ages (Discovery, Colonial, Fortress, Industrial, Imperial) Someone in the 'Colonial Age' can build basic military units and research basic upgrades while another player in the 'Fortress Age' will have everything from the Colonial Age plus advanced and specialized unites, new buildings, and better upgrades available to them. Each age builds upon and improves the units, buildings, and upgrades presented in the ages previous. Advancing to a new age is an expensive and time consuming move to make, and knowing when to make it is key to victory.

The second is a unique 'card' system whereby you can build a deck of shipments to send from your home city to your settlement in game. As you earn XP by exploring, building, and fighting you will earn the ability to send these shipments. The cards (shipments) in your deck can be anything from a squad of military units, extra villagers, unique technologies, extra resources, permanent unit buffs, or free buildings. There are different tiers of cards that correspond to the different ages; so a Colonial card can be sent once you reach the Colonial Age but a Fortress card can only be sent once you reach the Fortress Age. The higher the card tier the more potent / valuable the effects (usually). This ensures a wide variety of strategic options are available to you and so you can build as many decks as you have strategies to try out.

Here are some basic strategies to give you an idea how this works:

An aggressive 'hit them hard right from the start' strategy will rush to the Colonial Age and use military shipment cards combined with all the units you could build in the meantime to give you a formidable and quite possibly game winning force at the 5 minute mark at the expense of your economy.

A counter-strategy for this would be to send free guard tower buildings and crossbow units in addition to what you were able to build before your enemy attacks. (Crossbows are the early cost effective counter to building destroying spearmen)

Alternatively you could linger in the Discovery Age before advancing to build up your economy, send food and gold cards when you reach the Colonial Age, and jump straight into the Fortress Age to get elite military units and cannons while everyone else is still mucking about with spearmen and crossbows.

Your civilization bonuses, the map, and which civilization you're playing against are all factors to consider when deciding which strategy to implement. You can have as many decks as you like but you can only choose one to ship from when you claim your first shipment.

Age of Empires 3 features a strong "rock / paper / scissors / lizard / Spock" approach where everything is good against something else but can be countered by a different unit or strategy. Musketeers are a tough all-round balanced unit with a melee bonus when engaging cavalry but get torn to shreds by skirmishers and cannons. Skirmishers get a damage multiplier bonus against heavy infantry (muskets, spearmen) but will quickly fall to a hussar's saber or be blown away by a cannon ball. Cavalry will demolish artillery and light infantry but need to watch out for pikes, spears, and ranged cavalry which have significant damage multiplier bonuses against them. Add to that basic structure all of the unique units that come with which civilization you choose, the unique units that come with allying with indigenous peoples, and which cards you play / upgrades researched and you have yourself a very complex game of attack, counter attack, and counter-counter attack.

Knowing what counters what is essential when it comes time to engage your foe's military. "But isn't that all the time?" you may ask. No. Another key element of a good RTS is importance of raiding and harassing your enemies before going toe to toe with them directly. Killing enemy gatherers means they can't get as many resources which means they can't produce things as fast which means when it comes time to crush them they will not be able to resist you. Denying a gold mine or huntable animal herds early in the game will force your opponent to improvise or fold as you keep up the pressure and slowly strangle them for resources. Of course even here you have to be careful not to allow your enemy to kill your raiders or allow an opening into your own vulnerable economy.

Let's talk about maps for a minute. AoE3 features lots of map types which will generate a new random map every time the game is played. Typically players start out in the Discovery Age with a randomly placed Town Centre, a handful of villagers, and some starting resources with gather locations (huntable animals, berries, fish, gold deposits, trees) nearby. Depending on the map type some resources will be plentiful on the map while others are sparse. Some maps mix it up a bit by giving the player extra resources or a free economic building or free towers to start with. Maps possess all the usual obstacles and features you'd expect with cliffs, lakes, and forests placed randomly according to the map type and enemy players *usually* placed equidistant from each other on opposite sides of the map.

Where AoE3 mixes things up a bit is that there are treasures scattered throughout the map that your explorer can claim and specific locations along pre-determined trade routes and indigenous villages where you can build trade posts that net you new bonuses or abilities. The treasures can range from free resources to free units to permanent buffs for your explorer and can shave precious seconds and sometimes minutes off a strategy if collected. They are guarded though, so you will have to weigh the risk / reward ratio. Your explorer has a massive damage multiplier against treasure guardians and a 'snipe' ability that will kill a single treasure guardian in one shot but it has a long recharge time. Depending on your Civ and the cards you send you may be able to rack up a lot of treasures to give you an early game advantage. (Spain is a natural treasure collector)

The trade posts cost a heft 250 - 200 wood to build but if placed on a trade route will produce bursts of XP to speed up your shipments. Upgrading the trade route at any trade depot along that route (even if you are not the one to do the upgrade) will speed up the bursts of XP and allow you to get bursts of a chosen resource instead of XP. Placing a trade post at an indigenous village will allow you to train their warriors and unlock special technologies that would otherwise be unavailable to you. Some cards can be used to specifically enhance or get free indigenous units. Depending on the map you the indigenous units can be your key to an early victory! Even late game they can provide an edge over your opponent.

Here are some examples of popular maps:

Great Plains : A large wide open map with plenty of bison but few trees and scattered gold deposits. An ideal map for raiding. One long trade route that runs down one side of the map with Lakota and Comanche villages (melee and ranged mounted warriors with cavalry tech).

Yukon : A winter map split by a river with crossings on the top and bottom. On the right side are all the players with a trade route along the river and on the other side are valuable treasures, plentiful resources, and Cree and Nookta villages (powerful sniper and powerful building destroyer / cavalry killer)

Amazonia : A tropical map cut down the middle by a large river well stocked with fish with players taking positions on opposite sides. One side has a trade route with three nodes while the other side has three villages that could be Carib, Inca, or Zapotec. Claiming the river is essential for victory.

How does it compare to Blizzard's genre defining StarCraft 2? I would say that the RTS formula isn't as refined or as well packaged as SC2. Managing four resources (food, wood, gold, XP) at various points around the map as opposed to managing 2 resources that come gift-wrapped as part of natural base expansions means that you have more things to be aware of and divide your attention. There are a lot more options and possibilities in AoE3 (civ bonuses, cards, unique units, more techs, raiding) which, on the one hand give the game tactical and strategic breadth while on the other hand make it a bit unwieldy to play by comparison. AoE3 does not have the sort of 'micro' game that SC2 has. Your military units (with the exception of your explorer) do not have any special abilities, just raw attacks with varying damage multipliers according to who is attacking what. While 'micro' in SC2 is a professional skill in and of itself that can change the entire outcome of a game the 'micro' in AoE3 is still important but more simplistic and not quite as game changing.

SC2 hits the sweet spot between simplicity, depth, and what I'll call 'potency'. Three very unique and diverse factions (Terran, Zerg, Protoss) with 15-18 unique and diverse units each has been the foundation of a lean mean and powerful RTS engine that is currently driving International E-Sports. AoE3 is not as simple and its depth is in different locations. 13 different (but often overlapping) civs with dozens of units or variations of base units shared between them feels 'muddy' when compared to SC2's 'clarity.' The end result is that AoE3's RTS engine isn't as 'potent', as in, AoE3 struggled to become an E-Sport and has never really been mainstream while SC2 defines both E-Sports and mainstream gaming.

Personally, I love AoE3. I love all the choices, I love the overlap, and while the engine is older and isn't as refined or well packaged it still runs great.

The expansions (The War Chiefs + The Asian Dynasties) added a few things to original AoE3 to mix it up a bit. The three Native American civs added (Iroquois, Sioux, Aztec) are *very* different from the European civs from the original using a completely different building, units, and card set with 'big button' technologies that get stronger the longer you wait before using them, reusable cards, and dance circles that allow you to pick an buff (free XP, stronger units, everything trains faster, etc) and become more potent the more villagers go to dance there (up to 25). The Asian civilizations (China, Japan, India) are also suitably different from the European civs utilizing, another completely different building, units, and card set with wonders that give buffs while standing, and the ability to recruit powerful mercenaries by offering a small percentage of all items gathered in exchange.

Deck sizes were increased from 20 to 25 with adjustments made to existing civs to balance things out. Spies and Mercs can be hired from a saloon building instead of only being available through card shipments. Europeans Civs can declare independence instead of advancing to the Industrial Age which turns all of their villagers into colonial militia and they can build powerful colonial units and a powerful new colonial deck but can no longer gather resources. The new 'trade monopoly' victory condition and timed 'treaty mode' (no attacking for X minutes after start) were added.

The original game and expansions each have their own campaigns which are 'ok'. Definitely not the caliber of storytelling you'd get from a Blizzard title, but still alright. The original campaign recounts the connected story lines of a family of explorers and adventurers in The New World. I played through them all a few times and to be honest I only really remember about 5% of what happened beyond just blowing up the bad guys and feeling satisfied with that.

AoE3 is a solid and sometimes complex RTS with a lot of depth to explore. I don't know what the online community is like right now but it is still a $40 game so I suspect the community is alive and well. The game is great for LAN parties and has been integrated into STEAM which makes finding other players easier. If you're into RTS (or would like to be) then keep an eye out for this title.

Greg Recommends Deus Ex : Human Revolution Director's Cut

Price : $21.99

Website : http://store.steampowered.com/app/238010/

I tend to avoid action and shooter games, but Deus Ex won me over, first from the overwhelmingly positive reviews it got and then half way through the first act when I realized I couldn't wait to come home and play some more. It doesn't have the best 'shooter' mechanics, but it is one of the very few action games out there that does stealth and a conspiracy story very well. I'm a sucker for good story line, good art, and thought provoking material and in my books Deus Ex scores very high in all three categories.

Here's a summary. It's the year 2027 and there have been several significant leaps in technology, specifically in bridging the gap between humankind and machines. You play as Adam Jensen, a newly hired security manager for Sarif Industries, a private technologies corporation that specializes in biotechnology. Things go bad rather quickly and spectacularly; and you find yourself trying to A: figure out how all of the company security has been compromised, B: stop para-military terrorists from murdering the breached research wing, and C cut through said para-military terrorists to get to your love interest. Long story short it doesn't work out well and Adam clings onto life by the skin of his teeth after a boss fight that... let's just say the odds were not stacked in his favor. It's maybe a cliche beginning, but it's executed well and serves as a solid foundation and motivation for the story that follows.

Sarif industries decides to rebuild Adam using their cutting edge prosthetic military grade technology and lets just say Adam goes from ex-swat of questionable ability to Angel of Death corporate attack dog. He's called into service early when the same para-military terrorist group breaks into a factory and takes hostages. Adam is tasked with defusing the situation while hopefully finding leads as to who these people are, what they want, and where they kidnapped the scientists to. He finds leads alright, but the people behind the attacks are well connected and cover their tracks very well by working through other powerful entities which in turn hire independent and corporate agents to do their bidding. It's big and it goes deep. This is a conspiracy story and it is a good one. Someone is working in the shadows to block your way and the deeper you go down the rabbit trail the darker the secrets and the larger and more unsettling your list of possible conspirators will become.

All that being said you have incredible freedom for how you deal with the enemies that oppose you. You technically don't have to kill anyone in the whole game, except for a some specific boss fights where you must fight to the death. Otherwise enemies can be knocked out, sneaked past, or in some deliciously dramatic encounters, diplomicized and / or intimidated into assisting you. The game does stealth well, often providing you with multiple paths to your destinations and rewarding experience for skillfully avoiding conflict and a large bonus if you complete a level without being seen by anyone.

Complimentary to the conspiracy setting and the ability to choose from violent and nonviolent approaches is the leveling mechanic. You earn experience by completing objectives and either dispatching or sneaking past enemies and when you have enough you are able to unlock one of several different augmentations that Sarif Industries hard wired into you (they just haven't fully synced as your body is technically still adapting to them). These augmentations range from increased strength / stamina to hacking ability to filtered lungs to heat vision to increased speed / jump height to 'chameleon mode' that makes you invisible for a short time. Pick which augmentations compliment your play style. If you're the run and gun shoot all the things type then pick the strength and vision upgrades. If you're the sneaky sneaky steal all the corporate secrets type then grab hacking and pheromone augs to learn all the secrets. The game rewards both sides of the spectrum with maybe a tad extra for players who take the time to follow up on side stories and enjoy hacking corporate emails.

Going back to the story for a minute. It's not just a conspiracy story, it's a story that also touches on some pretty heavy issues. What is the value of human life? Just how much power should corporations and governments exert over individuals? At what point is the cost of power and scientific advancement too high? These may sound abstract on their own but there were points in the game where I was authentically unnerved and upset by the secrets I uncovered and it was because it brought a very raw and real application to these philosophical questions. The game lets you take action on some of these issues and you can become an angel of light or a total cyberpunk jerk but there were a few times that I found the choice difficult to make and even wandered if I had made the right choice in the end. The game also does a good job of making you actually care about the characters you encounter. They have lives, hopes, dreams, fears, motivations, family, and may or may not depend on your actions to see them through to the end. These things are the hallmark of excellent story telling and with the drive for revenge, the action, and the twisting plot points I was hooked right to the end.

The art style in Deus Ex is very intentional, lots of gold on black and light accented by darkness. I don't remember the name of this style but I believe other review sites have identified its origins as Reconnaissance Italy. I think it really helps set the mood and atmosphere for the game while looking awesome! The art style compliments the story and the underlying themes within the game and acts as a subtle stylization on realism which means that the graphics will always look good even though they will become dated.

I didn't get too many theological vibes from this game. I found the light and darkness in the art style reminded me a bit of how light and darkness are opposed in the Gospel of John, but the story and overall direction seemed to be more existential than theist even though there were numerous references to the Bible and Christianity. Adam, a biblical name with special meaning that the game taps into. Seraf, a powerful angel. Artistic depictions of angels and demons spread throughout. The game borrows themes from Christianity but seems content to leave any concept of God (especially a Christian understanding of God) out of it. Different characters try to play god or uplift humanity to become gods, even Adam Jensen gets to play god if he so chooses and other characters will regard him as an angel of death or an angel of light depending on his actions. There is lots of 'working in the dark to serve the light' which is most definitely not Christian but makes for a great thriller story nonetheless. The game seems to borrow overtones from religion and theology which makes it interesting but not enough to be religious or theological and, refreshingly, doesn't try to bash religion like other games.

What Deus Ex does well it does really well, but it is not a perfect game. The art style is great but graphics feel truncated if you take a close look at some of the textures and details, probably so that it could run on the XBox 360. Some characters look great, others, especially the NPCs that aren't characters you can talk to have that glazed over look when they walk around and repetitive 'same voice actor' feel to them. Anyone who played the original Deus Ex will immediately notice that the areas and maps are a lot smaller than the original, which makes sense when you consider the exponential bloat that modern day graphics technology puts upon the size requirements of any game. A lot of people really didn't like the boss fights because they didn't allow for the same sort of 'multiple alternative routes' game play that the rest of the game does well but the 'Director's Cut Edition' addresses this to some extent. FPS players will probably be underwhelmed by the actual 'shooting things' aspect of the game as the weapon selection isn't spectacular and the shooting mechanics aren't on the same level as a modern day Call of Duty title. It's more of a role playing game that allows you to shoot things rather than a shooter that allows you to role play. Then there is the ending... I won't spoil it, but lets just say I appreciated the journey more than the destination. The destination was worth the journey, make no mistake, and I understand why they ended it the way that they did, but I just expected more given the gravity of everything that brought us to that point and what was at stake now that all the cards were on the table.

As already stated, what Deus Ex Human Revolution does well it does really well. If you enjoy games that do stealth well and if you enjoy a good story then I highly recommend Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In my mind it stands head and shoulders above other 2011 titles.

Greg Recommends Evil Genius

Price: $10.99

Website: http://store.steampowered.com/app/3720/

Another old game with stylized graphics, Evil Genius hails from Rebellion publishers 2004. It's a stylish evil genius simulator that is not for everyone but still high on my recommendation list. If the idea of plotting out a master plan to take over the world and setting up cunning traps to dispose of nosey do-gooders brings a smile to your face and you find yourself tapping your fingers together or thinking about your favorite spy thriller then this game is for you.

Evil Genius is a simulation game in which you are in control a secret base on an unnamed island of indeterminate location and you enact your will to dominate all humankind through your henchmen and an army of disposable minions. On the island you command your minions by creating various job orders (place item here, build room there, render that private investigator unconscious and lock up in the nearest empty cell) and they will scramble to go your bidding. Once you have a control centre you can also send minions and henchmen abroad to 'generate income' and go on evil missions to nab special items, special people, or just to spite the world security forces that oppose you. Every mission you run nets you 'notoriety' (Evil Genius street cred) which unlocks new options while also netting you 'heat' which brings the forces of justice to your door. If the forces of justice kill your avatar the game is over. If you are clever, patient, and play your cards right you are on the path to toppling the governments of the world and becoming the supreme ruler of all humankind.

You will spend most of your time in and around your base. New rooms are created by click and dragging 'Dungeon Keeper' style and your yellow clad construction minions will grab briefcases of gold bullion from your treasury, run over to the island's helipad or dock and emerge with armfuls of dynamite to blast the room out of the solid rock of your hidden mountain home. Every type of room can be used for specific purposes and can contain specific items (barracks is for minions to sleep, armoury can hold weapon rocks and prison cells, control centre can hold your electronics, etc.) You start out with just the basics, but by the middle and late game you'll have access to suitably advanced and nefarious items to deck out your base, improve your minions, and deal with intruders.

Planning out your base is the first type of fun this game offers. Making sure that your minions can replenish their stats, maintaining an efficient work flow, and keeping sensitive equipment and personal away from unwelcome eyes should inform how you layout your base.

Deciding which types of minions to train up and how many to keep on hand is part of this as well. You start out with yellow clad construction workers but there are 13 different minion types, each with its own uses and abilities, and knowing how to manage them is an important key to success. Military minions (guards, mercenaries, snipers, martial artists) can use guns (except for the martial artists), hold up quite well in close combat, and 'earn income' on the world map faster. Social minions (valets, spin doctors, ambassadors, and playboys) can confuse and distract unwelcome guests and keep your heat down on the world map. Scientific minions (technicians, scientists, biologists, quantum physicists) are necessary for researching new rooms and items and technicians can repair damaged equipment.

Henchmen are your elite lieutenants that you can directly control via good old fashion select and right click. They don't muddy their hands with the grunt work of moving crates or building things, but they do put up an incredible fight and have unique abilities that can make them invaluable in a fight or especially strategic for keeping your minions on task at different points in your base. You only start out with one but as you advance in the echelons of evilness you will be able to hire more henchmen from all corners of the globe. They are invaluable in a fight and great for missions abroad but they're not invincible. A squad of soldiers is often enough to take down one or two lone henchmen, thankfully being reduced to 0 health only knocks them out for a while and does not kill them. The exception to this is if they are killed by a super agent 3 times, then they are gone forever.

Despite being an unnamed island of indeterminate location your home attracts all manner of unwanted guests. Tourists, Private investigators, secret agents, and (if you make someone angry) special forces. Dealing with these unwanted guests is the second type of fun Evil Genius has to offer. You can just kill them if you like, but the nation they came from will wonder where they went and may send a larger force to investigate their whereabouts. If they escape with evidence of your wrongdoings though... (photographs of body bags, stolen loot, advanced technology, etc) then you can be sure that you will have attracted the wrong sort of attention. If they complete their mission and leave without seeing anything suspicious though your heat will drop and you will only have to contend with annoying tourists.

You can capture unwanted guests (and random minions) and throw them in the cells. Once captured they can be interrogated, executed, or experimented upon using a variety of devices to hilarious effect. Some devices conveniently brain wash your captives (literally) so they can't remember what happened to them. The experiment / interrogation animations (and sounds) are *very* amusing and suitably evil in a James Bond / Dr. Evil kind of way.

But for the more refined Evil Geniuses simply killing or beating up unwelcome guests isn't enough, no... a truly villainous genius will set up elaborate traps to gas, roast, toast, flatten, shock, slice, bounce, blow up, exhaust, confuse, and / or kill enemies once triggered. Trap components can be linked together so that once someone sets off a trigger, any number of components will activate and the fun begins. If an enemy is hit by multiple trap components in rapid succession you will earn 'trap combos' which are rewarded by giving you extra money.

Of course there is another way of dealing with annoying agents and tourists... set up a tropical vacation site to waste their time until they have to leave. They can stay in hotel rooms, chat it up with your social minions, disco dance, and hang out in the lounge. If they have enough fun they will forget about their missions and report back that they couldn't find any evidence of an evil base on that island.

Then there are the Super Agents... Dealing with Super Agents, the parodies of famous 60's secret agents, can be annoying (or lots of fun) until you discover their weakness and exploit it to get rid of them permanently. Figures like Marianna Momba, Jet Chan, Katerina Frostinova, Dirk Masters, and John Steele can not be killed and will cause trouble for you unless otherwise occupied by constant 'experimentation' (preferably with the giant mixing bowl as this lasts the longest). Unlocking the secret to their demises is a very satisfying (and entertaining) accomplishment.

The third type of fun comes from the style of the game. The graphics are stylized to be cartoony and a little wacky but everything from the aforementioned graphics to the music to the menus, minions, characters, fonts, mission texts, environments, missiles, and items scream 60's spy thriller on all the right channels. I mean, even the save / load menu has synchronized swimming scuba diving minions and the graphics settings menu has an agent sneaking around and then gets chased by mind controlled monkeys all to the sound of some swinging jazz... what other game puts this level of style into their games? It's hard to imagine a better setting or style for an evil genius sim. I found it quite delightful.

The mission texts are also loads of fun. Attaching signal emitters to schools of fish to overwhelm coastal sonar detection, using an earthquake generator to demolish the home of country music, scouring the letters of ancient tablets, and stealing The Eiffel Tower and The Ark of the Covenant are just a few things you can do.

Where Evil Genius may not be for everyone is that you tend to do an awful lot of waiting. I didn't mind this so much because I enjoy planning things out in advance and making my moves slowly and strategically. Other people may just get bored. Money can take a while to generate so you'll be waiting for that. Most of the really cool things are unlocked once you have acquired enough notoriety which means missions that amount to more waiting mixed with luck. Research can also take a long time, especially if your science minions get distracted and decide to abandon their projects for a visit to the staff room for a few games of ping pong or a nap before returning to pick their work up off the floor. Then there is the necessary cleanup and repair that needs to happen when angry soldiers or Super Agents start shooting up the place. For a patient or diabolical soul the waiting is just part of the simulation and well worth it in the end.

Greg Recommends Startopia

Price: $5.99
Website: https://www.gog.com/game/startopia

Startopia was a phenomenal game for its time (2001) and aside from some initial hiccups at setup it is still a really good game fifteen years later! It was created by the same folks who gave us Populous 3 and Dungeon Keeper 2 so be prepared for innovation, quality, and quirkiness in this classic space station / amusement park / gardening management sim.

Not bad for 2001 graphics.

Startopia puts you in the unique position of a space station administrator tasked with turning a derelict space station into a profitable hub of business and pleasure. You are provided with basic structures, some scuzzer bots, and a sum of energy (money) to get started and it's off to the races! Your first goal will be to attract aliens to land at your portion of the station and get them to pay you for things that they need or want. In the beginning of the game this usually means offering basic food, sanitation, lodging, health, and maybe a love nest or some simple shops. The more services and higher quality of those services, the more aliens will land and if they leave happy the higher your popularity will be. As you start to earn a profit you can look at investing in a variety of options to gain the advantage over your rivals ranging from factories to disco/rave pits to communication relays to spiritual retreat centers to advanced medical care and beyond. The more you grow the more options you unlock and the more things that could go wrong. The progression isn't perfect, but it is fun.

The outside of your space station. The glass enclosures are sections of the biodeck,
below is the pleasure deck and at the bottom is the utilities deck.

The map in Startopia is unique in that it is a spinning doughnut shaped space station partitioned 'horizontally' into 3 decks. The lower utility deck is where all the industry occurs, the middle 'pleasure deck' is where your guests can shop, have fun, and enjoy luxury living while the upper 'bio deck' is sculpted to resemble a 'Halo type' planet surface for aliens to 'get some fresh air' and enjoy reconnecting with nature. The space station is further partitioned 'vertically' by enormous blast doors that can be unlocked once you pay the required amount of energy to repair the adjoining section.

The style of map is sci-fi genius, tactically unique and interesting (as much as it needs to be for this game). There is only so much room on the space station and you will eventually grow to the point where you are rubbing shoulders with your rivals. More on this later. What might throw new players is that gravity pushes everything to the outer edge of the doughnut structure of the map and so once you unlock enough sections you realize that everything appears to be moving uphill in both directions and that aliens (and buildings) far away from the camera look like they could tumble down the slope.

The Utilities Deck

The first bit of fun is figuring the system out for the first time through the guided campaign. You're AI assistant 'VAL' (a sarcastic parody on Space Odyssey's 'HAL') leads you through nine scenarios each of which focus on a specific aspect of the game. In the first level you learn the basics. Some buildings come as is and you just place them on the ground. Other buildings require you to set a floor plan and then decide which other pieces to include and where to put them inside the building. If the buildings / furniture placed were in your inventory then scuzzer droids will grab the crates (because everything gets packed into crates) and unpack them. If they were not in your inventory then you use energy to make them materialize which is convenient but expensive. Aliens need food, sanitation, sleep, health, social, and fun. The first alien types (Gruelian Salthogs, Grays, and Grekka Targ) are fairly simple and tend to get along with cheaper accommodations even if their tastes differ on a few points. Soon you'll have a handful of aliens aboard paying you energy credits for meals, beds, and basic shops and you will feel like a benevolent disembodied observer looking upon the works of your hands.

The second bit of fun is finding ways to advance beyond your humble beginnings. The campaign does a good job of introducing new concepts and new ways of advancing such as producing your own buildings / furniture / droids with factories, or trading with different species, or growing plants to harvest on the boi-deck, or research, each with its own pros and cons. Manufacturing goods is cheaper than materializing them but it takes longer, and you can only manufacture goods that you know how to make. Researching new buildings and products takes a lot of time and setting up research facilities can be very expensive while simply purchasing a needed item from a trader, even at a high price, may be a lot better in the short term. You have to decide how to proceed and which aliens to hire onto your staff as each alien type provides a different function and each specific alien has its own stats to consider (competence, loyalty, and dedication). Unlocking new buildings and items to attract more aliens and make your station look awesome or become more efficient will net you a larger income and hopefully an edge over the competition.

Lots of aliens enjoy the bio deck.

The third, and largest bit of fun (in my humble opinion), is just watching everything. The developers put love and care into the visuals and it is fun to just watch everything happen. Aliens going this way and that way, talking, working, dancing. lounging. Scuzzer bots zooming this way and that to clean or repair or recharge or move crates. The graphics are amazing for 2001 polygon technology and placing plants and decorations strategically still makes the game look pretty good even by today's standards. The bio-deck is fully customizable allowing you to adjust elevation, water level, heat, and humidity. The game also rewards you for watching closely as you can earn extra credits by manually warping trash into a recycler and you can catch non-staff aliens fraudulently using facilities or terrorist aliens planting bombs and so alert your security staff accordingly before they do too much damage. (you can build security systems to flag and arrest or kill hostiles so you don't *always* have to be on the lookout.)

The fourth bit of fun is the intrinsic humor infused into this game. Your in-game assistant and campaign narrator is a sarcastic dry-wit AI who is full of advice that draws on stereotypes, pop references, and enjoys humorously insulting and complimenting you often doing both at the same time. The game is full of little touches that give it humorous style, from the campy looking terrorist space man conspicuously 'sneaking' to the scuzzer bot charging stations that comically flip robots upside down to screw a loose bolt into their bottoms, to the dubious trader "Arona" finding various ways to try convincing you to buy his overpriced (and quite possibly stolen) goods. Their is also the way aliens have their 'love' desire met, by going to a 'Love Nest', standing before a 'Siren' type alien, and allowing him / her to shower glowy lights and hearts down upon them. Don't worry, alien love is very child friendly, rated 'E' for everyone.

The Pleasure Deck

Eventually your little money making paradise in space will run into an opponent (assuming that you're playing with AI or a friend). The station is only so big and it is only a matter of time before you unlock a section adjacent to another administrator. Assuming the competition doesn't go bankrupt due to your ruthless efficiency at providing better services at less cost to yourself you can look forward to some firefights that will leave buildings in fiery ruins and send non-combatants running for their lives. If you can get a security scuzzer bot to the other side of an opponent's section of the station it can hack the blast doors and cut the section off from your opponent and rewiring which energy source it runs on thus making it officially yours and allowing you to build there unless your opponent takes it back. The combat mechanics are not very interesting, but they serve well enough for a non-combat game. Basically just hire all of the big beefy combat loving aliens you can, order a scuzzer bot to hack the controls in enemy territory, and start flagging which enemies you want your mob of laser shooting aliens to target first. Once you take out all of your competitions' energy collectors they are knocked out of the game.

A rogue Grey has been caught using medical equipment at your expense. He is being escorted off the station.

There is little strategy involved in combat and it is probably the least fun element of the game. All of the strategy in the game is in netting a higher income, reducing your costs, and making things more efficient. Buying low and selling high with trade ships, realizing that you can make an extra 50e per medical examination if you can pick up medical supplies cheap from the Grey traders, or even better, grow them yourself in the bio-bay. It's using research to unlock strategic technologies so that you can build things yourself instead of playing a game of chance with which trader will show up next and then paying through the nose to get what you need once it finally becomes available for purchase. It's building a tourist trap so attractive and so luxurious that the filthy rich Gem Slug race not only come to spend money but also stay long enough to leave valuable "turdite" on the floor which offers a high energy return rate with the recycler. It's making an efficient security system that can detect saboteurs before things blow up and arrest criminals before they start pretending to be staff and start costing you money (you can also make money by rehabilitating said criminals). Under the sci-fi cutesy ant-colony exterior (which is a good exterior, make no mistake) it's all about efficiency.

Startopia is fun but it's not perfect. The management tools aren't very maneuverable, the diplomacy settings are confusing, and navigating the staff bar becomes time consuming and unwieldy by the end of the game. There is no opportunity for interaction of any type between players except for sending your mob of laser gun wielding staff to do 'aggressive negotiations'. The game isn't very challenging once you know what you're doing, and events like plague ships, asteroid showers, or space beetle invasions are interesting the first few times they happen, but ultimately do little to shake up the underlying efficiency game. I also feel that there could have been a lot of potential for more 'extra' aesthetic items as well as fostering negative reactions among differing alien species beyond just a sad or angry face. But hey, the game was made back in the distance digital the bronze age of 2001 by a small team, so I can forgive Startopia for not being perfect.

What it does do well is simulation and atmosphere. The various game systems (trade, manufacturing, research, medical, hiring staff, alien needs / wants, etc) blend together very well and the graphics are as good as early 2000's graphics get. Part Deep Space 9, part Rollercoaster Tycoon, part Tropico, and part monopoly the game is full of heart and a must for gamers who can appreciate gentle paced sci-fi or management games in general, or even just games where you get to peacefully build cool things.

Go pick it up for dirt cheap at https://www.gog.com/game/startopia.