RipTen Videogame Blog » Strategy

Ripten Review: R.U.S.E. (PC)

Bryce Wilson — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:50:06 +0000

RTS games have a long and bland history of being, “get the biggest army, destroy enemy base, repeat.” Some games try and change that, deviating from their perfect formula (Good job EA…), and end up ruining the game. Well Eugen Systems have unleashed their game of deceit upon worldwide audiences and introduced something new to the mix, and it might just be good enough to win everyone over.

R.U.S.E. is based on information warfare. For those of you not in the know, information warfare revolves around intelligence, trickery, and a bunch of other ways to trick the enemy into thinking you’re doing one thing whilst you do the other. Kind of like when you’re browsing porn, then your Mom walks in so you quickly Alt + Tab to another window. At your disposal is a bunch of different “RUSE’s”, each serving its own unique purpose and having its own unique tactical appeal. For example; “Blitzkrieg” allows your units to move quicker, and is perfect for being used to hunt down and harass enemy scouts, supply trucks and recon units. “Radio Silence” hides your units to the enemy, and I often use it to hide a huge army of tanks, then attack the enemy before they even know the tanks are there.

These cards can be used in combination with each other, offering a very in-depth system that players can really use to tailor their strategies and game play. For example, if you were building an invisible tank base, then spamming tanks to flood your enemy, you would use “Camouflage Nets” to hide your building, and “Radio Silence” to hide the deluge of tanks that are soon to follow. Many games can be won or lost through proper use of these cards, and it’s quite a fresh and simple solution to an otherwise jaded and repetitive genre.

Unfortunately the R.U.S.E. cards are basically the games only real draw point. There is incorporation for the Playstation Move motion controller, however I played the game on PC and as such my review is based on that platform. Included in the game is a Campaign which is a hoot to play and really gives you something new to do when you get bored of crushing people on the online component. There is also a fun set of “instant action” type missions that allow you to earn bonus ranking points to level up with. Coupled with a bustling online multiplayer community, the game is quite good value for the money and will easily give you hours of game play. Throughout the two betas, and now the full release, I’ve clocked up 190 hours of game play.

Unlike conventional RTS games, the maps of R.U.S.E. are broken into various sectors in order to separate the effectiveness of R.U.S.E. cards and conflicts. That being said, this game contains some of the best unit control I have ever seen. By scrolling right out you can view the map as a table, where your units appear as tall stacks. It all feels very much like a war room that you see in a conventional film, but the control is brilliant. It is also possible to manage your active R.U.S.E. cards and to just oversee the whole battle and to crush the enemy. Whether zoomed right out, or down to the ground, the graphics of R.U.S.E. are quite impressive and the battles look brilliant right down at ground level.

The impressive scalable graphics engine is also complemented by a nice sound mix, and the various languages for different nations really compliments the game and adds a nice realistic feel. The menus are simple, intuitive and let you get straight into the action, and this is something I really liked.

Although it has it’s good points, certain parts of the game feel extremely unbalanced. The German units are too strong, although they do cost the most out of any nation. Italy can rush tanks too early (My preferred strategy), and most of the game comes down to spamming the most units and catching your opponent off guard. Eugen is currently working on a patch, although details are scarce. More R.U.S.E.’s would have been good, instead of a mere 8, however Eugen explained that they weren’t balanced or counter-able (i.e.: Radio Silence is countered by Spy etc.)

R.U.S.E. is a good, fresh and new take on the RTS genre. I enjoy it even after so many games, because there are still new strategies and ideas being formulated everyday by a fresh and active community. If you’re bored of Starcraft 2, or any other RTS game, R.U.S.E. is definitely worth checking out.

Here’s The Rundown:

+ Fresh new take on it’s genre
+ Great game from Eugen after nearly 4 years
- Not enough depth in the concept
- Germany is overpowered
- More R.U.S.E.’s would’ve been great

Alien Swarm was developed by Eugen Systems and was published by Ubisoft for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The game released in the United States on the 7th of September 2010 with a retail price of 49.99. This copy was purchased by the reviwer. The game was played for around 180 hours in multiplayer. Specs of the PC used are as follows: AMD Phenom X4 955 @ 3.60 Ghz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, HIS 5750 in CrossFire with another HIS 5750 and Windows 7 64 Bit.

Bible MMO Entering Open Beta Soon

Dylan Duarte — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:01:26 +0000

What better way to get young ones interested in the bible than to make The Bible Online, a strategy-based MMO that resembles Age of Empires? The first chapter of the game, Heroes, which goes into open beta on September 6th, will follow the book of Genesis as players guide Abraham and his people to the promised land.

The game is being developed by German MMO developer FIAA, the people behind Kalos War and Operation7.

“The Bible Online is developed for players of all ages to easily get closer to the Bible, while enjoying the game,” said FiAA president Dr. Alan Kim.

And not only will it allow you to get closer to the bible, but if you play in the beta you can also win an iPod!

R.U.S.E Demo Available on Steam Now

Sam Naylor — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:46:49 +0000

Ubisoft have announced that the demo for their upcoming strategy game R.U.S.E has been made available on Steam.

The demo is 1.5Gb in size, and contains a full mission, created specifically for the demo. You’ll have to “lead the U.S. Army in battles against Germany and Italy… Players must combine deceptive strategies and eventually resort to nuclear strikes to achieve victory.”

Kind of shot their load early- now I won’t have to buy the game to launch a nuke, just play the demo (which can be downloaded here).

Will Plants vs. Zombies 2 Be Announced Soon?

Dylan Duarte — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:01:37 +0000

Last year, Plants vs. Zombies shambled its way onto my radar from seemingly out of nowhere, just like a real member of the undead. Except instead of eating my face, it made me love it. Now it looks as if an announcement of Plants vs. Zombies 2 may be right around the corner.

PopCap today released the above image today, which highlights a zombie hand, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and the date of August 2nd. It’s clearly Plants vs. Zombies artwork and it must have something to do with the property, so my guess would be on a sequel, especially since it’s now been over a year since the original, plenty of time to raise another army of the undead.

Keep your decaying peepers glued to Ripten for any news regarding Plants vs. Zombies 2: Golden Gate Ghouls. I just made that name up because I am clever.

Fat Princess Zombie DLC on the Horizon?

Demi Adejuyigbe — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:24:08 +0000

I’m surprised that Fat Princess never gained a lot of traction on PSN, as it is a great strategy game, and probably one of my favorite titles on PSN. With the inclusion of the new Fat Roles DLC that released last week, we might see a lot more people jump back into the game after long periods of dead gameplay, but it looks like another part of the game could be rising from the dead as well.

The in-game tips for Fat Princess have hinted at DLC in the past, and if the in-game tip “I think Zombies are coming soon, run!” is any indication, I think zombies are coming soon. … Run! The Fat Roles DLC trailer also shows some pumpkins in the game in lieu of cakes, but does that mean we could be getting some Halloween DLC? I’m all for Zombie DLC- anything that will get people to check out Fat Princess is something I am in total support of. [Joystiq]

“Worst Game Ever”, Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Coming to the PSP

Demi Adejuyigbe — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:56:26 +0000

The formerly-iPhone-exclusive strategy game Crap of Defense is coming to the PSP pretty soon, and while it’s had mixed reviews on iTunes, the game’s publishers seem to be aiming for a goal that most people don’t go for: Worst PSP Game Ever.

It’ll have to be pretty bad to beat the worst PSP game currently on record at Metacritic, Dragon Ball: Evolution. Sure, I don’t think anyone expected to be a movie tie-in game (of a horrible movie, no less) to be the Citizen Kane of video games, but yikes. The game itself is a paper-styled tower defense game, and it looks like it could be pretty fun.

This isn’t the first case of reverse advertising we’ve seen with gaming. When Penny Arcade released Episode 1 of On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness (which, by the way, was a blast) their advertising featured negative comments from trolls on Wired. I love this advertising technique, honestly. If I ever end up in the video game development industry (no) every game I work on will be advertised with negative reviews. (e.g. every review they would receive) [Source: 1UP]

Ripten Review: Fortix

Bryce Wilson — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:20:16 +0000

For gamers familiar with the game paddocks, where you join up four dots to segregate a portion of the playing field, Fortix will seem warmly familiar and you will immediately have a firm grasp of the concept within the game.

Fortix is a strategy and arcade game mixed into one, offering players a simple yet challenging experience that I can’t recall ever seeing before. Developed and Published by Nemesys Team Studio for Steam, Fortix revolves around a fantasy land currently in the overthrows of evil occupancy. It is of course up to the heroic knight to save the kingdom and that is your cue.

Players are presented with a large map, that contains a minimum of one fort, and usually one dragon. To capture the fort players must slowly obtain pieces of land by drawing a line with their knight, then connecting that line to the edge of the map, which in turn captures the portion of land that was just cut off. Sound easy? Well of course it does, but that’s the idea. The real challenge from Fortix lies within the various creatures and buildings getting in your way.

When you move your knight around to capture pieces of the land, a flashing line emits from your backside and this is the line that you need to extend to another edge of the map, whether it be straight across the level, or only a small portion. If anything evil comes into contact with this, you lose a life. On the maps protecting forts are towers with a cannon inside them. They shoot balls and if the balls come into contact with your line, you die. Couple this with dragons always flying around the map, and at times six or seven towers, and you really have a challenge on your hands.

You could then revoke to a strategy of only capturing tiny segments of the map, but then you get less points. If you want to kill a dragon, you need to draw a line around them, then join that up with the map. To kill a tower, you need to draw a line around a trigger placed on the map somewhere. Little things like this sound simple in writing but are really hard to carry out at times, because certain areas like mud and water slow your movement speed down a whole heap.

To counter act the slow movement zones there is various power ups placed around the map that when captured give you special abilities like faster movement, or even killing a dragon. There is also bonus lives, which you will need.

Each level can be completed sometimes with five minutes, and that goes for nearly all of them, although some areas have two or three forts that need to be captured. I think Fortix could definitely benefit from some post launch content add-ons in the future, and hopefully the developer brings them out. All in all there is 36 levels spread across 12 difficulty settings, each playthrough unlocking a new difficulty.

Graphically the game isn’t anything amazing, but it is something unique at the same time. The graphical style reminds me of an oil painting, and it is nice to look at. Something I had a laugh about was the fact my computer was running the game at 1400 frames per second. Also mixed in a nice soundtrack that doesn’t get annoying or repetitive. The steam achievements are well balanced and obtainable, and I would be happy to play through the game numerous times just to get them.

Fortix is definitely a fun game, and for only five bucks I think everyone should have this in their library. If you’re quick you can pick it up as part of the huge Summer Sale that is taking place on Steam right now.

The Rundown:

+ Fun, simple and addictive gameplay elements
+ Definitely room for downloadable content
- Extremely short
- Very shallow gameplay

Fortix was developed by Nemesys Team Studios and published by Nemesys Team Studios for the PC. The game released in the United States on June 14th 2010 with a retail price of $4.95 USD. The copy used in this review was for the PC and sent to us by Nemesys Team Studios. The game was played to completion for the purpose of this review. Specs of the PC used are as follows: Asus M2A74-AM-SE Motherboard, AMD Quad Core 630 @ 2.81ghz, HIS 5750 1GB DDR5, 4GB RAM, Tritton AX720 Dolby Digital 5.1 Headset, Windows 7 (64 Bit).

Single-Player Review: Napoleon: Total War

Sam Naylor — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:26:20 +0000

The number one thing to note about this review of Napoleon: Total War is that I was not able to try out the multi-player. The version reviewed, although a complete game, was a pre-release version. If you were looking for a review of the online component of the game, I suggest you go elsewhere (after reading through my review of the single-player, of course). Personally I don’t think of the Total War series as particularly focused on multi-player, although obviously it does have a following.

Napoleon: Total War is a succession of last year’s Empire: Total War as opposed to a completely revamped experience. The jump from Medieval to Rome, for example, was gigantic. The jump from Empire to Napoleon is comparatively small. Many of the differences are balance issues, fine-tuning of combat, additional battle conditions, and of course, a brand new setting.

For me, the trip back to Europe from America (in Empire) was very welcome. Perhaps it’s because I know where the major cities are on the map, perhaps it’s the fact that the UK is actually on the map, or perhaps it’s just that Europe is more varied than the vast plains of America, but I really feel it lends itself to the Total War series a lot more. Napoleon’s history is similarly more interesting to me than the conquest of America, but again this is much more of a subjective facet of the game. As always the history is well told and accurate, and adds a lot to making it feel like a true conquest.

Speaking of which, if you’ve not played a Total War game before, the name of the game is total conquest. You’re presented with a lovingly-rendered map of Europe with your armies and cities littered across it. From here you make tactical decisions about conquering all of the other armies, cities, and factions on the map. It’s all turn based, so there’s plenty of scope to micromanage your population and army positions while you progress over the map, taking hold of more and more land and cities.

The catch with Total War is that when your army meets another, there’s the option to play that battle in real-time. These battles aren’t just your standard unit-rush; you actually have to use tactics and outsmart your enemy. A good player will be able to use a smaller army to outmaneuver and beat a much bigger but more disorganised army. These battles look spectacular, and even more so in Napoleon. Each unit is actually made up of soldiers now, as opposed to clones, and with Anti-Aliasing turned on they look great. With it off, it’s very jaggy, but you’ll never need to zoom that far in on a unit anyway. The maps are beautiful, and reflect the part of the campaign map that your armies met upon; as does the weather.

As each turn in the campaign map is passed, two weeks pass. As you get into Winter, it begins to rain more. Your gunpowder becomes damp; cannons become much less useful. There are plenty of nuances like this in the terrain, which is great for strategy aficionados. There are also at-sea battles for ship fans (I know you’re out there), which are obviously a bit less of a clusterfuck thanks to there only being a handful of units/ships on the map at once.

Unfortunately, although I enjoy the RTS battles, I’m just not good at them. I can’t seem to think of anything past the very basic “flank the enemy”, and even then I send most of my men running headfirst like a fool. As such I tend to hit the “Autoresolve” button when a fight happens, meaning the computer automatically decides the outcome of the battle. This tends to allow me to spam unit numbers, meaning that I vastly outnumber the enemy; if I let the computer do the fighting for me, I don’t have to worry about organising large numbers of units on the battlefield.

Despite being utterly bad at the game, I rather enjoyed playing Napoleon: Total War. I will say that I haven’t finished the campaign yet- I honestly don’t have time for that. It’s gigantic. The final section allows you to take complete control of Europe, which is just way beyond the amount of time I have to play the game. For those who’ve got a passion for strategy, or those who enjoy it and have a lot of time to spend on it, the campaign has a lot to offer. If managing the citizens and forming alliances and treaties is your thing then maybe Civilization would be a better choice for you, but honestly if you’re more interested in the military side of things I can highly recommend Napoleon: Total War.

Napoleon: Total War is one of the best things to happen this year for fans of military history and strategy in the gaming community. If you’ve got any interest in Napoleon’s campaigns at all I’d say give this one a go, even if you’re not usually a fan of strategy games. There’s enough of a tutorial to get you going on the turn-based stuff, and the real-time stuff, while complex, can be taken one step at a time via the tutorials and easier beginning battles. It’s way too big for a busy metropolitan gamer, and it won’t run well on most PCs, but when you’ve got it going, it’s one of those games that can really drain your day away.

Take-Two Concludes Internal Strategic Review, Resumes Business as Usual

Chad Lakkis — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:58:38 +0000

Back in mid August, we reported that Take-Two had opened its boardroom doors to EA with the intent to jointly evaluate “strategic” *cough*buyout*cough* options.

It appears now that those talks have concluded and that the two sides could not see eye to eye — or more importantly, wallet to wallet.

Hit the jump for the full press release and some optimistic “the glass is half full” quotes from Take-Two execs.

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Announces Conclusion of Strategic Review Process

New York, NY – October 2, 2008 – Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) announced today that it has completed its review of strategic alternatives for the Company.

Following detailed discussions with various interested parties over the last five months, Take-Two’s Board of Directors has determined that it is in the best interests of stockholders to conclude its review of strategic alternatives and to continue operating and building Take-Two as an independent company.

“Take-Two’s Board of Directors and management have a clear mandate from stockholders to maximize value,” said Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of the Board of Take-Two. “We are strongly positioned creatively, financially and competitively to benefit from the opportunities we see in the fastest growing segment of the entertainment industry. Our management and outstanding and talented employees have maintained an unwavering focus on our products and our business through this lengthy strategic review process and we are confident in our prospects. We remain focused on maximizing value for stockholders and are executing on our business strategies in a determined manner.”

Ben Feder, Chief Executive Officer of Take-Two added, “Take-Two’s recent performance demonstrates our potential to create value for the long term. We have delivered solid financial results and expanded our portfolio of leading titles, which includes the powerful Grand Theft Auto franchise, as well as 15 other wholly owned brands with sales of more than one million units each. Our strong cash position – with no debt and an undrawn $140 million credit facility – gives us the financial flexibility to continue to do what we do best: innovate and create the great games that our customers have come to expect.”

PC Review: The Political Machine 2008

Andrew Podolsky — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:29:07 +0000

It’s been 17 months since Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton started to duke it out for the Democratic nomination, less than a month since the winner of that contest was settled, and four score and seven years since John McCain graduated from flight school, after learning how to ride a pterodactyl. It’s easy to get fatigued watching all this crap on cable news, but for a fun bit of counter-programming, we have this clever little strategy game, The Political Machine 2008.

At first glance this downloadable game looks a bit like Civilization, but on a scale of 41 weeks instead of 4,100 years. Also, instead of a whole world to explore, you are limited to the 50 United States (suck it, Guam!), and there is no “fog of war” obscuring your view of the nation. While there is no rolling blackness from your perspective, the nation’s voters are wallowing in ignorance, and it’s up to you to educate them with speeches, ads, and political trickery.

You play as a contemporary political contender, including some recent candidates and running mates, and can face off against historical figures in the campaign mode. Obama vs. Lincoln, for example, is a fun match-up because they both hail from Illinois, and Reagan is always a tough contender because he’s the only Republican with a steady shot at winning California.

If you’re any kind of fan of politics at all, have any sort of preference about political coverage in newspapers or TV, or have read any nonfiction book about the Bush Administration, you’ll undoubtedly get a huge kick out of the tactics in this game. You can hire smear merchants to pen vitriolic columns about your opponent, a fashion consultant to keep you looking spiffy, and a speechwriter to round out a few choice phrases.

The Political Machine is clever in its message—to succeed, candidates fly around from state to state constantly, delivering speeches on the same few inoffensive, noncontroversial topics, claiming bold stances on positions like “I’m for the environment” or “I’m against high gas prices”. It’s a little hard to get a read on the voters’ perception, as the polls mostly focus on individual states. But after a few campaigns you’ll get the hang of all the right things to say: just promise farm subsidies in Iowa and thump your chest about a strong military in Virginia.

The game lacks a bit of nuance, however. You can’t parse your positions down to the level of “meeting with enemies of America without preconditions but with preparation”. You can also slam your opponent and tell lies about their positions, regardless of where they actually stand. Like Twain said, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

A couple of tweaks and improvements are also needed. It’d be better if more stats about your opponent’s position were available at hand. On election night, it’d be great to see the name of the state and some detailed information about why you won or lost. Also, on-the-ground operatives like The Heckler or the Wealthy Patron are pretty cool, but they don’t hold nearly the evil appeal of a real life Karl Rove. If I want to spread a whisper campaign about my opponent’s alleged illegitimate children, this game should let me.

If anything, the game’s not nasty enough. Politics can get pretty rough and tumble, but the worst you can do in this game is distort your opponent’s stance on the issues. You can’t leak photos of them wearing a turban, or run a few out-of-context clips on Youtube until their negative rating is so high that you win by default. You actually have to campaign on the issues, which we all know is completely unrealistic.

Even with a few minor flaws, the Political Machine is a reasonably priced and enjoyable experience, and it’s also a great way to blow off some of the steam that builds up from watching stupid bullshit on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. I can’t emphasize these points enough, because it says right there on my teleprompter to deliver these points with emphasis. And unlike my opponent, I for one am against higher gas prices, terrorists, and using the flag to wax your car. Thank you and God Bless America.

What does this score mean? Check out our review scoring breakdown.