My blogs have been coming inconsistently and this one is incredibly late.
However, I have been the captive of pirates for the past week or so, and didn't notice. This is because instead of their usual caper, which normally includes bumping someone on the head and then dragging the unconscious body to their ship, these pirates have made Viking kidnap their specialty.
It is a speciality, because when dealing with someone thats 120 kilos of muscled frame and beard that has likely ripped off two faces before being properly awake AND without coffee is likely to see an attempt to kidnap them unfavourably.
These pirates have discovered how to kidnap Vikings, or rather, one Viking. Namely, me. While I was deep game playing, they simply put my Viking house on a trailer, drove me to their ship, brought it aboard and fed and watered me subtely.
I only managed to escape because a lazy deckhand forgot my routine feeding, which consists of a whole wild boar, two ducks, the heart of an enemy and a pancake with a smiley face drawn in maple syrup with a nose of whipped cream.
Getting up and realising I had not been accomodated for in my usual manner, I walked out onto the deck of the ship to be immediately surrounded by the ugliest, stinkiest, cut-throatiest pirates I have ever seen.
The Captain approached me, offering me a pair of pants, as I had been naked while playing my games.
Declining the pants, he pleaded with me, saying, 'Yaargh yor maken me boys feel inadequate!'
I told him it wasnt my fault that I was hung like a stallion, and rather than feel humiliated, they should bask in the glory of my man steak.
At this point, one pirate lost his nerve, swinging wildly with his sword and charging me. I blocked his sword strokes with my nose (Fact: Viking noses are harder than steel) before flicking him away with my forefinger. Having not used my flick technique in years, I had forgotten its tremendous power, which resulted in the pirates face exploding, leaving only half a skull and his brains spilling onto the deck.
Having enough of their pirate bullshit, I gathered my energy and began the most powerful attack the world has ever seen.
"DRAAAAAAAAAAGGGON...."
The pirates all burst out weeping, for all have heard of the Dragon Punch, which has ramifications through all time, space and the afterworld.
"PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNCH!"
This particular Dragon Punches effect was to cause every pirates noots to explode out of their nootsack. Not only this, all their ancestor pirates nootsacks exploded, and time was damaged, probably irreparably. But I was hungry.
Realising I had probably left hundreds of pirate children alone and hungry, I sailed the seven seas and went to every port gathering them up, adopting each and every one of them before selling them all into slavery (at Nike) and then sailing home.
Such is my dedication to you my readers, I sit here salt-encrusted, as naked as I had been on the ship, writing a review that will definately give you a fuckload of orgasms.
My review today is on a game that I particularly enjoy, not only because of what it is, but because of what it isnt.
Dawn of War II is a RTS game that uses the storyline and armies of the Warhammer 40k universe. This is in itself particularly interesting to me, as I have been a big fan of miniatures for many years and have played a lot of 40k myself.
To see it converted to a game held a particular interest for me, as the basis of the game was already done. While I'm sure there are a lot of fanboys who could pick holes into what wasn't done right (Vikings have two enemies, fanboys and fans of boys
As anyone who has played an RTS will tell you, economy is king. Or a needy girlfriend. Either way, as long as you keep the most amount of gold, energy or trinkets coming in, your likely to win...or score. At least in the game if you dont keep it coming in, you're not going to get yelled at and dumped and have to watch Vikinggirlaction.com for several weeks until your emotionally stable enough to talk to another woman again...DONT LOOK AT ME!
Even though economy is very important in this game, I dont feel that it is the most important thing. An amatuer player, even with a majority of the resource points capture, will lose to a player who can use his units well.
This is because units are produced slowly, VERY slowly, and thus every unit, including your cannon fodder, becomes something that you need to use and keep alive so as to maximise any chance you have of winning.
It is also because units have fairly specific uses, and to win, you MUST use them to these uses.
That, along with terrain actually having an effect on how much cover you have from damage makes this game so much more tactical than any other RTS I have played.
The idea of these units having specialised uses is to also make us think about what type of army we want to take, and whether it will be balanced enough. For example, a force designed for pure hand to hand will inevitably get bogged down and shot to death, while an army competely devoted to shooting will inevitably have their faces flicked off by opponents.
Having only enjoyed a few RTS games before, I love this game because it tries to make you plan ahead every step of the way, as well as time your troops efforts according to the landscape, terrain and the type of army the opposing player has.
What this game isnt is a fast-based game where units are produced incredibly quickly, and things are done on such a mass scale that it's more important to have superior numbers than actually have some skill organising and arraying your troops.
Even though I hate to admit is, I suck at Starcraft and I really don't like the game or other RTS's like it. Maybe I just suck at RTS, but there should be a reason to every unit, like in real life. My use in battle is to be an unstoppable force of power, my cousin the bi-polar beserker is supposed to simultaneously cause empathy within the enemy, then confuse them with a sudden mood-swing, and then kill them with his teeth and hands, before beginning the process again. Our wives roles are to make food and pleasure us after the battle (or during, depending on how much you want to risk having your food ruined).
The graphics are excellent, if your computer can handle it, and there is a certain life-like quality to the special animations of a decapitation through martial prowess or the simple repeated stabbing of a prone soldier. And, as for me, there's nothing more entertaining than the repeated stabbing of an enemy, even if they have already been a mutliated, headless corpse for the better part of an hour.
I can sit and play this game for hours. Its just fun, and getting to know the technical aspects of the game provides an experience that makes you feel like a real tactician, even though your an ordinary every day Viking.
Marks Marks: 4/5
