2016--My Conflicted Year in Gaming.

With the holidays firmly under our belts and stacks of cash/gift cards now waiting to be spent, what better way to celebrate than picking up some fantastic new games?  Oh and the holiday Steam sale is currently plugging along at full....well, Steam!  It's a great opportunity, in the words of the twentieth century poet Snoop Dogg, to "Drop it like it's Hot!"  Oddly enough, I'm having a difficult time doing exactly that, which serves as an accurate reflection of how I've felt about gaming in 2016--conflicted.

Where does this confliction come from?  Mostly from the fact that it has become an acceptable trend to release broken, buggy, poorly optimized, or unfinished games to paying consumers.  As I look at my Steam wishlist and see that almost every game on it is currently on sale, I still can't pony up the cash.  Dishonored 2 is a game that I've been looking forward to for quite awhile.  The trailers looked awesome (but that's the entire point of trailers) and I greatly enjoyed the first game.  Unfortunately, there have been numerous complaints about the game running very poorly and that it was released in an extremely poorly optimized state.  There have been patches to address the issues but until I start reading glowing reviews...I think it'll have to wait until a different sale.

Another game on my list is a whopping 67% off and I still can't bring myself to buy it.  Deus Ex:  Mankind Divided was released fairly recently and didn't have the performance issues that Dishonored 2 reportedly did, but did have a very clear aim--to leech as much money from gamers as possible.  According to reviews the main story was short and the only way to finish it up was to purchase day one DLC.  To pay extra...on the first release day!  Ridiculous!  The DLC season pass also featured a number of items that were only usable once.  Plus, there are microtransactions in a single player game.  No, just no.  They can keep their 67% off because I refuse to be treated like an ATM for the big developers to pump money out of.  It's a huge disappointment.  What ever happened to treating customers fairly?

But I don't want to be a total downer; I played some great games in 2016.  Here is a list of some 2016 games that are worthy of celebration:

1.) Stardew Valley.  Never in a million years would I have imagined playing a game about making friends and farming.  I also have very deep seated skepticism about pixelated retro-feeling games.  Luckily I put that skepticism aside and discovered a game with a heart of gold.  This world needs more Stardew Valley's and the enjoyment of being kind, even to pixelated video game people.

My early Stardew Valley farm.

2.) RimWorld.  Although it is an early access game, I have already sunk many, many hours into this enjoyable and quirky survival game.  It has been my permadeath frustrator and has ended in so many ridiculous situations, but I still want to play it.

One of my RimWorld colonies that made it.

3.) Halcyon 6:  Starbase Commander.  I have to admit that I haven't finished this game yet, but I had a blast even getting to the point where I stopped playing.  Managing a starbase and defending the galaxy from a catastrophic alien invasion is the basis of Halcyon 6.  The combat seems to draw from games like Final Fantasy and is a turn-based strategy funfest.  This is another one of those pixelated indie games, but it panned out.

4.) XCOM 2.  Yes, it definitely falls into the category of "games released in a buggy state," but after those bugs were fixed this game turned into an intense followup to Enemy Unknown.  Basic features were improved and new, punishing timers were added to force players into thinking quickly rather than thinking brutally (the "kill em' all" mentality doesn't work well).  If you're a fan of turn-based strategy and don't mind being pushed, this is one you want to play.

5.) The Witcher 3:  Blood and Wine.  I cannot write enough about The Witcher 3, it has quickly become one of my absolute favorites.  The Blood and Wine DLC saw Geralt travelling to the beautiful, sunny region of Touissant to solve a series of murders.  The DLC added a huge new region filled with new monsters, characters, quests, cards, and an interesting storyline.  This is how DLC should be done--a full expansion rather than some half-assed minor features.  If you tried to complete every quest and map feature you could easily sink another 40+ hours into it.

The final shot in Blood and Wine.   Geralt and Yennefer at Corvo Bianco.

 Blood and Wine also features something that I've always wanted in my massive RPG's--the perfect happy ending for my hero.  It's very satisfying to see Geralt return to Corvo Bianco, his new home base, to find either one of his sorceress lovers or a cherished friend waiting for him (if you opt out of romancing a sorceress it will be either Dandelion or Ciri).  It's nice to imagine the "happily ever after" scenario.

Even though there were some clear disappointments this year these five games (or DLC's) would make great additions to any library.

I Just Failed Humanity

"Thanks for Playing."  That's the crushing message that greets you after you've just led the Terran Federation to it's doom in Halcyon 6:  Starbase Commander.  I just learned that the hard way after ten hours of attempting to curb the Chruul infestation.  I'm a little sad--firstly, because I knew the situation was getting downright futile but also because I haven't felt that sting of defeat from a game in quite awhile.  That failure makes me want to jump right back in though.  Well played, game.....well played.

When I first saw Halcyon 6:  Starbase Commander pop up on the Steam top sellers chart I was surprised and skeptical.  Whenever I see pixelated games I am always a little wary--it's been done and it's been done to death (*this is where my brain should have kicked in and made me remember how much I genuinely enjoyed Stardew Valley).  Rather than think about my skepticism I decided to watch the trailer and see if this wasn't just some weird fluke.  Nope.  Not fluk-ey.  The game actually looked like fun--a perfect storm with aspects of XCOM base management combined with Final Fantasy inspired combat.  Since it was on sale I decided to snatch it up and then regret it later.  The regret never came and I've been having fun commanding my pixelated crew to their unfortunate deaths.

But where did I go wrong?  One of the very important skills I seem to have missed was the ability to multi-task.  Not only do you need a fleet of powerful ships to combat the Chruul in the region but you need multiple crews that can carry out tasks and work on your starbase.  My tunnel vision and enjoyment of blasting Chruul ships into oblivion meant that I sunk all my time and resources into one fleet.  By the time I cobbled together a second fleet things were starting to get chaotic.  New structures called "spires" were spawning many Chruul ships that I just couldn't handle quickly enough.  I had to take them down AND continue to collect resources and expand my base.  It was just too much.  I managed to barely fend them off but the crisis became dire when I realized I didn't have enough crew members to crew tier 3 ships.  An uber-Chruul ship was heading toward my base and I had no options for quickly cobbling together a fleet of tier 3 ships.  Once the Chimera arrived it immediately blasted my base into pieces.  Game over.

I've learned a few things from my failure that might help some others avoid the same fate so here are a few handy tips.

Tip #1--Colonies are important.  Don't neglect them or they will get destroyed and then you will lose the resources.  I lost all but one colony that was generating crew members.  It's important in the early game to establish outposts on those colonies.

Tip #2--Train more officers ASAP.  It wasn't my first priority and by the time I had another batch they were too low-level to do much good.

Tip #3--Use your re-rolls.  Having a set of officers with a wide variety of combination options is vital to success.  I did not use my re-rolls and ended up with some weak combat options.

Tip #4--Gather those resources.  Don't let them waste away on planets.  Make a plan for having at least one ship that is dedicated to keeping you supplied.

Tip #5--Build the next tier of ship hangars quickly and have enough resources in reserve that you can immediately start cranking out more powerful ships.  This might be a little bit of wishful thinking and is really difficult, but I think it's possible.

I plan to start my new and improved game 2 soon.  We'll see if I really learned any lessons from my first round of failure.