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Depths of Peril

Depths of Peril

Depths of Peril is unlike any other game out there. This makes its obscurity all the more discouraging. For all the gamer complaints about “Me Too!” game designs, most would still rather bide their time waiting for, say, Diablo III than try something different. Depths of Peril may be no Diablo III but it’s much more interesting than Blizzard’s polished, safe and bland designs.

How best to describe this unusual 2007 game? A single-player Diablo for the MMO generation might be one way. You start with Diablo then tack on MMO-inspired elements like guilds and GvG, and let everything play out in a game world filled with creatures pursuing their own objectives. Somehow all this ambition fits in a game that takes up a mere 100MB of hard disk space.

This is all the more remarkable an achievement since the game was released by an indie developer with only one full-time employee. Soldak Entertainment didn’t have much money to pour into its debut title and it shows. Depths of Peril makes a poor first impression. The game looks middling, the spell effects are sometimes laughable and the animation is often several frames short of smoothness. While it’s certainly not a terrible eyesore, it’s not going to win any best of show awards for presentation.

Depths of Peril may have had a low budget but it’s undeniably rich in gameplay. Interesting ideas, major and minor, abound in this game. While these aren’t always executed flawlessly, the game is rarely uninteresting.
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Posted in Games, Reviews.

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By Gobi – Saturday, February 20, 2010

X-COM: two in harmony

X-COM: splash

As history has shown time and time again, when publishers apply pressure on developers, it usually results in lesser games. When a publisher primarily concerned with quarterly financials meddles determinedly in the development process, the game ends up either crippled, released far too early or bloated with unnecessary features incongruously shoehorned in to conform to current trends.

(“A chess game would be okay. But a chess game in HD played with a gimmicky controller, that’s what the world needs right now. Also, can we make it an MMO? And be on Facebook? With DLC?”)

However, UFO: Enemy Unknown a.k.a. X-COM: UFO Defense is an outstanding example of a game that benefitted immensely from publisher meddling.

The story goes Mythos Games’ Julian Gollop had trouble selling the initial Laser Squad-inspired design to Microprose, the game’s eventual publisher. Microprose had hit big with deep strategy games like Railroad Tycoon in 1990 and Civilization in 1991, and requested changes to X-COM’s design to make the game more Microprose-like. This would result in a game that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
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Posted in Games, Reviews, X-COM.

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By Gobi – Tuesday, February 9, 2010

X-COM: DOSbox

PC tech has come a long way since UFO: Enemy Unknown (a.k.a. X-COM: UFO Defense) was released in 1994. The game manual has references to ancient technologies consigned to the dusty storerooms of history: AdLib and Roland soundcards; XMS/EMS memory management; SMARTDrive memory cache; DR DOS, Novell DOS and OS/2 operating systems.

The tech the game was originally designed for may be gone and forgotten but running UFO: Enemy Defense is actually easier today than it was back then. Thanks to the brilliant emulator, DOSbox, you can get the game from Steam and immediately begin playing it. There’s no need to hire scientists, construct a laboratory, spend time and money investigating how it’s supposed to work.

Research

While DOSbox works fine as is, it can be tweaked to taste. To do that, you need to edit the dosbox.conf file in the Steam/steamapps/common/xcom ufo defense subdirectory. I made the following changes:

fullscreen=false
windowresolution=1280×960
scaler=hq3x
cycles=20000

Those changes make the game run in a 1280×960 window, improve the scaling quality and speed up the gameplay slightly. At the very least, I’d recommend changing the cycles setting since DOSBox’s default setting makes the game play a little sluggishly.

In addition to that, this Steam thread has tips for improving the audio. Even with those improvements, expect the game to sound quaint and old timey.

The gameplay, however, is as brilliant as it was 16 years ago. The hardware may change, the software may differ but one suspects X-COM will retain its fundamental appeal 16 years hence.

Posted in Games, X-COM.

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By Gobi – Sunday, January 31, 2010

X marks the spot

Yes!

I have no idea how. I have no idea why. All I know is when I clicked on the Steam store page for the X-Com Collection a few minutes ago, I was finally — finally! — able to purchase the game. I had been pining to replay UFO: Enemy Unknown for well over a year but Steam never did let me purchase it.

Today something changed. I don’t know why. I don’t really care.

I have X-Com.

(Bonus: the entire collection is on sale for a measly two dollars.)

Let the defense of planet Earth begin.

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By Gobi – Saturday, January 30, 2010

Football Manager 2010: error code 83

Just a quick note for those playing the Steam version of Football Manager 2010. A recent Steam update has apparently caused a minor issue with the game. To wit, you may see the following Steam error message when you attempt to launch it:

Football Manager 2010: error code 83

Translation: “You can’t play. Neener neener.”

Here’s how you may be able to solve it.
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rev="post-2626" 15 comments

By Gobi – Sunday, January 24, 2010