Close Combat – In Praise of Modding!
Well my state of the art Xbox 360 is back doing it’s original job, streaming video to my TV. For gaming I have returned to my all time favourite game (possibly juuuust ahead of Eve Online), the Close Combat series, in this case, Close Combat 5. The series, a top down tactical / strategic game set in World War II first came out in 1996 (yes over 12 years ago!) and is still unbeaten today. It was the computerised equivalent of much loved tactical board game, Avalon Hill’s Advanced Squad Leader. Now in one player mode, the game is quite fun, but stupidly easy. However, the game comes alive head to head, as a human rival makes the game a thrilling and tense duel, like chess but with heavy artillery support, and psychological damage.
The beauty of Close Combat is that it models real combat, taking into account troops experience, equipment, physical state and most importantly of all, their mental state. Rookie troops, surrounded, low on ammo, out of contact with allies and under heavy fire won’t do much other than cower and scream, and if you are unlucky, just surrender. No Tank rushes, no confusing weird sci-fi weapon sets (well not if you know your WWII history) no production or bases to take care of or build. Just a tactical struggle to the bitter end.

Currently my long term opponent, (my brother) and I are engaged with Close Combat 5 (released in 2000) which via the use of mods is enabling us to fight the WWII campaign from start to finish. We have completed Meuse 1940 mod, which shows the German Blitzkrieg into France, and Stalingrad, which moved us from the fields of France to the bitter house to house fighting on the Eastern Front. Both were harsh losses for me as the Allies, where we caused significant casualties but couldn’t turn the tide of battle against our Nazi foes. However for the first time, the Allies are on the front foot as we play the SDK (Stalingrad Der Kessel) mod, which replicates the Soviet ‘Operation Uranus’ offensive from the 19th of November 1942 through to the end of December. The campaign is well suited to a back-story both in history, and one created by my brother and myself, as propaganda flows back and forth, and the game allows heroes of legend to be born and tracked (and unfortunately, often to die horribly). Currently, our alter egos, German Field Marshall Hans “Choco” Liebnitz, and his Soviet counterpart, General Lebedev of the Marines, (a promoted survivor of Stalingrad, appointed to raise morale after the terrible politically inspired leadership of Commissar Ivan C U Znaipov) are engaged in a titanic struggle, now nearing the end of November.

In the future, we will move on to the Western front, with the Gold Juno Sword (GJS) mod, on D-Day, march up the coastline with the Scheldt mod, suffer a counter attack with the Battle of the Bulge mod, strike to end the war early with a “Bridge Too Far” Arnhem mod, and then finally fight at Kursk and in Berlin. All this is possible thanks to fans and committed coders and mapmakers who create these amazing mods, (often far better than the original game, pace the creators!) and keep creating them.
The audio alone in SDK is amazing, and often inspires terror or elation as one hears the beginning of a Stuka raid, or HQ radios in the availability of an artillery barrage, or just relief as a sergeant tells me that Pvt Sulebovskiy is rallied and ready for duty.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the modders out there, of all games, who show such creativity, and who inspire humble gamers such as my brother and I to new heights. SDK’s realism has taken the propaganda war to new heights, and I hope I can publish some of our exchanges below (once I figure out where I can host the PDFs). These add significantly to our enjoyment, and I firmly believe that ‘story driven’ is not necessarily the aim, but ‘story supported’ can only be good.

Initial Day 19 and 20
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1063813&da=y
Days 22-24
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1063814&da=y

Fable 2 - The delayed review!

OK. So it's 2009. You may have noticed that some time has passed since my ‘just prior to buying Fable 2’ post. Well I bought it, I played it and I enjoyed it. That’s the summary. Now let’s have a little more detail. First of all I went into the game with a vision. A character I wanted to be, and to see how the game let me deliver the character. I wanted to be an ‘east end gangster’ type. Loved in my hometown of Bowerstone, (because I was kind and generous) and hated and feared elsewhere in the kingdom. I would be handsome to start, with good gangster family values, but a womanising badboy when out of town.

All went well, aside from very worrying initial doubts, when after playing for a while, I thought to myself, “Hang on. This game is boring! What’s so great about Fable 2? All I’m doing is being a blacksmith!” Then the game began to charm me. My character developed. I bought a house and got married and had a child, (verrry evil!) and Gargoyles began to abuse me. After being held captive (SPOILER ALERT!) for a decade my character became even more evil, not to mention a sex crazed alcoholic fat killer. Wow! Fable really let me do it. Gaming fun and I never really felt compelled to act contrary to how my character, as decided pre-game, should act. The sound again lived up to what I expected, although my gaming conspirator rightly criticised the initial quote, “and so the story begins” (or something) NO IT DOESN’T! It continues!!! How hard is that to do! It only begins with a new game!

OK. That quibble aside, the sound and music was very good, as was the dialogue.
Game wise the much vaunted co-op play was a joke. It’s not coop play. It’s just a chance to share a friend’s world and look about. Play is severely restricted and the camera is a pain! So co-op should have been mentioned as a tourism feature, not a gaming feature if you ask me. As that it would have been a success. As compared to co-op play in Crackdown for example? Well no. It just doesn’t compare.

I finished the game in the main, and was looking forward to continuing, but basically got darked out by Fallout 3. And that stopped my 360 gaming for the present time!
What has replaced it? Read my next blog for a blast from a long distant past (in more ways than one….)