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GeekNights 080429 - Risk
Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss the (awful) game of Risk. In the news, we review our initial encounters with the WoW Collectible Card Game and WoW Miniatures Game.
Scott's Thing - Leave Me Alone Box
Rym's Thing - The Realm
Scott's Thing - Leave Me Alone Box
Rym's Thing - The Realm
Comments
Why didn't you like the first one, though?
Also, Atlus didn't make Golden Sun. Camelot did. I believe that you said Atlus made it when you were talking about Rondo early in the episode. Also, calling it a puzzle game is kind of a far off statement. It's still turn based, it's still strategy (placing your characters, where you move, etc), and it's still an RPG (leveling up, bigger storyline than most games, shit like that). Thus, most people consider it a SRPG.
The game is a series of maps. Each map is a puzzle. The puzzles have more than one solution, but they are still puzzles. You are heavily outnumbered even on the very first map. You have very few units on any map, and thus very few effective options. Hence, it becomes a puzzle game of figuring out the best of the few options available to you.
In a strategy game you think "I will send a diversionary squad North to harass those bases while building a supply chain to support my Eastern defenses." In a puzzle game you think "Three spaces North and two East, that's the answer!"
"Hmm... I must go to the bathroom. Do I pivot in the chair and then stand up? What if Rym is walking down the hallway? Do I throw a rock to distract him while I make my way to the bathroom?"
"Hmm... I'm at my mom's house, it's like a new map! This time the bathroom is on the second floor. Which stairs do I take? Oh shits! Uncle Mark just came out of a bathroom and he always leaves them smelling like shit.... I can't take this advanced puzzle game that is my life! I'll just cheat and piss on the bush outside."
I mean really, Scott, with your logic, MANY games are puzzle games, even if they weren't even remotely intended to be.
But by your logic, if a game...
a. has "very few effective options"
b. can have "more than one solution"
c. is about "figuring out the best of the few options available to you"
...then it's a puzzle game.
My attempts at debunking that:
a. Every game has this. In Metroid, you can go wherever the hell you want once you get towards the end of the game, yet there's still only very few effective options to beat the final boss. In the original Mario, there are very few effective options to killing enemies: stomp on them, grab a star, hit them with a shell, or hit them with a fireball. I can go on and on.
b. Do I even need to explain? Every game has more than one way to skin a cat, aside from a few select puzzle games (In Picross, there's more than one way you can go about solving the puzzle, but there's only one solution to each). Thus, using that as a way to describe a puzzle game doesn't really work.
c. This goes along directly with point a. Maybe "few" is the operative word here, but that shouldn't be a way to determine if a game is a puzzle game, now should it? In pong, you only have 2 options, move left or move right. So it's a puzzle game, since you have a severely limited number of options? Didn't think so.
Just cause I said fuck once shouldn't make it seem like I'm being hostile...
And it's not profanity that makes what is said come off hostile.
First, calling a game a "puzzle," "strategy," or whatever else kind of game is at best a sliding scale without absolute terms. Rondo is very, very puzzle-like (Advance Wars 1 was verymuch a straight puzzle game with little else). It is much more like a puzzle game than, say, Mario (primarily an eye-hand-coordination/memorization game) or Sim City (a complex building/management game with many paths to success and few absolute goals). Layton is clearly a puzzle game: it just removes much of the "skin" that obscures the puzzle-based-play of other games (such as Advance Wars).
You attempt to over-simplify, but your examples are ludicrous. Most of them rely on your earlier misreading of Scott's statement regarding multiple solutions.
An example of the sliding scale, one being "most puzzley."
- Layton
- Advance Wars 1 (Advance Campaign)
- Advance Wars 1 (normal campaign)
- Rondo of Swords
- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
One can argue the minutia of whether a game is technically a "twitch fps" versus a "strategic fps" or whatever other gaming categories apply to whatever games: it's all a fairly subjective, relative, sliding scale. These games (except Days of Ruin) are clearly very puzzle-centric, and thus can safely be called puzzle-games.Take for example Galaga, R-Type, and Ikaruga. Galaga is pretty much entirely a test of hand-eye coordination and reflexes. There is a very tiny bit of memorization involved in Galaga, but not much. How high a score you can get in Galaga depends almost 100% on your reflexes. R-Type also depends a great deal on reflexes, but it has a significant memorization element. Memorizing the levels in R-Type isn't strictly necessary, but it will give you a significant advantage in play. Ikaruga is almost entirely a memorization game. Even if you have awesome reflexes, you pretty much have to memorize all the patterns in the game in order to do very well. So there are three games that on the surface appear to be in the same genre, but are actually completely different.
The same thing goes for Rondo of Swords, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, FF: Tactics, etc. It might appear on the surface that these games are very similar to each other, but they actually test very different skills. The original Advance Wars (in the US) is almost completely a puzzle game, much like those Chess or Bridge puzzles you see in the newspaper. Rondo of Swords is a little more than that, but not significantly much.
The skill being tested by the puzzle games is your ability to see all the possible moves, and calculate which of those moves will have the best results. A war strategy game tests your understanding of military strategy. That includes mastery of resource management, deception, positioning, terrain, formations, etc.
If you're still don't get it, think about this. Let's say you master Rondo of Swords. Then you go to play Warhammer. Will you be good at it? Not necessarily. The lessons you learned in Rondo will not help you so much in Warhammer. The two games exercise different mental muscles. If they were both the same kind of game, then building skill at one would necessarily build skill in the other. This is not the case, thus they are different kinds of games.
Holing up in Australia won't work if you stay there too long, because you won't have the large numbers of troops necessary end-game to get out of Australia. People can plug you in and then crush you. If you spread yourself too thin through frequent attacking, you'll lose against someone who knows how to play. The cards are vital!
You guys might like Mission Risk if standard Risk isn't your cup of tea.
My problem with chance in games is only in games where the mechanics beyond the chance component are simplistic or stupid. I'm playing a game to exercise my mind. Games like Risk have obvious, clear, stupidly simple strategies, and break down almost immediately, leaving you with just the random component (which plays far too large a part).
Shogun has a similar randomness component to Risk. The difference is simply the scope of the rest of the game, in that it allows for true tactical and strategic thought. It exercises the mind, and is much more applicable to the real world.
People design a great computer, but the crappier cheaper one becomes more successful. Someone gets the highest GPA, but the highest paying job goes to the fast talker.
That's not to say that I don't like static and mostly static strategy games, but more chance does not necessarily equal less fun, and both types of games are probably equally relevant for what they can teach.
I've always been fond of Risk for nostalgia reasons, but the older I get, the more I see that it is indeed too random and kinda broken. Oh well. I still like playing my computer version of it against my brother. And when the game stops being fun, we follow Gimpy's example from Undergrads: "KAMIKAZE! KAMIKAZE! KAMIKAZE!" *kill all the little soldiers on all sides* That gives us one last burst of fun, and then we can quit the game. ^^
That's right. 5.050 different outcomes.
The new risks like Star Wars risk adds elements like cards that allow for movement of troops into enemy areas and “hero†figures to strengthen your armies. As well as clear and multiple win and loss conditions, and all armies are not symmetrical in there abilities due to the cards they can draw upon (though not a ridiculous difference like in Dune). These make a much better game, still not amazing, but a vast improvement.