The Misery of the KV-4

Tags

World of Tanks, X-COM

My first match, it was fun.     Top tank in Wide Park, I played the delaying action along the west side of the map, got some shots in and we won.    And I thought, I will be liking this tank.      Maybe I’ll be liking it someday, but not today.

That is a BAD record.

Now I recall buying the VK4502A, and thinking I would wait until I had all modules unlocked before even plopping a crew in.    And I love that big beast.    This one, I don’t have anywhere near enough free XP to unlock things so I just have to grind it out.   But the numbers, they look painful.

A few hundred to go for the suspension. Whoopee. Look at how much for the other upgrades – just under 80k !

I am not sure what to do on this one, but I suppose I’ll continue looking for daily doubles and just keep on playing.    The credit loss from constantly losing like that is really draining too.

The tank is slow, slow, slow.   My role being to take shots, except I often can’t get in position to take any, in a smart way, especially on the more open maps.      I can hardly damage anything with the miserable stock gun, and to add insult to injury, the crew just broke 95% primary skill (With a high repair skill, admittedly).    I can’t recall using a worse gun – inaccurate,  and slower to load than watching paint dry.     With a sniper weapon this thing would be different, but as is I am frustrated.

To get a worse win % you have to go back to Tier 1 tank the American T1.   Five matches, one win, 20%.    Yet this beast has a mere 27% win rate, because I can’t drive it well, and it sucks.

But on to the bright points.

Stug III moves into 13th place on my most matches list, and both that and the T49 earned me a lot of credits over the weekend.     Just shy of 15k left to go on the Jagdpanther to unlock the JPII.    And my MS-1 crew moves to 87% brothers in arms.     That is an achievement.    Each percentage is taking over 10,000 XP in the lowest earning tank.

Should I stop playing tanks long enough to pick up X-Com ?    It’s being released tomorrow on Steam, and I am sure it’s fabulous.      Think I’ll wait a few days at least, despite the excellent buzz.

X-COM is FAR TOO ADDICTING

Tags

X-COM

Yes, it certainly is.   At least I resisted the temptation to take off work today to keep playing, but Monday I was weak.

I think I remember now why I only completed a single run-through of the game.    It’s because it is insanely addicting.    Ignore your responsibilities – job – wife – children – personal hygiene – Food – Drink – Sleep addicting.     Not your garden variety of addiction here folks, this is the real thing.    Want to find out what they mean by “It’s an addiction if you continue the behavior, in spite of NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES. ” ?

You don’t, really, so I’m going to have to be careful not to get a monkey on my back.

Probably never managed to play it again later either, because after some time the PC world changed and it was a bit more difficult to get X-COM running; my old installation simply would not run.    So I believe I deleted it and many newer games simply occupied my time.   Until I could buy it on Steam for $2.50.     Don’t the pushers give you the first one for …. free ?

In any event, I’m finding out about multiple X-COM related games :

• Xenonauts is a kickstartered remake by a small studio which looked like a clone of the old game, with a much better recreated artwork.    Their webhosting seems to be the world’s worst – I finally got their page to load.    There doesn’t seem to be any info about when they’re releasing it.    The game looks absolutely awesome.
• X-COM as a reboot has been the talk of E3 and has people excited about it.   Slated for release October 12, 2012.    You can find a ton of info about it here, and many other places.
• UFO : Alien Invasion (Thanks Gank!) is another clone game out there, done like an Open Source project.

Perhaps one of these projects is the cure for my addiction.    Either that, or I just finally quit playing the game again for whatever reason.   If only I could remember exactly why I quit in 1996…..

My game continues, and I’m at June 1999.    I’ve researched plasma pistols and rifles, and have three good sized bases built.   I’ve lost South Africa to the aliens though.    Balancing out spending is a challenge at best, and I had to leave Africa uncovered and the aliens caught me.

Perhaps the AI is smarter than you might think.   It hit me with a terrorize mission, which means “drop everything and take care of it”, so my Skyranger flew halfway across the world and took the enemy out.   Then I find the aliens landing in Nairobi.    They outran my interceptors, didn’t take off again, and my only Skyranger was refuelling/returning to base.    I was screwed.    Was it random bits firing or a very smart AI ?      Bought a second Skyranger immediately to fix the problem.

I may post again, but if you never see me again, better call the psych ward and send them over to my house.   I’m only half kidding.

Xcom is addicting, still

Tags

X-COM

I had forgotten just how much fun X-COM was.     I’ve been playing it nonstop.

One base in America (Kansas), and one in Europe under construction.

A couple of things I had forgotten :

• So easy to get soldiers killed.    I simply had to start the save & reload style of play, where during a battle I would save often, and if somebody gets killed just reload and try again.    You need to keep them alive, as they get better at everything with experience.
• You can fit more soldiers into your craft then you are given at first.    Recruit more ASAP.
• General stores – you will need to build more of these or you lose out on items, and can’t buy things, etc.    I’m trying two in each of the bases.

I just thought this was cool

Unlike in 1996 when the game came out, I can alt-tab and let it run, while I write a blog post !   Given that the gameplay includes managing time, where you let it run for 5 seconds a tick, a full day, or something in between, it’s fun to be running 5 seconds while I’m writing this. The game does not react well to power management tools in Windows though, so I have all screensaver and power options off.

In the era of Minecraft – part of which’s appeal is a nostalgia factor for the low-res graphics – this game has me hooked.    Successfully researched laser weapons and am working my way through the list – and meanwhile, trying to take out aliens with rifles and hand grenades.

Match 700, and the Steam Sale begins

Tags

Endless Space, World of Tanks, X-COM

Last night was my 700th match in my MS-1.   Too bad it was a loss.

We took the northside. I headed for the right side road.

I’m the most experienced player, as often is the case

The match started out OK – the whole team lined up on the line facing the field.   Nobody thought to cover the hill area, however.    I killed three suicide chargers and damaged one more, when the enemy came poking in from the hill and rapid-fired me to death.

Replay is here.

Still on top

My crew continues to eke out more percentages – they are 100% camo and 72% Brothers-In-Arms.

And then there was the Steam Summer sale.     Thankfully Endless Space is not discounted, or I would be an angry camper.    I am continuing to plug away on my game – my fleet is getting bigger and bigger, thankfully, since my two neighbors are getting increasingly hostile.    They just unilaterally start disliking you at some point, and you can bet there will be an attack soon unless I do it first.    I am stockpiling both dreadnought-class ships and small cruisers.

But Star Ruler was on sale for $5, so I bought it.   Didn’t play it yet.    And of all things, X-COM the original is on sale for a paltry $2.49 which got me to buy it.    This game – this was something I bought the first day it was available in 1999, and took a week off of work to play.   Yes, that was irresponsible.   But I am surprised to have found it so much fun to start up again.

First, I got reoriented to the game – I remembered it well, but not exactly all the little things you need to take care of.     The controlling of the big-ball-earth feels ridiculous in the era of pinch-touch mobile devices, but I can live with it.    I intercepted one UFO and managed to get my entire landing party of rookies killed.     This convinced me that I’d better play a game for awhile first at the easiest difficulty.      The next set of soldiers fared better (only one alien to kill) but then the computer locked up and the entire game is lost.

Thinking tonight I’ll start a third game (and save often).    Have to grab some screenshotting software as I don’t think the game has one native.   How primitive !