Yearly Archives: 2013

Random Roundup

Posts about pricing are swirling around the place, f’rexample at Gamasutra; I don’t think much has happened over the last three or four years, since the first big wave of subscription MMOGs turning free to play, to change my general position; “free to play” covers such a wide range of methods and models that it’s pretty meaningless to discuss in generalities. Rob Fahey on gamesindustry.biz has a fine and balanced take on the whole business.

Also swirling about the place are sharks, in a tornado. Sharknado (tagline: “Enough Said”) has been trending on Twitter, and there’s a great article about the wave (MEGA-SQUID-WAVE!) of Asylum/Syfy B movies, with some interesting snippets perhaps somewhat relevant to price/content discussions, B movies in previous eras being packaged with A movies, quality not being a priority (Drive-in-movie-theater owners of the post-war era snapped up the cheap fare to pacify captive viewers stuck in their cars. “As long as people were heading to the snack bar,” Davis says, “exhibitors didn’t care.”), with the current generation performing a similar role to pad out subscription service catalogues.

Speaking of padded catalogues, the Great Steam Summer Sale is upon us, together with recently added trading cards. They seem to have snuck under the radar somewhat, I haven’t seen too many pieces about them. It’s quite an odd idea, meta-achievements and badges effectively in a shop; possibly evil, possibly genius, probably both. Trading cards do take me back to the 1980s, small boys, in the playground, isn’t it? Wasn’t it? Return of the Jedi, the 1986 World Cup, Garbage Pail Kids, got, got, got, NEED! I’ll give you the Belgian goalkeeper and a shiny badge for R2D2… I’ve assembled a couple of collections from buying and selling cards in the Community Market, Valve must be absolutely raking it in from the fees there. I also stumbled across a bunch of Team Fortress 2 items in my inventory from assorted other pre-orders and similar, which gave a bit of an insight into the crazy world of the Team Fortress 2 market; never mind Bitcoins as a digital currency, Valve are probably plotting a Steam based global economy centred around virtual trading cards and hats…

In other forms of alternative funding Kickstarter projects continue to proliferate, I recently backed Satellite Reign, a sort of spiritual Syndicate successor, and slightly more unusually, jerky; Martin’s Jerked Meat had a stall at Chalke Valley, and their wasabi jerky was most excellent, so I jumped in after seeing Warren Ellis tweet a link to their Kickstarter for new equipment.

In Memoriam Google Reader

So. Farewell then
Google Reader. It saw things
you people wouldn’t believe:
the very mysteries of the
universe, recipes for cupcakes,
slightly rehashed
press releases, the raw stench
of desperation.
All these moments
will be lost in time
like posts after you “Mark all as read”.

– E. J. Zoso, age 17½

(OK, so it happened a couple of days ago; I migrated over to The Old Reader after the initial announcement a few months back so didn’t really think about it, until talking to Melmoth about how todaysgamingdrama.tumblr.com really distilled the gaming news of the day; as he put it, “A real solution to the loss of Google Reader.”)

Chalke Valley History Festival 2013

The Chalke Valley History Festival is a week long combination of a literary festival, featuring talks and debates with many leading historians, and living history encampment, with re-enactors from Romans and Vikings to World War II and myriad periods between. I saw a piece about it on the local news; sword fighting school, a World War I trench and an air show with Spitfires? Perfect!

Unfortunately, only finding out at the last minute, many of the talks were sold out; I would’ve particularly loved to see Eric “Winkle” Brown in person. Still, we toddled off through beautiful rolling countryside to the festival site in the depths of Wiltshire, and the English weather was good enough to to forget it was supposed to be turning Glastonbury into a mudbath.

Not all of the talks were completely booked, there were spaces in many of the morning sessions, so I went along to see “ACHTUNG! Commando Comics”, editor Calum Laird talking about the history of the comic from its first issue in 1961 to present day digital distribution (with great foresight, the comic is about the same size as an iPad screen), and how an issue is put together. Taking advantage of the venue, a parade of re-enactors covering just about every theatre of World War II lined the stage, including a couple of Commandos able to display the real Fairbairn-Sykes dagger present on the cover of every issue of the comic.

Wandering around the festival presented some fantastic scenes, I’m not sure where else you’d see a troop of Napoleonic soldiers marching past a group of Regency dancers being watched by a Waffen-SS Hauptsturmführer eating an ice cream. A group of Plantagenet re-enactors demonstrated weapons and armour from various phases of The Hundred Years’ War:

Is there someone else up there we can talk to?

Is there someone else up there we can talk to?

It was quite warm enough wandering around in a pair of shorts, I can’t imagine the heat under the padding and multiple layers of armour they were in. If you were inspired by what you saw there were plenty of stalls selling all manner of arms and armour, from full size helmets and pikes to wooden swords and shields for kids.

Lunch was accompanied by a Hurricane IIc of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and a couple of hours later the airshow kicked off with a Hawker Sea Fury, followed by a World War I dogfight between a Junkers CL1, Sopwith Triplane and a couple of SE5As, then three Spitfires Mk IXs, one solo, another pair arriving in formation with a Hurricane and Messerschmitt Bf 108. Jon from How To Murder Time had a suitably large lens and got some magnificent shots:

Sopwith Triplane

Sopwith Triplane

A pair of SE5As

A pair of SE5As

Messerschmitt Bf 108

Messerschmitt Bf 108

Hawker Hurricane

Hawker Hurricane

Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX

Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX

Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX

Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX

All in all a really excellent day out, and I’ll be keeping a close eye for announcements about next year’s event.

A Beginner’s Guide to War Thunder Historical Battles

Arcade matches in War Thunder are frenetic fun, a hectic hodge-podge of helter-skelter Heinkels and harum-scarum Hurricanes, ideal for a quick blast of action, but if you’re in the mood for a slightly more in-depth match you might like to try a Historical Battle.

The are a few key difference between Arcade and Historical Battles. Perhaps most significantly you pick one aircraft, and can’t respawn if you crash or get shot down. Ammunition is also limited; the Magical Mid-air Resupply Pixies won’t arrive within 10-30 seconds with more bullets and shells, you have to return to base to rearm, and you don’t get the handy lead circle that shows where you need to be shooting to hit a target.

Aircraft handling is still nice and simple, you don’t need a joystick or head tracking software. You still have the benefit of the Instructor if flying with a mouse, so you can just point in the general direction you want to go (though by all accounts if you do use a joystick you can pull off fancier manoeuvres than mouse-wagglers, as the Instructor errs on the side of caution). You’ll need to be a little bit more careful than in Arcade mode, though, as there are some more realistic elements; if you go too fast in a dive, for example, your wings will fall off, rendering the aircraft somewhat less effective in combat.

Aircraft Selection

Objectives vary between maps in Historical Battles. Some have tank columns and fixed emplacements, others have ships, a few have AI aircraft spotting or bombing ground targets; on all of them, though, you can also win by shooting down the entire enemy team, and that’s what happens the vast majority of the time in my experience. A couple of organised squads of bombers or attack aircraft, with suitable fighter cover, might be able to take out 50+ ground targets, but it’s not terribly likely in a random battle, so if queueing on your own I’d highly recommend taking a fighter along. The earliest I’d suggest joining would be with Rank 2 fighters like the Hurricane, Ki-43 or F2A-3 Buffalo (the I-153 Chaika can also do well, if an enemy is daft enough to get into a turning fight with one); significantly better options start coming in around Ranks 6 and 7, aircraft like the Bf 109 E and F, Spitfire II and Typhoon Ia, F4U Corsair, A6M Zero and Yak-1.

As you only take one plane into a Historical Battle they’re an ideal venue for premium planes like the Typhoon Ib, Fw 190 D-13 or the American versions of the Bf 109 F and Spitfire IX. You don’t need to worry about the levels of the rest of the hanger, or even be the same level as the plane, you can buy a Rank 14 Fw 190 and take into a Historical Battle right after the tutorial, but I really wouldn’t recommend it, get a bit of experience first!

Whichever aircraft you pick, make sure you have it selected in your hanger, then hover over “To Battle” and select “Historical Battle”, and click the button!

Adjusting weapons and fuel

Adjusting weapons and fuel

At the start of the battle you get the familiar screen showing the map you’ll be fighting over and your selected aircraft, with the others disabled (if you picked the wrong one before hitting “To Battle” it’s too late now). You might want to make a few tweaks on this screen; if flying a fighter, then under “Weapons” I’d suggest sticking to guns only and not loading any bombs or rockets, lugging around bombs will hurt your performance in the (usually) decisive aerial engagements. I’d also suggest setting the Gun Targeting Distance to 200m or 250m; see this wiki page for the technicalities of what the setting does, you’ll usually be shooting at short range. Finally, you may like to set the Fuel Amount to about 30m; the lighter the load the better the performance, but Historical Battles can last a good while.

TAKE OFF EVERY ZIG

When you first select “Historical Battle”, if you haven’t completed the Take Off and Landing tutorial then the game will prompt you to do so (tutorials are also available under “Game Modes” if you want a bit more practise). Unlike Arcade mode, fighters start off on the ground in most Historical Battle maps, so you’ll need to master taking off to get into battle. Fortunately this isn’t too much of a challenge: max the throttle, leave runway when fast enough, the game even raises your landing gear automatically (or it’s ‘G’ as the default key, if you insist on doing it yourself). With a whole bunch of aircraft taking off at the same time things can get rather messy, but thankfully there’s no collision detection on the runway; be very careful as soon as you’re in the air, though.

'Scuse me, pardon me, coming through, 'scuse me

‘Scuse me, pardon me, coming through, ‘scuse me

Such Great Heights

Once in the air, start climbing. When you bump into the enemy, whoever is higher up can dictate the terms of the engagement; you don’t want to get bounced by bandits. It’s a lot easier to dive than climb, if it turns out the entire enemy team is at low altitude you can always dive down on them, just remember if plummeting a few kilometres to keep an eye on the speed so your wings don’t fall off (cut the throttle right down, and *gently* ease off the dive if the screen starts shaking).

While climbing have a look around; teamwork is absolutely crucial, don’t head off on your own or you’ll be easy pickings. Hopefully there’ll be a gaggle of fighters you can tag along with, if your team insist on adopting Starburst Formation and all heading off in different directions at least try and find one or two in similar planes and stick with them if they look like they know what they’re doing (though if they’re doing the same thing you’ll just fly circles around each other; if you’re still over your own airbase after half an hour maybe reconsider this strategy).

Up, up and away!

Up, up and away!

If you’re in a plane with good climbing performance, like the Bf 109, you can afford to head straight towards where the enemy will probably be (usually somewhere in the middle of the map); if you suspect the opposition have superior performance you might want to take a more circuitous route to get to a reasonable altitude before heading for the enemy. What could be considered a reasonable altitude depends on factors like the composition of the two teams and the layout of the map, usually somewhere from 3,000 – 7,000m (10,000 – 25,000 ft).

So far there’s one map where climbing might not work out: Berlin, where the allies need to destroy 21 light pillboxes to win. If a bunch of rocket/cannon armed attack aircraft and fighters make a beeline for the pillboxes they can clear them out in short order, it’s the only map that I’ve personally seen end before one team loses all its aircraft or has to return to base to rearm, though others may be introduced in the future.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

It’ll take a few minutes to get into combat; you can have a bit of a chat with the team, if you share a common language, and formulate some advanced strategies like “Hey! Let’s try and shoot the enemy with guns and stuff!” You can get an idea of what you might be up against by pressing ‘Tab’ for a list of combatants. Unlike Arcade, you won’t see the exact make and model of your opponent’s aircraft, but the icons give a general idea: orange = fighters, pink = naval fighters, blue = bombers, green = attackers, the silhouettes show whether they’re single or twin engine, and bomb/rocket/torpedo icons show whether they’re packing ordnance. (Patch 1.35 update: you no longer see aircraft type icons for the opposing team.) You could alt-tab and browse the web, but that’s a bit dangerous, you might get so engrossed in a Wikipedia article about the 1913 South Lanarkshire by-election you forget to alt-tab back and end up as a particularly easy kill. If you have a hobby that can be done in three minute chunks in front of a PC that would be ideal, or you could always go and make yourself a weak lemon drink. Either way, after a little while you should see some red dots on the screen, and then…

It’s clear it’s boom time, boom boom

Most of the action in Arcade battles is at low level; capturing or defending airfields, strafing ground targets, crashing to the earth in a blazing fireball. With the extra space and time in Historical Battles, air combat manoeuvres play a bigger part. One technique to be particularly aware of is hit and run, or “boom and zoom”. The essence is: start off higher than your opponent, dive onto them at speed, open fire (the titular “boom”; shouting “I’M THE BOOM KING” is optional), then speed away, usually back to higher altitude, before they can return fire (that’s the “zoom” part; you can sing “zoom zoom zoom“, if you like). Obviously that’s the simple version, have a browse of the Tactics section of the wiki if you’d like some more details, or enjoy a full four part article at SimHQ with plenty of graphs n’ stuff.

You like boom, I like boom, enough small boom let's boom the boom

You like boom, I like boom, enough small boom let’s boom the boom

In the perfect scenario the defender isn’t even aware he’s under attack until his plane explodes; with ‘radar’ and target highlighting this is unusual in Historical Battles, but not entirely impossible, especially if the attacker is coming out of the sun. Even if the defender is aware of the threat there isn’t a massive amount they can do; turning into the attacker is generally the best way of trying to avoid the ‘boom’, but unless the attacker cocks it up then the best the defender can hope for is a quick snap shot before the attacker is out of range, back at higher altitude. Boom and zoom tends to be the preferred strategy when facing a more manoeuvrable opponent, avoiding a turning fight in which they have the advantage, hence the importance of climbing at the start of a fight: you either want to hit and run yourself, or if you’re more manoeuvrable you want to make sure you’re not being bounced.

The Battle is Joined!

Without turning this into a multi-volume epic it’s not really possible to offer detailed guidance on the best tactics for every plane in the game; if you’d like to know how best to handle a certain aircraft, which aircraft fit a certain style of play, or how to pull off various manoeuvres have a browse of the Wiki, or search for “War Thunder tactics” on YouTube, or ask the nice people on the forums or Reddit.

A couple of general points, though. Don’t just rush off straight towards the first target you see, especially if it’s at much lower altitude; keep your eyes open and look out for the rest of the enemy team (hold ‘C’, by default, to look around with mouse; do that a *lot*). Try and stay fairly close to the rest of your team so you can cover each other, but not so close that you risk a collision, be very careful if piling in on an aircraft someone else is attacking. Let your team know when you’re attacking (‘T’, ‘-‘ for “I’m attacking (target)”), and call for help if under attack (‘T’, ‘4’ for “Cover me!”); equally keep an eye out for other people calling for cover (their name will flash, if you can see them) and help if you can, but if they buggered off on their own, are 10km away from anyone else on the team and spamming “Cover me!” every five seconds then sod ’em.

With ammunition being limited, rather than blazing away at anything within about a kilometre it pays to make every shot count, only fire if you’re (fairly) sure of a hit, the closer the better (I tend to start around 200-250m if possible, hence that setting for Gun Targeting Distance). Without the handy lead circle of Arcade mode high deflection shots are tricky; if you’ve played a lot of Arcade you might be able to remember roughly where you need to shoot in various circumstances, a brief speculative shot now and again can pay off, but don’t waste too much ammunition.

You might well get shot down, possibly without even without landing a hit on an opponent; rather frustrating after all the time taken to get into battle in the first place, but such is life. To add insult to injury, you’ll probably end up out of pocket if you pay to repair the aircraft straight away; I always have automatic repairs turned off, so you can make the decision of whether you want to take that hit and get back for another battle, or leave the aircraft repairing over time and take something else out for a flight.

If you’re still alive, that’s a triumph. If you’re still alive and managed to shoot something, that’s not only a triumph but also a huge success. If you’re undamaged and still have some ammunition go find something else to shoot, otherwise it’s time to return to base.

Bringing It All Back Home

If you’re under no threat, have a nice leisurely little flight back to your home base. If you’re out of ammo and need to extricate yourself from combat then diving and pushing the throttle up to 110%/WEP can be enough to open up a gap to get to safety (try and point yourself towards home in the dive), if you’re already at treetop height then you probably need to jink around and hope your opponent misses a lot, call for cover and/or have a much faster plane… Airfields are protected by ack-ack guns that are more effective in Historical Battles than arcade, if an enemy does chase you then they may well break off as you get close to your airfield, if they’re aggressive enough to press home the attack then evasive manoeuvres over the base might give the gunners enough of a chance to bring them down.

There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

When safe to do so, carefully land as per the tutorial: line up on the runway nice and early, gradually reduce throttle, deploy flaps (‘F’) and lower landing gear (‘G’), lovely. If you’ve taken damage then the controls probably won’t be as responsive, you’ll need to be particularly gentle and careful in the approach. It’s well worth practising landing in general in the tutorial, and also via the “Test Flight” option in the hanger for specific aircraft to get an idea of the sort of speed you’re aiming for (just above stall speed as you touch down) and the general handling; I should probably have mentioned that before you started the fight… Once on the deck, apply brakes (by default the Throttle Down key), but make sure you release them if your tail starts coming up, you don’t want to dig the runway up with your prop.

All being well you come to a nice gentle stop, and within about 30 seconds you’ll be repaired and rearmed and automatically placed back at the start of the runway to get back into the air. Don’t panic too much if you do nose over, or slightly misjudge the landing speed and slam in to the ground a bit hard, even quite serious damage can be repaired in a minute and a half or so, though it’s a bit variable; sometimes what seems to be a flaming wreck can be repaired, other times seemingly less serious damage will end your game. Take off again, and repeat until either you or the entire opposing team have been shot down!

Ground Attack

Most of this post so far has been about air combat, as that’s the deciding factor in the majority of Historical Battles, but as the battle progresses and things break up then strafing a few ground targets brings in a bit of cash and XP if nothing else. Be very careful at low level, especially around dense concentrations of enemy anti-aircraft units, you can easily be brought down with a single hit; try not to fly slowly in a straight line any longer than you have to. I’ve been in a battle where the enemy was down to one damaged plane that returned to base and repaired, we had three or four planes left that decided to take out some ground targets, and all of them were shot down by flak, much to the opposition’s amusement. If you want to be a bit more serious about ground attack, and your aircraft can fit bombs or rockets, then when you return to base, after you’ve landed are are *fully* repaired, you can leave the aircraft (either via the ‘Esc’ menu or by holding down ‘J’), and you’ll return to the initial aircraft selection screen, where you can change Weapons, Fuel and, if you’re bored of your paint job, Camouflage before going back to the fight.

I think that covers the basics; if the longer build-up isn’t for you or you just want a quick blast then there’s always Arcade, and if Historical Battles are still too simplified then there are Full Real Battles, but I find them a nice balance.

A Beginner’s Guide to War Thunder

NOTE: Update 1.37 has changed a few things around, this post is now superseded by The Complete Beginner’s Guide to War Thunder

Do you like War? Do you like Thunder? If you do, you’ll love War Thunder! As long as you also love online World War II aircraft combat. In fact you don’t really need to have a view on Thunder at all, and you can hold a morally complex position about the terrible nature of War rather than simply liking it, but I don’t think Facebook have got a button for that just yet.

Anyway! To take to the skies, the first step is to sign up for an account at warthunder.com; if you have any friends already playing the game they may like to send you a referral link to get a few rewards. It’s the usual process: first choose a name, find out it’s been taken, choose a different name, find out it’s also been taken, add ‘xXxX__=+’ to the beginning and end of the name and substitute random letters with numbers to become ‘xXxX__=+De4thK1ll4zz+=__XxXx’, and watch the world tremble with fear at your undoubted skill. Not to mention grasp of grammar. Then choose a suitably strong password, like correct horse battery staple. Once you’ve created an account download the game client, which is 7Gb+, so might take a while. Why not make a nice cup of tea, maybe have a biscuit or two?

The first time you start the game you have to choose a country:

Select Country

I vow to thee, my country, to shoot down the cads and bounders on the other team

This is quite important, as you’ll be restricted to flying aircraft of that country only to start with, you unlock the other nations as you progress. It doesn’t take too long to unlock all five countries, so don’t agonise too much; if you feel you’ve made a terrible mistake and can’t even face playing enough to unlock your preferred option you can always sign up for a new account and start again, though you’ll have to be xXxX__=+De4thK1ll4zz+=__XxXx2 this time.

There isn’t a massive difference in aircraft performance in the early ranks, so feel free to pick your preferred country for patriotic or historical reasons, or based on your favoured national cuisine, or because you like the style of the chaps doing their best catalogue poses in the above pictures. If you have no preference at all, or absolutely have to have any advantage you can, try the USSR as their Rank 1 aircraft is probably the strongest of the five. Also the “point off camera” is absolutely textbook, so they edge the catalogue pose category too. I’m going to pick the UK, though, tally ho pip pip God Save The Queen etc.

The game then asks if you want to complete the Basic Fighter Tutorial:

(funny caption here)

… or do you just want to wing it? Get it! Wing! Like a bird’s wing!

This is a Good Idea; certainly easier than Flying a Light Aeroplane Without Having Had Any Formal Instruction. Even if you have had some formal instruction it’s worth running the tutorial, it’s nicely done, short and to the point, and rewards you with 70 Gold Eagles and an extra crew. Gold Eagles are one type of in-game currency, like many free-to-play games there are two varieties: ‘Silver Lions’ are earned from playing, ‘Gold Eagles’ are generally bought with real money (though some can be earned as rewards for completing tutorials, recruiting friends to the game etc.) Don’t worry too much about currency for now, but you might want to save up Gold Eagles until you’ve a better idea how you might like to spend them.

Just follow the instructions in the tutorial:

Destroy the plane! Destroy the planes! Destroy the truck! I think this instructor has anger issues...

Destroy the plane! Destroy the planes! Destroy the truck! I think this instructor has anger issues…

And you should soon master the basics: going Up! Down! Flying around, shooting up trucks and defying the ground. Five entire minutes is more than sufficient training for life-or-death aerial combat, don’t you think? So let’s put those newly acquired skills to the test.

If you were expecting to jump straight into a Spitfire you might be slightly disappointed to be starting off in a Hawker Fury, an open cockpit biplane, but like most aircraft in the game they do have actual combat pedigree from World War II; Håkans aviation page is a rather interesting place for information on biplane aces.

Grandmaster Hawker and the Furious Fury

Grandmaster Hawker and the Furious Fury

You can fly against AI opponents if you like via the “Missions” option under “Game Modes” in the top left, but the online PvP battles are the main focus. Hover over the “To Battle” button and, unless you’re feeling incredibly confident, leave it with “Arcade Battle” selected. One setting that you might want to change, at the bottom there’s a “Current Server” option; for the shortest possible queue you can change this to “Any available”:

I like my Current Server like I like my women

I like my Current Server like I like my women

Fighting alongside (and against) players on other servers doesn’t seem to be a problem, I haven’t encountered any serious latency issues; you might not be able to understand general chat, but there are probably disadvantages too. Should some sort of tactical co-ordination be desirable you can always issue voice commands/requests in game via the ‘T’ key by default, or you could just shout detailed battle plans at your hamster for all the good it’ll do in a team of random strangers. Click “To Battle” to get started.

After a (hopefully) short queue and a loading screen, you’ll get the starting screen for the battle:

Oh, no, you've got the wrong map there. This is Stalingrad. You want the Ilfracombe and Barnstaple section.

Oh, no, you’ve got the wrong map there. This is Stalingrad. You want the Ilfracombe and Barnstaple section.

At the top are your available aircraft; below the selected aircraft you can change its weapon load-out (if there’s more than one option), its camouflage paint scheme (if there’s more than one option), and stuff like the gun targeting distance (if you can be bothered). Don’t worry about those for now. To the right is the map over which you’ll be fighting, with the fighter and bomber spawn points highlighted. I wouldn’t worry about that too much either, we’ll just point ourselves in the vague direction of the enemy and hope.

Pick which aircraft you want to start off with; I don’t think there’s any difference other than cosmetics between the Fury Mk I, Fury Mk II and Nimrod (naval version of the Fury). Click “To Battle” in the bottom right corner, and after a countdown it’s chocks away and time to deliver the bacon! (Except you don’t have to worry about the chocks, as you start in the air in Arcade mode rather than having to take off).

Grab your egg and fours and let's get the bacon delivered!

Grab your egg and fours and let’s get the bacon delivered!

Advanced Tactical Combat Summary: red dots on the ground are enemy vehicles/emplacements (shoot them). Red dots in the sky are enemy aircraft (shoot them). Blue dots are friendly (don’t shoot them). Keep shooting red things until either (i) all the red stuff is gone or (ii) you explode. If (i), congratulations, you win! If (ii) you return to the aircraft selection screen; pick your next plane, hit “Select” again, and return to the fray! Repeat until either (i), or all your aircraft have exploded. There’s probably a flowchart in there somewhere, but I reckon you should be able to just about get the hang of things.

After your first battle you get a nice present: a new free aeroplane!

Do you feel the power of the Gladiator?

Do you feel the power of the Gladiator?

Let’s put it into service, and buy ourself something new while we’re there. Click the “Research” button in the bottom left corner of the screen; this takes you to the tech tree for your nation, all the lovely stuff you’ll (eventually) be able to fly:

The British Tech Tree – not to be confused with the British Techno Tree, which has a lot more Aphex Twin

The British Tech Tree – not to be confused with the British Techno Tree, which has a lot more Aphex Twin

Have a browse of what’s available; the right hand column are premium aircraft, purchased with real money Golden Eagles, the rest you can buy with Silver Lions (the Lion/Eagle icon under the name of the aircraft shows the type of currency). The number in the bottom right, next to the silver chevron, is the rank you need to be to fly them; you gain XP from battles, and what do experience points make? Prizes! Also, air force ranks. Premium aircraft are exempt from this requirement, and conveniently our free plane, Tuck’s Gladiator (at the top of the right hand column, the gold border indicates we own it already) is a premium aircraft, so even at the dizzying height of Rank 0 we can equip this awesome Rank 1 beast. Click on it, and select the right hand icon over the top, “Put Into Service”, replacing one of the starter aircraft.

We can buy another new plane while we’re here, the Rank 0 Swordfish Mk I, the venerable Stringbag. Click “Order”, and put it into service replacing another starter aircraft. The Swordfish isn’t really ideal for early battles as it carries a torpedo, not much use against armoured cars (apart from making a nice ‘clang!’ sound if it bounces off them), and naval targets don’t turn up for a little while, but it does have a rear gunner, controlled by the AI by default; the AI isn’t a very good shot, though, so if an enemy gets behind you, take control of the gun yourself by pressing F6. When you do the plane will continue flying straight and level, so make sure you’re in a nice open bit of sky and not, say, at tree-top level with a big old mountain straight ahead. Wave the mouse around to control the gun, and give that bandit on your tail what-for.

With the new planes in service, hit “To Battle” again, and repeat the whole “shoot the red things” process. After (I think) three battles, you should unlock another country:

I like to be in America, everything free in America. Except the OS2U, that costs 500 Lions.

I like to be in America, everything free in America. Except the OS2U, that costs 500 Lions.

Other countries follow after more battles.

That should get you through your first few sessions, see Part 2 for an introduction to the two main Arcade battle modes.

War Thunder Patch 1.31 – Free Plane!

War Thunder has just released update 1.31, and amongst the myriad changes there’s one you might like to pay particular attention to:

Added New Premium Level 1 aircraft:

USA – Thach’s F2A-1 Buffalo;
Germany – Marcolin’s CR.42CN ;
USSR – Zhukovsky’s I-153-M62 ;
Britain – Tuck’s Gladiator Mk.II;
Japan – Hagiri’s A5M4 .

After your first battle against other players (in case you receive any XP) – You will receive one of these aircraft for the nation you chose. (One free aircraft only)

Choose your first battle carefully!

The new aircraft have, I believe, the same stats as their regular counterparts, but new paint schemes reflecting their historical pilots. The I-153 is generally regarded as the best Rank 1 aircraft, so you may want to play as the USSR in your first battle after the patch, or just pick your favoured country; you can always buy any of the others for 250 Gold Eagles (about £1).

War Thunder vs World of Warplanes

In a world of World War Two aircraft at war, two games are going head-to-head: World of Warplanes and War Thunder. But which is better? There’s only one way to find out: play both of them and compare and contrast the relative features to determine which better suit personal preference!

(OK, two ways to find out. Moving on, before this turns into some sort of Spanish Inquisition…)

Both games are technically in beta, though at rather different phases; WT is in Open Beta that’s release in all but name, accepting money with a promise of no progress wipe prior to (official) launch, WoWP is in Closed Beta so changes are likely to be more significant and frequent. Being online games, though, they’re always going to be subject to change in the future, so apply suitable caveats (the quality of gameplay can go down as well as up, your premium status is at risk if you do not keep up repayments, objects in the rear view mirror are probably trying to shoot you down etc.) I can’t promise a completely balanced comparison as I’ve been playing War Thunder for three months and just dabbling in World of Warplanes for a week or two; it may be that I have an unconscious prejudice having become used to the way War Thunder does certain things, but short of obtaining a neuralyzer or attempting to induce amnesia I can’t get the perspective of a completely fresh player, and my dedication to impartiality only goes so far (stopping well short of massive head trauma).

Control Handling

One of the first things that jumps out when moving between the games is the difference in the way the planes handle when flown with mouse and keyboard. Aircraft in War Thunder are beautifully responsive. In Arcade and Realistic modes there is an “Instructor”; you wave the mouse around and point where you want to go, the Instructor handles all that complicated pitching and rolling and what-not so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head over it. This makes flying a much simpler business than in, say, Planetside 2; emboldened by my War Thunder success I tried to fly a Scythe fighter in PS2, and it didn’t end well. Although that might have something to do with PS2 having a lot more keys that need mapping, so when I pressed ‘E’ to apply a bit of rudder I’d forgotten it was actually the ‘enter/leave vehicle’ key, and promptly ejected.

Aircraft in World of Warplanes are also easy to fly with the mouse, but its version of the Instructor is a bit dozy; via To Game for Life, a post on Z’s Blog measures a 500ms delay in response to input, quite significant in high speed aerial combat. Apparently the controls in WoWP had a major overhaul in version 0.4.0, and more tweaks in the (current) 0.4.2 so it’s obviously something Wargaming is working on, but they just don’t feel great at the moment, especially when put up against WT.

Aircraft Selection

Both games feature hundreds of flyable aircraft from World War II (plus a few years either side), but with differing philosophies behind their selection. Gaijin look to have started off from a more historical perspective with the key aircraft of WWII for War Thunder, making their tech trees slightly ramshackle; some ranks unlock a whole swathe of new fighters, bombers and/or attack aircraft, other ranks have few or none. Wargaming, on the other hand, currently have full branches in World of Warplanes, completely populated from Tiers I to X for all nations, one aircraft per branch per tier (plus a few premium options). Classes are clearly delineated as well, each nation has one line of single seat/light fighters plus a second nation-specific line; heavy fighters for Gemany, attack aircraft for the USSR and carrier aircraft for the USA (Japan just has the one line of carrier fighters at the time of writing).

War Thunder has 20 Ranks compared to the ten Tiers of World of Warplanes, but the modular upgrade system of WoWP allows for greater variation within tiers, with aircraft able to upgrade the airframe, engine and armament, often quite substantially. The gun armament and basic powerplant of WT aircraft is fixed, so there’s not much to upgrade in a dedicated fighter; attack aircraft and bombers have more options with rocket and bomb payloads, some of which have to be unlocked. Individual crew also have skills to upgrade in WT, apparently crew skills will be added to WoWP in the future. War Thunder can look as though it has a lot more aircraft available, but it has separate instances of the Bf 109 G-2, G-6 and G-10 at Ranks 9, 13 and 14, whereas WoWP reflects those sub-variants in the various modules of the Tier VI Bf 109 G.

Neither approach is without issues; some branches of the War Thunder tech tree are horribly cluttered, most obviously the six Me 410 variants at Ranks 8 and 9; as you have to buy each one to unlock the next, if you want the Me 410 B-1/U-2 you have no choice but to buy the four preceding variants; condensing those into one or two main variants with multiple weapon options would clean things up. The upgrade system in World of Warplanes, though, looks like it brings the same issues as World of Tanks, where the excitement of unlocking a new vehicle is dampened by the knowledge that, without any upgrades, it’s almost certainly going to be pretty lacklustre, with any out-of-the-hanger improvements over its predecessor negated by harsher matchmaking. It’s not so bad in the lower tiers, where stooging around for a match or two while the rest of your team does the hard work (or catching a break from the matchmaker) nets enough XP to unlock some decent upgrades, but a right pain later on unless you use Free XP for rapid unlocks (probably the point, so you buy Gold for XP conversion).

From a gameplay perspective Wargaming’s trees makes sense, (presumably) well balanced and distributed. From a historical perspective, though, I’m not very keen. Almost all the Tier I to III aircraft are pre-war, many of them prototypes, with barely any combat service; Tiers IV through VII are much better, with your icons of WWII (Bf 109, P-51 Mustang, Il-2 Sturmovik, A6M Zero etc), but then Tier VIII+ is silly season with all sorts of oddities alongside occasional “proper” late-war or post-war jets. I don’t want to come across as some grumpy grognard getting furious about an improperly modelled supercharger intake, I’m not after a strict World War II simulator; the odd Flying Flapjack here and there is a bit of fun (as the actress said to the bishop), but, for me, I prefer the much stronger WWII flavour of War Thunder to the curiosities of World of Warplanes, your mileage may vary if you’re a fan of sellotaping Messerchmitts together.

Of course both games will get more aircraft over time; War Thunder has received several new planes in the last couple of major patches, and the site has planned tech trees showing quite a lot more aircraft to be added. Wargaming have talked about aircraft to be added to World of Warplanes, with the UK as the next nation to be added, so it will presumably follow in the footsteps of World of Tanks, which has received three new nations and scores of new tanks since release.

Game Modes

War Thunder has three game modes. In Arcade everyone piles in with random countries on both sides, automatically replenishing ammunition and bombs (after a short in-flight reloading delay) and you can respawn with as many planes as you have in the hanger of one country. Historical Battles use more realistic flight controls (without getting right into prop pitch and fuel mixture settings), national teams face each other (e.g. US vs Japan, UK/US/USSR vs Germany, or UK/US vs USSR in a Korean scenario), you select one of your aircraft and don’t get to respawn, and you have to return to base to rearm and repair so ammunition conservation is a lot more important, especially as Historical Battle maps are sizeable. Full Real Battles, using Simulation controls, are a bit like Historical Battles but you’re locked in cockpit view with no game HUD elements like the mini-map and target indicators, it’s down to you to squint for dots in the distance. You can also set up custom battles, either solo or with friends, with friendly and/or enemy AI if you don’t want to go up against random humans.

Within those game modes there are further battle types: Ground Attack and Domination in Arcade mode, where the objective is to destroy ground forces and capture airfields respectively, and Operations in the other modes, in which you support AI ground forces. Maps can have fixed emplacements, individual vehicles moving in convoy, and ships from patrol boats up to aircraft carriers, or you can always just ignore the stuff on the ground and shoot down enemy aircraft.

World of Warplanes has, so far, a single mode, an arcade-y battle of mixed nationalities on maps with a smattering of ground targets. Destroying buildings and aircraft earns your team points, you win by either shooting down the entire enemy team or gaining a decisive point advantage. It’s fine for a bit of a blast, but I’m not so sure about its long term prospects, and while different maps can have a tactical impact in World of Tanks, terrain plays rather less part when you’re flying over it, so other than a change in visuals and ground target positions the three maps I’ve seen so far don’t play very differently.

A key difference between World of Warplanes and the Arcade battles of War Thunder is that in the former you select a single aircraft and it’s game over when you’re shot down, in the latter you can respawn with as many aircraft as you have in your hanger (everyone starts with three; a fourth and fifth can be purchased, quite reasonably, for game-earned Silver Lions; further slots, up to eight I believe, cost real money Gold Eagles). There are pros and cons to ‘hanger battles’; personally I rather like being able to grab another aircraft from the hanger if you get shot down quickly by a lucky/unlucky shot, and being able to switch roles between air superiority and ground attack depending on how the battle is going. They can prolong fights, though, and the ability to respawn may make pilots less cautious in their manoeuvring, or more prone to deliberately ram the enemy (though there are still plenty of collisions in WoWP). The ability to buy additional crew slots and “Backup Plane” tokens for real money that allow you to use an aircraft twice in Arcade mode can be something of an advantage for players with bigger wallets, though unless I’m having a really bad time I can survive most fights with the five respawns that in-game currency buys, so I don’t regard it as a heinous flaw.

Matchmaking in War Thunder Arcade battles must be challenging, with players potentially having aircraft spanning five or more ranks in their hanger. Ranks 0 and 1 are kept together to give new players a chance to learn the ropes, after that you can easily be facing things several ranks above or below you; this can be pretty rough at major transitions, like when you get one Rank 2 aircraft, but by and large there isn’t a huge difference between ranks, more incremental increases in performance and armament, so you’re never a spare part and can always contribute in some capacity. World of Warplanes seems to use the matchmaker from World of Tanks, or something very similar, with Tier I and II aircraft in starter battles, then subsequent battles tending to span three tiers. Though this seems like tighter balancing than War Thunder, the difference between WoWP tiers is more pronounced, especially with component upgrades. Matchmakers are always something of a contentious subject, as exemplified by the current kerfuffle in WoT; both WT and WoWP seem reasonable enough at the moment, but you never really know how things may be tweaked in the future as the size and distribution of the playerbase changes.

While Wargaming are well known for adding new vehicles to World of Tanks, different game modes are another story; I’d like to see national battles and hanger/garage battles with both tanks and planes, but I’m not sure what the prospects are.

Damage Models

War Thunder uses a location based damage system; engines, control surfaces, pilots etc are all modelled, so a burst of fire can pass (relatively) harmlessly through a fuselage, or damage an aileron making a plane harder to control, or instantly kill your pilot. The exact model varies between game modes, generally being more forgiving in Arcade and becoming increasingly harsh in Historical and Full Real Battles; it’s also subject to tweaking, v1.29 saw a substantial overhaul that increased the number of locations modelled, but it needed a couple of minor patches to smooth the kinks out.

World of Warplanes has a hybrid model, with some location based damage (coarser than WT, I’ve experienced engine and wing damage so far with comparatively minor effect), but aircraft also have hitpoints, and are destroyed when their HP are reduced to 0.

War Thunder feels more realistic, and the model is a good part of the reason that there isn’t a huge difference between planes of different ranks, as anything can shoot anything else down, even a biplane vs a jet (albeit the jet would have to fly really quite badly). It can be frustrating, though, when you’re blazing away with seemingly little effect on an opponent, then someone lands one burst on you and hits your pilot. Large calibre weapons are also brutal, like the 37mm cannons of the P-39 and especially Yak-9T that can rip planes apart in one or two hits; in Historic Battles the fact that it has only 30 shells is something of a counterbalance, but in Arcade battles, with in-air reloading, it’s ludicrously good. It’s also annoying to survive an attack with seemingly little damage only to find your elevators have been destroyed and you have little or no control over pitch, consigning you to a long, slow glide to almost certain death; then again it can be exhilarating to glide home with no engine, or limp back to the airfield with one wing barely hanging on, land, and get repaired and back into action.

The hitpoint system of WoWP is more controlled, so you’ll seldom die from one shot (unless you go head-to-head with a rocket armed opponent), and higher tier aircraft have a more concrete advantage over lower. Heavy fighters and ground attack aircraft have many more HP than single engine fighters, so chasing one with a couple of machine guns can feel like an exercise in futility, especially with the lag in the control system making it more difficult to bring your weapons to bear. I bought the premium Tier V XFL-1, a prototype naval adaptation of the P-39, to see how scary a 37mm cannon would be, and it is powerful, without being quite so devastating as in War Thunder.

Economy

Both games have the same general set up with one type of currency earned in-game (Silver Lions/credits) and one purchased with real money (Golden Eagles/gold). Silver is used to buy new aircraft, upgrade them, and repair and rearm them between battles. Gold can be used to: purchase Premium account status for a period of time, granting bonus XP and silver; purchase Premium aircraft, comparable to standard aircraft of the same tier/rank, but that earn more XP and silver; convert free XP to allow for faster progress with an aircraft or nation; buy additional hanger/crew slots; and convert directly into Silver.

Economic discussions are tricky and get very emotive, with companies subject to accusations of greed, cash grabs, “pay to win”, implementing excessive grind, etc etc. Economies are also subject to change; War Thunder was substantially overhauled in v1.29, dramatically increasing the cost of higher rank planes and causing much vocal unhappiness, but I imagine the changes were necessary to slow players down a bit and get them to stick around, the age old problem that some people will get bored when they reach maximum level and leave, and others get bored if it takes too long to get to maximum level in the first place. Premium vehicles can also cause problems, as World of Tanks demonstrated with the Lowe and especially the Type 59; War Thunder is currently suffering from a glut of premium Fw 190 D-13s in Historical Battles, and it’s more of a balance issue in nation-vs-nation battles where only one side has access to the aircraft in question.

With World of Warplanes in closed beta and not taking money it’s impossible to directly compare the two at the moment, but I believe both games are eminently playable without spending any money at all; of course you won’t progress as quickly, but if you’re enjoying individual battles then that’s not such an issue.

Conclusion

With the games in their current states, it’s hard to look past War Thunder; better mouse controls, more game modes, and (for me) a more appealing selection of aircraft. World of Warplanes is fun enough to drop into, but once the novelty of rapidly unlocking new planes fades I’m not sure I’d stick with it for months or even years, though updates over the rest of beta and into launch could change that situation, and if you’re very keen on exotic aircraft prototypes or single-respawn arcade battles it may be the better choice. A shared economy with World of Tanks could be a further incentive for existing players; it’ll be interesting to see if the situations are reversed when War Thunder adds tanks.

With both games being free, as the ultimate cop-out I’d suggest giving both a try, unless your time or bandwidth are severely limited. Though that makes the rest of this post a bit pointless. In hindsight maybe I should have just opened with that, and saved us all a lot of time. Oh well! If you have a preference for one or the other, do leave a comment, I’m curious to see what features other players consider more or less important.

World of Warplanes first impressions

World of Warplanes, the aerial companion to Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks, is currently in beta. Obviously. Everything online is in beta; I think the last game to receive an official release might have been Ye Worlde of Cheſs in 1486, after the 0.9.7b patch that buffed the initial move distance of pawns. It makes sense in a mutable online world to test early and often with a realistic user base, and a gradual increase in population is far less stressful for both developers and servers than dropping a whole bunch o’ people from launch-day height, but “beta” now covers a multitude of sins, from “proper” testing to previews, stress tests, head starts, soft launches and such. Google were always a prime culprit, and Neverwinter is the most recent of numerous games (including War Thunder) to move to an “Open Beta” where, unless I’m more vastly mistaken than a man who believes Hillaire Belloc is still alive, you can buy stuff and there isn’t going to be any progress wipe before “launch”. It’s hard not be slightly cynical of the ubiquity of the “beta” tag, not least as it provides a handy cudgel that some forum warriors love to beat dissenters with; “Of course the current version of the game erases your entire hard drive and hijacks your Facebook account to send ‘make money fast’ spam, IT’S A BETA, DUH!”

World of Warplanes is in Closed Beta (you can apply for entry on the website); I don’t believe you can spend money on it and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are progress wipes, so it’s closer to the “actual testing” end of the beta spectrum than “well, we’ve sort of launched, unless something goes wrong, in which case we haven’t and you can’t have your money back”. The NDA lifted about a month ago, but I’ve only been in for a week or so, playing a few matches at Tiers I to III; take the following with an appropriate quantity of early-impression-beta salt.

WoWP doesn’t have a tutorial at the moment, but you can practise a bit in a 2-vs-2 fight with bots to get the hang of things before facing the terror of human opponents. The visuals are nice, having been buffed up in a previous update:

DAKKADAKKADAKKA

DAKKADAKKADAKKA

It’s very much a drop-in action game rather than serious flight sim; third person (or third aircraft?) view, simple controls, target and lead indicators, no faffing around with 20 switches just to start up the engine. Matches start with all players in the air, flying around a fairly small map containing a smattering of ground targets; shoot down the enemy aircraft, strafe and bomb stuff on the ground, and win! Or lose. One of the two. Both air and ground targets are able to soak up a fair amount of fire, especially from your starting armament of a pair of small calibre machine guns; you get to tool up with cannons, rockets and bombs in later aircraft, but if you’re stuck with machine guns against a higher tier heavy fighter their health bar takes an awful lot of whittling. Flying with keyboard and mouse works well enough, though the controls feel a bit heavy; gradually lining up on a ground target from a distance is pretty straightforward, getting an enemy plane in your sights is tricky. I haven’t tried it with a joystick, as I fear my stick manipulation skills have atrophied since the days of X-Wing. Collisions are commonplace with (in descending frequency order) friendly planes, enemy planes and the ground, at least in Tier I when most players are wearing metaphorical L-plates (note to devs: maybe add L-plate decals to the customisation options).

Between battles the hanger interface is highly reminiscent of World of Tanks, as you’d expect. You start with a Tier I aircraft from each of the current countries: Germany, USSR, USA, Japan. No Britain. That’s OK, though, I’m not going to launch into some spittle-flecked rant; they’ve said that the British will be the next nation added, and though no timescales have been mentioned I’d be surprised if that wasn’t during Open Beta or soon after launch. Everything’s fine, we know the World of… games happen in an alternate timeline, no need to start subtitling a Downfall parody just yet.

Unless they were lying and put a French tree in next…

Anyway! You have three options for each plane:

Service, for repair and rearming

Service, for repair and rearming


Under Service you can repair, and resupply ammunition with a choice of Incendiary and General Purpose as well as the default Armour Piercing. Upgraded ammunition costs Credits (i.e. currency earned in-game), I’m not sure if that’s just the case during beta or if it’s a way of avoiding the “pay-to-win” accusations levelled at Gold (i.e. bought with real money) ammunition in World of Tanks, prior to the changes that allowed it to be bought with Credits as well.

Modules, for upgrading

Modules, for upgrading

Modules shows the main components of the plane (airframe, engine, guns etc), with upgrades that can be unlocked with XP and purchased with Credits. “Additional Equipment” includes extras to boost the accuracy of guns or toughness of the airframe. As with World of Tanks there’s quite a difference in capability between a fresh-out-of-the-showroom runabout and a fully upgraded deathkite; the Fw 57 in the screenshot starts with a pair of 7.92mm machine guns and no bombs, a line-up of aircraft gun cartridges gives an idea of how much more metal it chucks out after upgrading the MGs to 20mm cannon, and a single 100kg bomb makes short work of ground targets.

Exterior, for changing the paint scheme

Exterior, for changing the paint scheme


Exterior allows you to tweak the colour scheme of your plane with options for the main camouflage and further highlights or decals around the nose. Camouflage costs Gold in WoT but seems to be free at the moment in WoWP, I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes for release.

All in all, it’s a solid game, worth a look if you fancy some drop-in WWII aerial combat.

There is a war-elephant in the thunder-room, though; Gaijin’s War Thunder. I’ve avoided comparisons in this post to try and give World of Warplanes a fair crack of the whip but the games are very similar, so I’ll try and do another post looking at the two games.

Reading Roundup

Breaking radio silence for a quick guest spot on episode 51 of The Three MMOsketeers on the splendid CSICON last week, one of the news stories covered malware attacks on MMORPG companies, reminding co-host Breki of Charles Stross’ novel Halting State. My “to read” pile keeps growing; it includes the sequel to Halting State, Rule 34, and another Stross novel, The Apocalypse Codex, from his Laundry Files series, which I must get around to.

From the “have read” pile I really enjoyed the first two books of the Milkweed Triptych by Ian Tregillis set in an alternative World War II of mad science and blood magic, sharing some of the occult/espionage themes of The Laundry Files (Tregillis and Stross have a nice chat at Orbit Books). For those who like to read a full series in one go, the third book, Necessary Evil, has just been published; I don’t tend to pre-order books due to aforementioned “to read” pile but made an exception for this one and would highly recommend the series. Excerpts are available on the author’s site, and there’s a standalone story on Tor.com that gives a flavour of the universe.

While poking around similar things on Amazon, the “Customers who bought this item also bought…” section threw up perhaps the greatest book title ever: Ack-Ack Macaque. From the first sentence of the synopsis, “In 1944, as waves of German ninjas parachute into Kent, Britain s best hopes for victory lie with a Spitfire pilot codenamed ‘Ack-Ack Macaque.’ The trouble is, Ack-Ack Macaque is a cynical, one-eyed, cigar-chomping monkey, and he’s starting to doubt everything, including his own existence.”, it was an instant buy, and it’s a lot of fun.

(Fascinating etymology corner: ‘flak’ and ‘ack-ack’, terms for anti-aircraft fire, have completely different derivations despite the similar sounds. Flak is from the German for anti-aircraft gun, fliegerabwherkanone; ‘ack’ is the letter ‘a’ in the World War I British signal alphabet, thus ‘ack-ack’ for ‘anti-aircraft’.)

Wot I’m Playing: Roundup

Everything’s rather busy at the moment, resulting in a bit of a backlog of Stuff To Play. The polymath Mercenary Leader and Arch-Mage of Skyrim is languishing as a jobbing bard and rookie thief, waiting for the next round of MasterChef: Whiterun (the vegetable soup in the first round could’ve used a bit more seasoning, but the judges liked its 12 minute health and stamina regeneration boost), and is a bit behind on some building work picked up on the side. People keep talking about rebellions, dragons and stuff, but rather more importantly there might be an opening in the Guild of Insurance Brokers and Chartered Accountants to investigate. The alien invasion of XCOM is just about under control; Ramsay MacDonald sadly didn’t survive a terror attack, but Neville “Maverick” Chamberlain picked up the squad leadership and took the battle to the enemy, attacking their key base. I got a bit distracted, though, so haven’t quite got around to entirely saving the world. My Elizabethan empire in Civilisation V finished off the Romans and penned the Persians back, naval expeditions uncovered a nearby continent where powerful Egyptian forces are besieging the last couple of Ethiopian cities, I ought to finally decide whether to sign a non-aggression pact with Ramesses and carve out a bit of a foothold or launch a major invasion while he’s distracted.

The co-op multiplayer of Mass Effect 3 had surprising longevity, but I haven’t got around to updating it with the most recent Reckoning DLC pack as other games have been fulfilling the first/third-person shooter roles, like Borderlands 2 and its DLC; finished the first couple of packs, but haven’t got around to Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt yet, being distracted by still other games including Defiance, which shares several characteristics with Borderlands allied to fairly traditional MMOG elements. It hasn’t really grabbed me, though, much like Rift before it; seems perfectly fine and all, but I haven’t got much of an appetite for dodging mobstacles and clicking on glowing things. Speaking of appetites it’s the first MMO I’ve seen mentioned on Saturday Kitchen, but frankly I’m more interested in the beef bourguignon recipe… I might try and catch the accompanying TV series that Jaime Murray was plugging, but the gaming backlog is also causing things to stack up on the PVR and I can’t say I hold out high hopes for it as a televisual masterpiece. Shooter-wise there’s also Bioshock: Infinite. I’ve only just managed an hour or two of it so far, though; the world design is beautiful, but the gunplay doesn’t *quite* seem to entirely fit with it, especially when you’re mowing down waves of normal humans rather than twisted Splicers or hideous bio-zombies. Looking forward to exploring more of the story, though.

One of the games I actually have been seriously playing is War Thunder, as could probably be gathered from the series of guides which have resulted, possibly for the first time ever, in the majority of KiaSA search engine hits having a fighting chance of vaguely relating to what the searcher was looking for (though whoever was after “vintage cadburys roses pixelated graphics” is still out of luck. Sorry.) It’s completely taken over from World of Tanks as my “play a battle or two per evening” game; I did patch up WoT and grab the first couple of British tank destroyers when they were added in, but I’m just enjoying War Thunder more. I’ve hit a point, Ranks 7 & 8 with the German, Soviet and British air forces, where new ranks and planes are a long time coming, if that was the sole purpose for playing then it would be a grind, but I’m not so fussed about the progression aspect, I’ve got a couple of Spitfires, I’m happy. With the NDA on the rival World of Warplanes dropping, posts over at To Game For Life have prompted me to sign up for the beta of that, I think it’ll be quite an interesting comparison, but if Wargaming.net take as long to add a British tree to WoWP as they did to WoT there’ll be trouble…

My main game of the last three months has been Planetside 2. Inspired by the How To Murder Time podcast I downloaded it for a bit of a look around, and have been playing it pretty solidly ever since. On the surface its a fairly straightforward MMOFPS; point gun at enemy, press trigger, but as you play you become aware of the web of interactions that make up continent-wide rounds of rock-paper-scissors. Though with many elements, so more like rock-paper-scissors-spock-lizard. Or rock-paper-scissors-spock-lizard-missile-tank-mine-shotgun. Or… well, you’d probably end up with something like RPS101. Or the weapon systems matrices illustrating combined-arms synthesis from Jones’ Art of War in the Western World, if you’re more of a grognard about these things. Despite the Inevitable Perpetual Fury (note: possible band name if Trans-Neptunian Panic Zone is taken) of the forums, SOE’s gentle nudges seem to be keeping things pretty reasonably balanced over multiple air and ground vehicles, with multiple weapon and system options, and multiple infantry classes, again each with multiple weapon and accessory options. Apart from NC MAX units, natch. (Actually even they’re almost sane, after shotgun rebalancing. Almost.)

One of the problems of the rock-paper-scissors nature is that sod’s law (Murphy’s British cousin) dictates that you always run into your counter; if you’re in a tank column with no anti-air cover you can guarantee a bunch of rocket-spamming flying gits will turn up, strafing with impunity, whereas the second you climb into an aircraft it’s instantly a magnet for every lock-on missile and flak cannon within four miles. Kit yourself out with a long range rifle for a bit of sniping and inevitably you’ll find your forces pushing forwards into a close-quarters battle against shotgun-toting opponents, and the moment you get the chance to swap loads for a more suitable SMG there’s nobody left in the buildings, but a bunch of the enemy over on a ridgeline presenting ideal sniper targets…

Still, apart from occasional frustrations it’s generally rather fun, thanks in part to Brigadier Van Hemlock and Five Rounds Rapid, less of an elite combat unit, more a travelling troupe of improvisational slapstick and high farce. Sometimes we shoot stuff! On rare occasions, the ‘stuff’ in question isn’t a member of our own squad! With DJ Melmoth providing the soundtrack, even something mundane like taking a convoy of tanks and armoured personnel carrier across the map is enlivened by the strains of Get A Bloomin’ Move On.

The payment model for the game is quite reasonable too; completely free to download and play, abilities can be bought with game-earned certificates, cosmetic items are available for cash in the shop, weapons can be bought for either certificates or cash. Well worth a look if you fancy some online FPS fun; it’s not big on hand-holding, though, chucking you straight into action on first login, so it might be worth having a bit of a read of the wiki if you haven’t got a friendly outfit to show you the ropes.