All posts by Ragnarokz

I am the Managing Director of the Balfour Institute of Internet Culture, and one of the world's foremost experts on the cultural phenomena of the Internet.
Games, Reviews

Train Fever, tries to be Transport Tycoon.

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Train Fever is a Transport Tycoon clone, a good old fashioned economic tycoon simulator. Good, as it’s always nice to see these kind of games, they are getting fairly rare these days. Old, because the core economic game, is utterly imcomprehensible to any human form of thought.

I’m not kidding, oh on the surface, this game is fairly straightforward, buy trucks, trams, busses and (theoretically) trains, transport crap from A to B to C etc… Build roads, railroads, busstops, trainstations, bridges ad all that which is best in life.

Sounds fairly straightforward, eh? Well it isn’t, it really, really isn’t.

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In Transport Tycoon, all stations have a chatchment area, in which they’ll pick up cargo and passengers, of there are any around, and if any lines are able to tranport them. If there aren’t any of those two, nothing happens.

In Train Fever, stations present an opertunity for passengers/cargo to get to their destination, and they will base their go/no go decision on travel time. How do you predict travel time? You can’t, you really can’t, not unless you’re some deranged purestrain hyper-sperging autism machine, who will joyfully calculated the time, based on virtual feedback, experimentation and the very quantum uncertaincy of the goddamn universe. Seriously, you’d have to be utterly mental to figure it out, no sane human being could ever do so.

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So making money can be incredibly obtuse, for passengers, not for cargo, oh no, cargo is a piece of cake. It’ll simply take the fastest route to the nearest reciving destination, and it’ll either trickle towards the avaliable destinations (Steel Mills, Saw mills and refineries) or take your MUCH faster trucks, so that’s not really an issue. However, the generic goods that the factories vomit forth? Now that one’s nice and obtuse as hell. The maximum amount of generic goods factories can produce, and thus also the amount of unprocessed goods they’ll recieve, is determined by the amount of goods the nearby cities will recieve, meaning that the optimal solution for industrial profit, is a processing site, surrounded by three or more cities, all who’ll recieve plenty of goods, now that’ll generate a solid profit.

So, that’s Truck Fever for you, plenty of fun with trucks.

As for busses and trams? Utterly unpredicatable and not even remotely straightforward, due to the travel time issue, sometimes they’ll trickle in some form of profit, but their use is almost entirely used for feeding train stations. As it should be, very realistic.

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And here we arrive, at the elephant in the room, the terror, the dread, the trains.

And they are ever so fucked, not intially of couse, in the early start of 1850, people don’t really have cars, so you’re trains? They are the only real choice, no way in hell are anyone going InterCity without your gleaming trains. And this state of joy last to somewhere around 1950, when the car arrive, as in the real world. And I guess I now know how the railroad tycoons of the era must have felt when Fords fucking Model T came along and ruined everything.

The early days are the good days, cheap trains, cheap to run, no other choice, plenty of money.

And here’s the best part, unless you somehow manage to REALLY slash the travel times, people will just take their goddamn fucking cars, like a bunch of Americans, the only remote success I had with trains, where dirt cheap railbuses, and a shitton of them, but even that, doesn’t really cut in the long run. Even tried an EXTREME long distance route straight across the map, still no success.

It becomes virtually impossible to make any money from trains, after the cars fuck everything up, cargo’s doing just fine, as they don’t spawn cars at any time, but trains? Nope, ain’t gonna happen.

Unless the devs tweak the amount of passengers, or the ticket fees or the maintainence costs of the damn trains, it’ll remain incredibly hard to actually make any money of trains after 1950, which is kinda bad, with a name like Train Fever.

Graphically, it looks okay, not terrible well optimized.

If the economy was a lot less obtuse and better balanced, this game would be recommendable, unfortunately, it isn’t recommnedable at all at present.

Culture, Politics

The Uncertaincy of the future

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Do any of us really know what’s going on anymore? Of couse we don’t. The news media of today is a confusing and overwhelming mess of contradictionary information and pointless cat pictures. We spend more time looking at cute animals, than we spend on actually caring what’s going on around us, and not just physically within our immediate surroundings.

Which means, essentially, that nothing is stopping anyone, from doing anything. The Judicial system has been under attack for decades, in the Western Civilizations, by the media tycoons, by clueless politicians, by angry internet groups, by a total lack of common sense, by millions of voices demanding satisfaction. Not a single, not even one, of these factors, actually care about even a semblence of justice.

The Media tycoons and their petty empires, wish for nothing, but power and control. They want to set the agenda, they want the News, to be THEIR news, rather than the actual news.

The politicians? They are buried under spin, under information overflow, over pandering to special interests. I really wish some politician would just outright tell the journalists “This is fucking irrellevant, ask me about stuff that actually matters, not this garbage.” But that’s what happens, when rather than electing out best and brighest to positions of power, we elect the shiniest apples on the three. We elect the people with the best media-designed, spin-doctorized and polished message, not a message of a bright and awesome future, but just fear, hate and more fear.

Don’t elect these people, people who are trained to be politicians, and always rememeber, that “good old guy” over there, that Bush-clone, never forget, he has more spin doctors than anyone else.

The Internet? The Internet is a massive hissing hive of idiocy, on the internet you can say anything you want, ANYTHING! And someone will agree with you, and no matter how many that disagree, someone will agree.

No matter how idiotic it all ends up being.

It seems that today, common sense, isn’t worth anything anymore, common sense has become a sort of vaguely defined pipe-dream, maintained only by a desperate few poor sods, crying out against the completely baffling lack of any sense, by anyone.

Of course Franch exploded, what the hell did anyone expect? When you treat the younger generations like criminals? When young people are send into jail, to be radicalized? Of couse they end up hating everyone, becoming easy targets for older demagogues and ideologists, who desire nothing less, than total control. For the world itself, to bend to their whims.

So yes, we don’t know what’s going on anymore, because we elected idiots to power, because we allowed the media to become centralized under singular regime, because we gave up on our common sense, because we refuse to listen.

People who say that politics doesn’t matter anymore? Why would you say that! You morons! You’re basically surrendering everything that makes you an individual, to the media frenzy, to the useless ocean of information. Just give up eveything, let them control the future.

And the best bit, there is no “them”, there is no grand conspiracy that desires to rule the world, there’s no aliens in Area 51, the Illuminati isn’t real, the Freemasons are just old men with big meals.

It’s all our own fault, we stopped caring about the world, and started watching kittens playing with toys. We stopped trying to achive a better world, and just went off to watch Two and a Half men.

We just don’t care anymore. And thus, two centuries from the French Revolution, the last ember of free thought and free people, just vanish.

And we all just let it happen.

Reviews

City builders and you: Anno 2070.

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City builders and you: Anno 2070.

Ahh, the Anno XX70 series, a fine piece of german videogame engineering, made by the masters of the Settlers, Blue Byte, and published by the slightly deranged Ubisoft, a house build on the slow realization that always-on DRM probably isn’t the best idea, log on every time you want to play? Much better idea, put in a social interaction system into your own smaller version of Steam and Windows Live? Superior idea.

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The basic gist of Anno 2070, and the whole series in general, is that you built a city on an island, you then supply said city with the crap its inhabitants demand. Food, entertainment, community and that kinda stuff.

In an new twist, Anno 2070 has three different kinds of citizens, the capitalist Tycoons, the hippie Ecos and the supplementary Techs.
The Tycoons, who demand stuff like spirits, casinos and hamburgers, can handle much more pollution than the other two, and have more efficient supply chains, their coal power plants produce a lot of power compared to, say, windmills.

The Ecos, who want tea, concerts and health food, can’t handle pollution at all, and have lots of cool ways to improve the environment, their windmills produces no pollution, and not a lot of power. Their entire supply infrastructure isn’t quite as efficient as the Tycoons, but do produce shiny cities.

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The Tech’s, similar to the [Look up the Orientals from anno 1770], aren’t really supposed to be a standalone element, they are supplementary to either the tycoons or the ecos, providing crucial research, and an efficient offshore oil production. They demand simple algae based food, energy drinks and a lab nearby, to conduct dreadful experiments.

In the campaign, you end up playing with all three factions, starting with the Tycoons, then Ecos and finally getting the techs into the great bit blender. As you play through a fairly lackluster campaign of “AI goes rogue, save the world, pretend you are a hero”. It’s all good fun though, you even get to build warships and an small air force, and then go blow shit the hell up.

The game is wonderful fun, with plenty of contents to keep any decent fan busy for ages. 90/100, game of the age, all ages, all the time.

Electronic Entertainment

The Ouya: Still fucking stupid!

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So, the Ouya, is it still a useless pile of engored over-marketed shit? Of course it is, the core concept is broken as all fucking hell, a useless consoles to play mobile games, games that are almost universally unplayable and shouldn’t exist outside of Newgrounds.

Another sad tendency, is the fact that flash games, previously something you’d play on Newgrounds when you where bored, are now sold as actual games, genuinly expensive games, a staggering concept to me, games like these aren’t worth anyones time, least of all me.

Now, the Ouya does live on, of a short, it runs on the nightmares of deranged marketing people, the dreams of redditors who flock to anything vaguely rebelious and the money, the money, the fucking money of Venture capitalists, who happily hurl cash at anything that have even the slightest chances, of making them fortunes.

To bad nothing good will ever come from the Ouya, other than more than a few laughs and giggles.

And behold, Amazon’s getting into this too, or are they? Nope, it’s just another little happy TV thing, with the whole console thing added as a little bonus.

TOUCH IT
TOUCH IT

There is no real demand for the Ouya, everything it can do, can be done better or easier with something else, like say, a laptop and a HDMI cable.

But alas, it was marketed as some liberating concept, handed down to us, humble plebs, by the Great and Glorious gods from upon high. Free the games, indeed. I don’t want the games free, Quality control is awesome.

But that’s not to be. But enough of all this, we all know the Ouya’s a stupid pile of crap.

Yves Behar’s design is still fucking stupid, and sweet lady, have you seen the design he made for the One Laptop per Child idea? Why the hell?

Why wouldn’t they just ask Lenovo if they could use the ThinkPad instead, cheap and durable beats overdesign crap anyday.

HATE
Hate.
Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, in-depth Finacial Audit.

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So, Diable 3‘s latest, and probably only, expansion has just been released recently. At a price of 39.99 € for the standard edition. 40 € for an expansion, expensive? Hell yes.

So, let’s split the cost into tiny bits, and laugh at the end result. For your hard-earned fourty Euros worth of game, you get the following: Adventure mode, Act 5 and the Crusader. And that’s it, nothing else, there is no extra content beyond those three elements, everything else is included in the base game.

Let’s start with the biggest sinner, the adventure mode, and just before I start my blitzkrieg attack on this useless waste of time, let’s just cover what I thought it was: Randomly made maps, where you could just murder shit, with random missions.

What it actual is: The storyline maps, with two kinds of missions: Kill guys and kill guy. Same maps, same bosses, same mobs, same everything, nothing new at all, using the same art assets and content.

Total cost: 14€ for something that took about half and hour worth of coding, what it should have cost? Nothing, this shouldn’t have cost anything, anything at all, it’s just watered down story mode crap, using the same assets and a bit of extra voice work.

It should have been included with a patch at some point, for free.

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Next on the itinerary, the Crusader, an extra character is kinda nice, plenty of extra voicework, lots of crap to do, but otherwise, nothing special. I’d pay 14€ for an extra character to have fun with.

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And for the final nail in the proverbial coffin, Act V. Now, this one’s a real pile of crap, it’s basically just around four to six hours of preditable content and story, and if any of you fuckers bitch about bloody spoilers? I’ll laugh from now ’till the heat death of the goddam universe.

And why? Because the story is stupid and preditable, another BIG BAD guy appears, you kill him, that’s it, that’s all there is to it, no big surprise, no big thing, just you walking through a city, then a few shitholes, then hell, then murder end-boss.

Absolutely no surprises at all, which is a welcome addition to the base game storyline, where the little innocent girl character, turns out to be the daughter of EVIL and get’s possed by Diablo, something even the meanest intelligence, could tell, around Act I, part four, the chase for the magical murder thing.

So yeah, worth 14€? Fuck no, not for that little content.

So in conclusion, Reaper of Souls does fuck all for Diablo 3, the giant patch does EVERYTHING for Diablo 3, the 40€? Is just Activision rearing it’s grotesque head again. Did I buy it? Yes, I have friends, it’s the price you pay, for friendship, which isn’t magical, just expensive.

Electronic Entertainment

The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots

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The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots.

The OUYA, a magical beast from a time that never should, is a kickstarter funded, andriod-based video game console. It became an overnight success on Kickstarter, because people bought the Virtual Boy, the Philips CD-i, the Ngage and stupidity, and went off and raised over eight million US$. Why? How? Simple comrades, simple. An effective “stick-it-to-the-man” and “rebel-without-a-cause” approach, combined with the incomprehensible growth of libertarianism, add in a dash of idiocy, no sense of quality or control, a lack of knowledge about HDMI cables. And lo and behold! A stupid video game console.

It was sold, in the start, as a sort of “poor-mans” console, 100 US$ for a console? Sold! But consider this, what kind of poverty stricken human being, would waste 100 bucks on a fucking video game console? No, that’s not the right answer, the correct answer is absolutely no one on the surface of the planet. So we return to the first proposal: Idiots, with no knowledge of HDMI cables. HD-TVs are fairly expensive anyway.

It was then sold as a “rebellious” alternative to “the Big Three”; Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Who, with their old well-established consoles, surely need an opponent! With a 60.000 strong user-base, who has no clue how HDMI cables work, playing bloody mobile games on their giant HD-TVs, well done. Sony must be shitting bricks, out of sheer existential dread. Again, nonsense. So we’re back to people, who can’t hook up a pc to a TV and who has no earthly clue how HDM*I works.

And then, and then, the argument became: “I want to play Android games on my TV” , because, well, who doesn’t want to play “Angry Birds” on their television. Other than people with a bit of taste, and a laptop, or a PC, or perhaps AppleTV, or a Rasperry PI, or the future SteamBox, or a smartphone, or an Xbox, or a Playstation, someone with a chess set, or perhaps an old fucking Sega.

So, morons, who enjoy simple colourful lights, I mean, mobile games, have no knowledge og PCs and cannot fathom how HDMI cables work.

Then they brought up the open nature of the platform, which sound really good, if you are blessed with a completely lack of common sense and logic, because at the point where this stupid thing get’s close to release, and surprise, “open” means, absolutely no quality control, at all, nothing, nada, zip, zero. so the OUYA shop looks like unregulated Newgrounds, you know, without the quality control that site has.

A 100 bucks to play flash games? And add whatever devestatingly stupid price to “developers” ask for their games, that parts that aren’t “free”. The hell? Just hook up and old laptop or something. It’s bound to be cheaper and much more flexible, than this stupid, barely working, box of cellphone innards. And hey, you don’t have to pay to use Newgrounds and Kongregate, so that’s a Vicory, and very small one, but a Victory is a Victory, no matter its relevance, size or meaningfulness.

And thus, comrades, we return. Back to the unbelievably thick, optimistic, gullible, stupid and weak morons, who fall for anything, even the smallest, most pitiful, hype. Who cannot understand how cheap PCs can be. Who cannot use HDMI cables. Who pays money for flash games. Who rejoices in pointless rebelion against targets, who are not even remotely worth it. And deified Julie Uhrman, a maniac, a former “Junior-Vice-President” of Digital Distribution, sadly not at Valve or Microsoft, but at IGN, so not actually someone who knows anything outside marketing phrases. I’m more of a Video Game Veteran than this bag of empty philosophy, you people will fall for anything, wont you?

Julie-Uhrman-OUYA-Founder
BEHOLD! THE DARK MISTRISS OF TERRIBLE HAIR!

So here we are, the OUYA, you know what? Fuck that name, I’m just going to replace it with random phrases, makes more sense. The OGABO is being released, technically, slowly, and probably not at all anyway. And guess what? To rave reviews! In the deranged mental landscape of its mentally deluded supporters at least, everyone else just thinks it’s rather shit. The Verge thought it was spectacularly rubbish, in one of those “Oh shit, I really don’t want to actually say how shit this is, let’s just fire of meaningly bullshit and give it a low-grade” ways. Joystiq went slightly harder, more honest, to work, and called the UOYA: “The Infinite Garage Sale”, presuming the damn thing ever get’s out to all 60000 users, and not just to the roughly thirty it’s reached so far, You can even get a picture of the Hardware if you check this one out, you will have to scroll, a lot.

And of course, the marketing machine went fucking haywire. And unleashed every single one of their awe-inspiring weapons of sales directed psychology. Or that’s what those maniacs thought they did, for the rest of sanity, this is what they did:

They claimed that reviews shouldn’t be made, until after the OKLHA had been released, because, get this, it wasn’t “ready” for reviews. How the hell does anyone even remotely believe this? Even after Uhrman’s insanity made her claim the damn thing was “finished”, and hey, seeing as no one’s actually getting this stupid thing, I guess she was rightWRONG.

WHY? YOU FUCKING MORONS! WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

I guess the HOKAH is only really useful, as a very expensive decorative item. A decorative item designed by Yves Béhar, a big fan of boxes, squares and useless overhyped junk. apparently he’s biggest credentials is his involvement with some “Laptops for kids” initiative, not sure what a designer does on a charity project, money’s better spent elsewhere, just go use IBMs old laptop design, cheap, indestructible, perfect.

The OUYA isn’t anything new and shiny, there’s been attempts to make Open platforms before, many attempts at “indie” consoles, all have faded into obscurity, none has ever taken off, this is just another Ngage, CDi and almost a Phantom.

The OUYA was stupid when I saw it on Kickstarter, it’s still fucking stupid, if you think otherwise, then do I have an offer for you! A free Eiffel Tower, only 100 US£, slightly used.

Philip “Ragnarokz” Balfour, is a useless hack, you shouldn’t read this.

Culture

Oh dear me.

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Awesome

What the hell is wrong with you? Yes, you, the insignificant waste of air, that have miraculously manged to type in the URL into the address bar. But wait, you haven’t typed in any URL, you’ve just went to and vomited forth some pseudo-relevant search parameter into your favourite internet “browser” Google.

Your power of internet research, is truly an awesome sight, indeed.

Oh Champion of Bollocks and papier-mache! Oh Commander of vague bestiality and furry webcomics! Oh Padishah of the way, way, way to long incomprehensible insults.

Moving on, or at the very least away from that, we never really move on, we only move slightly to the left, and then we move to a parking garage in the hidden city of Submerged Lincoln.

Does that make sense? Of course not, it is not supposed to, confusion, creature, is the order of the day. And you little maggots will just have to suffer, you read me? SUFFER!

Because? Because? Your suffering? It’ll make yu stronger. The world isn’t some Twilight-esque dreamworld, and you do not look handsome, beautiful or presentable.

At best, you look fat or awkward. And there aren’t any vampires out there, and even if there was, why would they want to have anything to do with some butter encrusted landwhale of a far-arse. Only maniacs have an interested in impulse-weak land-bags. Now go eat a donut, to sate your depression.

And again, off on a tangent, a tangent way off the track. What track?

Oh.

Whoops.

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Omerta – City of Gangsters deserves concrete shoes

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Omerta – City of Gangsters deserves concrete shoes

Omerta – City of Gangsters is a turn based tactical strategy game, blended into a crime simulator, set in prohibition era Atlantic City. Or is it? It isn’t. It’s a shallow crime building simulator, where combat encounters are done via turn based tactical action, similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Or is it? It kinda isn’t. It’s actually a shallow crime building simulator, with a nor terrible impressive turn based combat encounter system bolted to it, and the similarity to XCOM is strictly theoretical.

It’s the latest game from Haemimont Games, known for their remastering of the Tropico franchise, and horribly overpriced German publisher Kalypso Media, known for their outdated habit of demanding preposterous sums for shallow games, small DLC and similar such villanous deeds. Like demanding 30€ and more for this wreck of a game. For fucks sake guys, i loved Tropico 4, stop doing this shit, Dungeons was a pile of useless waste too.

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Now that I’ve mentioned Tropico 4, I can mention it some more! Wait, just kidding, you’re not getting the pleasure of me talking about a good game, I was going to mention who they’re using the same damned engine, thus cutting costs even further, hell, it even reuses several bits and pieces of Tropico’s art assets, even a couple of voice actors get paid again. Should mention that they voice actors are actually very good, and have, duty done.

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Crime Simulators doesn’t pay.

Omerta – City of Gangsters is simple, and due to it’s simplicity, it’s easy as hell to play. The simulation have a theme of duality. Illegal (dirty) and legal (clean) cash, liked and feared ratings, joints and premises. The dirty cash is used for the setup of illegal activities, the clean for construction sites and little else. Liked ratings improve some activities, mostly gambling, and feared makes shit cheaper and pawn shops better. Not that you would ever build more than one speakeasy, boxing ring and similar, seeing as diminishing returns makes yet another ugly appearance here.

The gameplay is nice and simple, you rent joints and premises, and make your money using a limited range of illegal and semi-legal activities, some are logical, like speakeasies and nightclubs needing supplies of beer from breweries and liquor from disteleries, in order to rake in the dough. Other? Less so. Like the pizzaria that makes people fear you? I really don’t recall the part of the Godfather where Don Corleone spread fear through a fucking pizza hut.

Throughout most of the empire-building parts of the game, your opposition is pre-programmed and lacking, little if any AI will present you with any opposition, and the lack of any sort of logically located speed-up function can and will make the game hideous and slow.

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XCOM is weeping for it’s lesser cousin, for it has lost its way.

The turn based combat, oh dear merciful Eris, daughter of Chaos, preserve us all, it’s not very good. I’ll make a presumption, and presume that you have all played the new XCOM:Enemy Unknown, which I know declare the benchmark of turn-based squad gameplay.

Omerta’s connection to the shinning beacon of XCOM, is technical at best, in XCOM, cover was basically everywhere you could see, a tree was cover, a car, a wall. In Omerta? Only where the programmers have determined it to be, can you find cover, so where it’s instinctual in XCOM, it becomes illogically flawed in Omerta.

The complete lack of any serious customization beyond slightly better guns makes the game even shallower. There’s no armour, so when the game ramps up the difficulty, oh boy, does shit ever die. It becomes a matter of luck if you can even manage to drag all your gangsters through a combat mission.

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Should I play this?

No. You really shouldn’t, perhaps with an expansion pack it might become more interesting, and if Steam comes around with a giant sale, you could pick it up, if you are so desperate for a Gangster empire builder.

If you chose to ignore me, you can find it on Steam and on GOG.com.

However, if you want a tough-as-nails crime simulator? I suggest Gangsters: Organized Crime. With the warning, that I suck at it.

I give it 36/100.

Culture

In the dreaming city

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In the dreaming city, beyond the unfathomable realms, rest the sprawling pit of never-ending despair.

From this pit, beyond comprehension, an eternal dirge, devastating, beautiful, spews forth, without pause, relentless, eternal, dreadful, enchanting.

Those who hear, see nothing, those who see, die. Those who refuse that which cannot be denied, suffer.

Suffer, pain, madness and dreams.

Dreams of slithering, twisting, writing, corrupting, endless, void-bound horror.

To hear, to see, to voice, is to lament forevermore.

Culture

Prayer for the mad and the free

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Blessed be those.
Those who struggle.
Those who suffer.
Those who silence.

Blessed be those.
Those who turn.
Those who till.
Those who torture.

Blessed be she.
She who laments
She who let’s.
She who looks.

Blessed be he.
He who murder.
He who miss.
He who mystify.

Blessed be those.
Those who search.
Those who scream.
Those who submit.