1527: Trope-ical Crush

The word "tropes" has taken on something of a pejorative meaning in recent years, but I find something oddly comforting about the use of common, established, recognisable tropes — particularly when it comes to Japanese entertainment. I also find it interesting that Japanese entertainment — both games and anime — is a lot more willing to fully embrace the idea of tropes as part of the medium's language rather than attempting to hide what it's doing.

Take the common character tropes, for example. In a typical "harem" situation (usually a male protagonist surrounded by female characters, one of whom is typically positioned as the "main" love interest, but the others of whom are optionally also either interested in the protagonist or the objects of the protagonist's affections) you tend to have your tsundere, your kuudere, your childhood friend, your "princess" type, your genki girl and, depending on how many characters are involved, numerous others. And yet the predictability of this type of cast makeup, for me, doesn't prove to be tiresome; quite the opposite, in fact. I enjoy being able to point to the various characters and say "well, she's clearly… and she's clearly…" because it provides a recognisable, established starting point for these characters that can then subsequently be built on over the course of the rest of the work.

Exactly how — or if — these tropes are built upon by the work depends entirely on the work in question. Some works embrace the established tropes wholeheartedly and make the characters into textbook examples of the character types they initially appear to be: a valid approach. Conversely, some works deliberately work to subvert the tropes they establish in their early hours with some surprising twists and turns for the characters: also a valid approach. And, for some archetypes, subversion of expectations is part of the trope itself: witness the tsundere, for example — usually frowning, overly defensive and, at times, somewhat aggressive — and how her character arc typically involves her "softening" and showing her deredere side. Or the yandere — quiet and meek, but with something seriously unpleasant festering inside that demure exterior. Knowing that at some point she's going to strike doesn't diminish the impact when it happens; if she's a particularly well-disguised yandere, it's even more shocking and surprising.

I'm a fan of tropes, then; I enjoy that feeling of comforting familiarity that comes about when I come across a new character and recognise their traits. And everyone has their favourites, too; for me, I must confess to having a soft spot for tsunderes, but I do also like a kuudere and there's always something heartwarming about a nice childhood friends romance. And the older sister "nee-chan" type. And a cutie imouto. And… Oh dear. (Essentially, I think I'm saying that my ideal anime harem would be made up of the cast of My Girlfriend is the President.)

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to bed to read TVTropes. (Warning if you're at work: settling down for a "quick read" of that site is a good way to lose a few hours.)

1526: Skirting Shadows

I "finished" Senran Kagura Burst last night. Well, more accurately, I finished Senran Kagura: Skirting Shadows, also known as the Hanzou Academy side of the game's two-part story. On that side of things, there's still a bunch of bonus levels to complete, plus attempting to A-Rank everything and complete everything in Frantic mode, and then there's the same for the Hebijo girls, too, so optimistically I should be looking at at least 40 hours of gameplay in total. Not bad at all.

I've really enjoyed what I've played so far, and I'm a particular fan of how well the package as a whole caters to different play styles. If you have a few minutes, you can pick up and play a level or two without worrying about plot; each level takes no more than a minute or two to play, and is a lot of fun, particularly with how different all the characters play from one another. If you have a longer period of time available, however, you can play through the story levels you haven't touched (with accompanying, lengthy visual novel sequences), or concentrate on trying to perfect a particular level for an A Rank, or levelling up a favourite character until you have her best moves.

I was impressed with the story, which was enjoyably mundane throughout despite being about two clans of warring ninjas. The most interesting moments were the ones where the characters were just hanging out eating sushi or chatting among themselves; the most meaningful moments as the "good" shinobi of the Hanzou Academy come to realise that their "evil" counterparts from Hebijo perhaps aren't as different from them as they all once thought.

Perhaps most notable, though, and I'm aware I've touched on this before, is the fact that throughout the story, the characters are treated with the utmost respect by the scenario writers. The game may be notorious for its gelatinous breasts and panty shots and it may be true that beating the story allows you to blow into the 3DS microphone in an attempt to peek up the girls' skirts, but as characters, Asuka, Katsuragi, Ikaruga, Yagyuu and Hibari are well-defined individuals, each in possession of a decent character arc (particularly so in the case of Hibari) and each designed to "feel" very much like a real person. There's a few recognisable tropes in there — Ikaruga's class president and Katsuragi's perverted older sister nature spring immediately to mind — but the game is set up in such a way that they all feel like much more than just eye candy or pure fanservice. I have no doubt that the Hebijo story path will be much the same when I come to it.

I'm looking forward to the possibility of the other games in the series making it to Western territories, and very much hope that they do. There's a strong cast of loveable characters here, and it would be great to see them explored further. Whether or not that happens will presumably depend on sales of the first, but the fact that Xseed localised it in the first place (and Marvelous AQL Europe brought it to Europe in physical format) gives me a considerable degree of hope. As "niche interest" as games like Senran Kagura Burst are, they fulfil an important role in the industry and give people like me that pleasant feeling of "yes, this is a game for me" rather than the dumbed-down, lowest-common-denominator nature of a lot of mainstream titles.

Now I'm feeling a bit shitty (yes, still) so I'm off to bed to snuggle up with the ample bosoms of Hanzou Academy, and there isn't a thing you can do to stop me!

1525: Through the Maelstrom

Final Fantasy XIV gets its second major "big patch" next week, and my Free Company and I are looking forward to it a great deal. Like the previous big update A Realm Awoken, Through the Maelstrom, as it's known, not only adds a bunch of new content, but also some tweaks, refinements and additions to the game system as a whole.

Top of the priority list for many players is not any of this new content, however; it's a simple addition known as Glamours, otherwise known as the game's long-awaited vanity system.

For those unfamiliar, a vanity system in an MMO is pretty much what it sounds like: it's the opportunity to customise your character's appearance however you see fit rather than being restricted to the default appearance of the equipment you're wearing. There are pros and cons to both approaches: having gear with distinct appearances means that you can quickly and easily judge at a glance roughly what level (and class) a particular player is at, for example, but it does mean that everyone has something of a tendency to look the same, particularly at high level. Conversely, a vanity system allows players to look however they want at the expense of that visual shorthand that says "yes, I am an average item level 80 Black Mage ready for some hot Binding Coil of Bahamut action".

On balance, in a socially-centred game such as an MMO, the opportunity for players to express themselves as they see fit is probably the best in the long run. After all, an MMO character is an extension of yourself, your avatar in the virtual space, and something you've worked hard to develop over the course of many weeks and months — so why the hell shouldn't they look and dress how you'd like them to? There's nothing stopping you wearing the distinctive "uniform" of your class if you still want to, of course, but with the presence of a vanity system you can take that step away from the herd, too.

I haven't fully decided on the outfits for my various classes as yet, though my rough "theme" is that I want my character to look more feminine. (She is a lady, after all.) Mage gear in particular isn't terribly flattering, being all baggy robes, hoods and silly hats, so I'm contemplating a new black mage ensemble for her in the form of a slinky, sexy black dress (or, more accurately, skirt and top combo that looks a bit like a slinky, sexy black dress) and some dainty gloves, set off by a nice pair of shoes that don't look too ridiculous. I'm keeping an eye out for items that might fit the bill as I'm playing, and I have a feeling that the cloth "All Classes" items typically worn by crafters as they're levelling may just fit the bill nicely — though I'll probably stop short of the high-level ones that incorporate a garter belt on the outside of the incredibly snug skirt. Sexy, yes; impractical, uh, yes.

In short, yes, I have been thinking about Amarysse's new Eorzea Spring Collection far more than I perhaps should have been. And later in the week I'll be able to implement it, take her out into the dungeons and rack up the Player Commendations for my fetching ensembles. That or get a torrent of questions from people asking why I'm wearing crafting gear as a black mage. We'll see!

1524: I Love DIVA

I was editing some Dark Souls 2 walkthroughs the other day, thinking to myself that the idea of spider enemies that cause instant death if they fall on you didn't sound like very much fun at all, and that I didn't really want to play Dark Souls 2. Then I contemplated what I have been playing recently — and, more notably, how I've been playing it — and realised that perhaps I'm not quite so different from the Dark Souls nutcases.

I am referring to the Vita version of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f, a quite astonishingly excellent rhythm game starring the eponymous Vocaloid voice synthesiser personification and her similarly artificial friends. It's a game that encompasses a broad spectrum of electronic music, and has one of the best feelings of getting "into" the music that I've felt since plastic instrument-wielding games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Project Diva f is a rhythm game in the Japanese mould, in contrast to Rock Band and its ilk, however. This means that there is a strong focus on attaining absolute perfection, and then improving on it some more if at all possible. Specifically, there are two scoring systems at play: a "Grade" bar that goes from 0 to 100 per cent as you accurately tap or hold notes with the correct buttons or flicks of the touchscreen, and a more conventional numerical score that increases according to whether your taps, holds and flicks are "Cool" or "Good" (or, heaven forbid, "Safe", "Bad" or "Awful"). In order to get a "Perfect" rating on a track, you have to hit every single note with a "Cool" or "Good" rating, including nailing two challenging "Technical Zone" sections as well as an additional "Chance Time" section which is also used to trigger bonus events in the background music video of a track.

I got reasonably into the PS3 version of Project Diva F (the PS3 version has a capital F for some reason) but the usual music game audio-visual latency issues rear their head at times, making it an occasionally frustrating experience. You can manually calibrate the latency, but without an easy test function a la Rock Band it can be difficult to judge. This problem is not at all present on Vita — plus there's something a whole lot more satisfying about having the music right there in the palm of your hand. Consequently, I've got a lot more into the Vita version than the PS3 incarnation.

How much more? Well, I'm currently systematically working my way through the Normal difficulty and attempting to attain a Perfect rating on all the tracks. And I'm doing pretty well so far — though some of the later tracks are going to give me some grief, I can feel it. The challenge is something I relish, though; I enjoy the music, and the feeling of absolutely nailing a difficult track utterly flawlessly is hard to beat. Similarly, missing an easy note with a "Safe" is disappointing and a cue for an immediate restart. Yes, I'm being one of those players. But I'm having a blast — and this constant repetition, practice and improvement is just the same sort of thing that Dark Souls players are presently indulging in, albeit with more slobbering monsters rather than doe-eyed anime-style characters.

Once Normal mode is done with, it's onto Hard mode, and possibly Extreme if I'm feeling very brave. These two modes are significantly more difficult than the already challenging Normal mode, but I'm looking forward to taking them on; unlike the seemingly impossible harder difficulties of Rock Band et al, I feel that Project Diva f's harder difficulties are well and truly within reach — and that mastering them will be a gaming accomplishment to be proud of.

1523: This or That

I've said this before, and I'll almost certainly say it again numerous times, but I'm finding increasingly frequently these days that there's less of a correlation between perceived/agreed "quality" and things that I actually want to spend my time with, whether that's in TV, movies, anime or video games.

This isn't just a simple matter of, say, wanting to play "bad" games, though; as, again, I've said before, it's more to do with the fact that the "highest quality" games (by popular definition) tend to be the ones that play it most safe; the ones that stick to the established rules that will pretty much guarantee them a positive reception, whether that's mechanically or narratively. There's a reason why all "triple-A" games these days have very similar feelings and atmospheres about them — it's because that's what's been proven to work.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Upon reflection, I've come to the conclusion that the things I'm more interested in engaging with are the ones that allow me to bring something new to a conversation rather than regurgitating the same opinions that everyone else is espousing at the same time.

Take Dark Souls II, for example. A great game, no-one is going to deny that, but one for which your average online conversations about tend to run around and around in circles, usually involving one or another of the participants blurting out "Praise the Sun!" as if it's the height of wit. I have nothing to add to that conversation — at least partly because I haven't played Dark Souls II (I didn't like Dark Souls enough to want to invest in the sequel), but I doubt it would be different if I had.

Contrast with say, something I've played that other people haven't. It doesn't necessarily have to be an obscure game, just something that people might have passed up in favour of something like Dark Souls II or Titanfall. Immediately I have an in-road into an interesting conversation. "Have you played The Witch and the Hundred Knight?" is, for me, much more likely to lead into an interesting opportunity for a conversation and an opportunity to educate my conversational partner than "Have you played Titanfall?"

I've seen in happen in discussions with my friends before. A conversation that begins "have you played [game we've all played] before?" generally ends fairly quickly after we've done the requisite "oh, what about the bit where [cool thing happens]?" pleasantries. A conversation where I have the opportunity to tell someone about something cool they might not know about at all, however? That's hugely enjoyable; likewise, when I have the opportunity to learn about a type of game I don't normally consider from my friends, I relish the opportunity, too. I never would have considered the awesome things about Euro Truck Simulator, Crusader Kings 2 or all manner of other games out there had I not been willing to engage in conversation about them. I might not get around to playing some of those games in some cases — or if I do, there's no guarantee I'll like them — but I consider my life to be somewhat richer for knowing that they exist and that yes, there are people out there who love playing them, just as I love playing colourful anime games with big-eyed pretty girls in them.

But I've found this feeling extends somewhat to games that are in my wheelhouse, too; Bravely Default, for example. It's an astonishingly good, PS1-style JRPG, and yet when I think back on the games that I've played in the last few months, I look back much more fondly on the stranger, the more quirky and the more flawed titles rather than that, which is "objectively" (insofar as it is possible to be "objective" about the quality of a video game) better. I gave Bravely Default five stars when I reviewed it over at USgamer and I stand by that score, since it's great; when I come to look back on the most memorable games I played in 2014, however, I have little doubt that other titles are going to be far, far ahead of it.

This is what I like about gaming today, but it's also quite frustrating at times: there's a wealth of interesting, exciting and unusual games out there to play, but still the majority of conversation seems to fixate on the same one or two titles at the same time.

Perhaps I just need to make some new friends.

1519: Hidden Traitor

I've played quite a few "hidden role" board games recently, and I'm coming to enjoy them quite a bit.

Most recently, I've had the chance to have a go at Saboteur, Avalon and Quicksand, each of which have a very different feel to them but all make good use of the "hidden roles" mechanic. They're added to my list of "enjoyably backstabby games" that also contains the excellent Shadows Over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica.

Quicksand was a new one on me this evening, and it's an enjoyable, lightweight, "filler" title. It's a simple race game at heart, but the hidden role aspect makes it very interesting

There's six different characters, you see, and only you know which one is yours. On your turn, you can play cards from your hand to move one of the characters — one space per card played. Landing a character on a space of the same colour as themselves allows you to discard any number of cards from your hand and then draw back up to a full hand; otherwise, you simply replenish your hand at the end of the turn without discarding anything. Consequently, the game becomes about shifting the other pieces around to get an optimal hand of cars, then storming ahead with your own character — though naturally, there's the opportunity to fuck with each other thanks to Quicksand cards, which immobilise a character until you play an extra card of the correct colour.

Saboteur, meanwhile, was an interesting little game that not only had hidden roles, but also asymmetrical play. Taking on the role of dwarves, two teams are racing to be the first to dig their way to the gold, but playing alongside them is at least one Saboteur, who is aiming to deplete the deck of cards as quickly as possible; a Geologist, who is aiming to get as many "crystal" cards on the table as possible; a Captain, who is aiming to help one of the teams to win; and… and… possibly something else I've forgotten but can't be bothered to look up because I feel like crap and just want to get this post over and done with. (Hey. At least I'm honest.)

Avalon, on the other hand, is a completely different beast again. In this game, several of the players are around the table are loyal knights of King Arthur, while the others are evil people of various descriptions. Through an enjoyably silly "open your eyes, close your eyes" sequence at the outset, certain characters know who each other are but others don't, and from there it's a matter of assigning people to "quests" and then hoping they don't vote that it fails. It's actually a pretty simple, relatively quick game to play, but the amount of interaction around the table makes it a lot of fun and, I would have thought, a fun party game for those willing to invest a little time to learn the rules.

I really do feel awful now so I'm going to go to bed and hope I feel better in the morning. Apologies for the bluntness but, you know. Whatever. Later!

1518: New Media

I've been contemplating the ways that people "consume" (ugh, I hate that word, but it seems to be the one in use most frequently these days) content online, and trying to determine a way it could be applied to our currently-stalled podcast over at The Squadron of Shame.

The Squadron of Shame SquadCast certainly worked extremely well for the episodes we did it for, but it did often end up being a little more demanding on the editing time than I would have liked, particularly as we're all amateurs making use of not-brilliant equipment that often results in things like background hum, echo and other annoying flaws that are difficult to edit out. Much of my editing time was often spent manually trimming out echoes and funny noises, and in the case of a 2-3 hour episode — which most of our episodes tended to be — it would take the majority of the day to do this.

One of the things I'm wondering right now is how relevant the podcast format still is. Obviously I know that there's enough of a market for sites like Giant Bomb to keep making one every week, and for established podcasting personalities like Garnett Lee to be able to start a new show and have people follow him to see what he's up to. But I'm also conscious of the rise of alternative means of "consuming" (blech) content in the last couple of years, with YouTube being one particularly disruptive influence, and live broadcasts such as Twitch streaming and Google Hangouts being another.

Awareness of these alternative forms of media has made me ponder whether the standard podcast format is absolutely the best possible thing for the SquadCast going forward, or whether it's worth contemplating an alternative means of presentation (with an accompanying means of archiving/downloading where necessary.)

The SquadCast has always been a "book group" style of discussion surrounding a game or gaming-related topic, and it's worked well for us in the past. But gaming is also an inherently visual medium, which makes me wonder whether some form of video presentation might be worth experimenting with, perhaps combined with live broadcasting.

Another reason I bring this up is that Skype, which we have previously used to talk to one another and record the discussions we have, has become a largely unworkable mess ever since Microsoft bought it, making it impossible for me to "archive" the complete conversation just in case someone's individual recording fails to work properly. I haven't needed this facility on many occasions, but on the couple where someone's recording was destroyed by Audacity's frequent crashes, having that backup facility was a godsend. With the way Skype works now, though — you can't run it in more than one user account on a Mac at once, which is what I used to do — working this way is impossible without an unnecessarily convoluted setup involving more than one computer.

What I've been pondering is making use of something like Google Hangouts, which allows for a number of features that would seem ideal for a discussion about games. It allows participants to converse via either audio or video chat, and it also allows for the footage of the participants to be intercut with other things such as videos from YouTube and the like. For example, while discussing a particularly interesting scene in a game, making use of Google Hangouts would allow you to find that scene on YouTube and then broadcast it to the people watching the Hangout, which strikes me as an eminently good idea. Presumably it would also allow for playing footage while the conversation continues over the top, which is a little more interesting than just gazing at a bunch of talking heads for a few hours.

Google Hangouts can also be easily archived to YouTube, and then one of the many YouTube-to-MP3 converters out there can be used to archive an offline version of the discussion's audio, which can subsequently be released as a standard podcast for those who wish to continue listening in that way. It'll be rawer due to the lack of editing and its inherently live nature, but I've often felt when I edit a show that I was making the job a lot more difficult and time-consuming than it really needed to be.

Anyway. I'm just thinking out loud here. Interested to know your thoughts, though, particularly if you've been either a listener or a participant in the SquadCast at any point in the past. (Those who are neither, you can educate yourself thanks to our archives here.)

1517: The Misunderstood Fan

It can be a trying task being a fan of something at times. And by "fan" I don't mean "rabid, frothing fanboy/fanmadam" (thanks NISA); I mean simply someone who has a particular preference for something, and who will, in many cases, indulge in that thing to the exclusion of other, perhaps more "mainstream" things.

Since pretty much "coming out" as a fan of visual novels, anime and associated goodness around the time Katawa Shoujo was released, I've run into this issue a number of times. In the case of Japanese entertainment, the cultural rift between East and West means that some people are less than understanding about certain aspects of what our friends in the East produce.

And perhaps that's understandable in some cases; even as a fan of a broad spectrum of Japanese entertainment, I'll happily admit that there's plenty of content — primarily around the area where sex and violence cross over — that makes me uncomfortable, and so I deliberately choose not to expose myself to that sort of thing. ("Discovering" Urotsukidoji in my teens was quite enough, thanks.) It exists, though, and I can deal with that; it's simply something I choose not to engage with. (I also don't believe for a second that it's actually harmful — to believe as such is to show an alarming lack of faith in humanity's ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, and a similarly alarming willingness to believe that everyone is stupid enough to just want to emulate everything they see. Sometimes fantasy is just fantasy.)

The trouble comes when people start to assume the worst about an entire culture's output based on some of its more questionable or discomfort-provoking aspects, or even, in some cases, based on things they just think they know — the "lol Japan" approach.

Let's take the recently released Senran Kagura as an example. Here we have a game that explores and respects its characters in great detail — going so far as to give each and every one of them their moment in the spotlight in lengthy, well-written visual novel sequences — that also happens to feature characters with big jiggly boobs who occasionally flash their pantsu. Are the jiggly boobs and pantsu necessary? Of course they're not, but they don't detract from all the other good stuff that the game is doing — and frankly, what is there to be ashamed of there, anyway? Senran Kagura's cast is depicted to be a bunch of strong, independent young women who are more than capable of taking care of themselves and who are, above all, confident and comfortable in who they are and what they look like. (Those who have played it will know that the possible exception to this rule is Hibari, but her own character arc revolves around her coming to terms with her own inferiority complex; the end result is her accepting herself, flaws and all, and recognising that she doesn't have to go it alone.)

Admirable traits, I'm sure you'll agree, and so what does commentary about the game focus on? You guessed it; the jiggly boobs and the pantsu. And the aggression with which these criticisms are delivered is astonishing — take this outstandingly vitriolic takedown of the game that appeared not on someone's personal blog, but on the official Nintendo magazine's website. Or take the comments that habitually appear on any article about the game, which usually involve accusations of those who enjoy the game being "perverts" or, in more extreme cases "paedophiles". It's gross and disgusting, and it makes my heart sink any time I see it. And there's no point trying to argue your case against these people; they're people who have made their minds up about something, and have no interest in changing it.

For what it's worth, I'm firmly of the belief that there's not actually anything wrong with enjoying the fanservicey aspects of titles like Senran Kagura and its ilk; acknowledging your own sexuality is a healthy thing to do, and finding something that isn't real attractive does not necessarily say anything about your attitudes towards a real-world equivalent. Indeed, I'll happily admit to having been attracted to some Japanese titles purely by the fanservice aspect, whether it's video games or anime; in pretty much every single case, I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that beneath the often in-your-face sexuality of some works, there beats a heart of gold; in many cases, I've even discovered that the fanservice aspect is a lot "tamer" than a lot of people tend to make out, and the whole point of it is actually to tell an interesting story with some loveable and, yes, attractive characters. (There's also some stuff that purely exists to be sexy, and that, too, is both fine and can be enjoyable.)

Here's the thing: I, like, I'd wager, pretty much anyone else who enjoys anime and other Japanese forms of entertainment, am capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality — and anime-themed entertainment is so obviously fantasy that I find it very difficult to take the more vitriolic criticisms of it seriously, particularly when they're delivered with such furious anger that it often becomes clear that the one raging has very little actual experience with the work in question beyond the most superficial knowledge — see that Official Nintendo Magazine piece.

I often find myself wondering if fans of other niche interests find themselves subject to similar scorn. Is one of my dearest friends, who is such a fan of heavy machinery (whether military or agricultural) that he describes his reaction to various hulking metal beasts in terms of how "tumescent" they make him, likewise a "pervert" for talking about things in this way? Of course not. Whether or not they really do make him tumescent is neither here nor there, and is nothing but his own business; his own personal interest in such things is something that is important to him, something that I respect and something that, on several occasions, has in fact led me to checking out things that I otherwise never would have explored for myself at all. An ultimately positive experience, in other words.

It's a pity that not everyone feels they can be open-minded about things not immediately familiar to them, and instead jump to conclusions without bothering to investigate them for themselves. It happens in all aspects of society, not just the ultimately not-all-that-important really fandoms of various forms of entertainment, and it sucks every time it comes up, particularly when I see it upsetting people I know and like. (Or when it upsets me which, I won't lie, it has done on a number of occasions.)

Live and let live. And perhaps, just once, ask your friend what it is about [x] that they like so much. Be willing to take a look for yourself and reconsider your opinion.

And if you still don't like it? Don't be an ass to people who do.

1516: New Dawn for the Galaxy

Been looking forward to this weekend not only for the fact I had the aforementioned shitty week, but also because it's been planned for quite a while to be a weekend of board gaming goodness, perhaps punctuated with a jaunt into starship bridge simulator Artemis tomorrow once everyone is here.

Tonight, however, we played Eclipse, a game which we've had a good crack at on several occasions but never actually finished. Tonight, with no commitments, no-one needing to get home in the morning or any other considerations, we finally played a full game, and it was a lot of fun.

Eclipse, for those unfamiliar, is a sci-fi "4X" (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) strategy game in which each player is attempting to build the best galactic civilisation over the course of nine rounds. You do this through a combination of researching new technology, improving the ships and starbases of your fleet, exploring the cosmos and gradually expanding your sphere of influence across the galaxy. Meanwhile, your opponents are all attempting to the same thing, too, but interestingly — and unlike a multiplayer game of Sid Meier's classic 4X title Civilization, there's rarely a feeling that the game is forcing you into direct conflict against other players — indeed, the majority of our game tonight was a fairly peaceful affair, with most people building up their empires in relative isolation, but there's a pleasing feeling of "cold war" throughout; the sensation that, at any moment, things could erupt into unpleasant hostilities.

This happened in the last round of the game, with several daredevil attacks and the unfortunate loss of a couple of my systems. I still managed to come second, though, which is considerably better than I usually do in strategy games.

The thing I particularly like about Eclipse is how well designed it is. Your player information board may be full to bursting with small wooden cubes and discs, but the way the game asks you to place these and move them around means that you can always see the state of your empire at an easy glance. Take more actions in a round and your cost of upkeep will be higher; have more cubes taken off your population stock and you'll reveal higher numbers for production of money, science and resources. It works really well.

The research system is also rather neat; it reminds me a little of the PC game Endless Space in some ways in that you have basic "blueprints" for your various ships and can upgrade and retrofit them over the course of the game according to the situation. And there's a lot of flexibility, too; I saw some mid-game success with interceptors and cruisers outfitted with powerful missiles and efficient targeting computers, while in the late game two of my opponents were slugging it out with immensely heavily armoured but not all that powerfully-armed vessels, leading to a lengthy exchange of dice rolls as they attempted to whittle one another down.

It's a long game and a complete pain in the arse to set up due to the sheer number of pieces there are to lay out in appropriate places. There's also a fairly hefty element of luck regarding things like initial placement and whether or not you come across powerful alien technologies to immediately add to your ship blueprints, but there's also a pleasant feeling of being able to approach the game in your own way. I tend not to be an overly warlike player when playing something like Civilization against the computer, so I appreciate a tabletop game that doesn't necessarily force me into direct conflict against another player until it becomes apparent that things are otherwise at a stalemate. (As it stands, I should have probably prepared better for the attack that came in the final turn, but eh; I'm happy with second place.)

The expansion supposedly improves the game in a number of areas, so we're probably going to check it out at some point. This one is very much a "weekend game" though; it's not one you can easily get through on a weeknight evening!

1515: Bring On the Weekend

I'm having a fairly shitty week. Not only have I not been feeling particularly 100% for a lot of it (though since I took that day off to rest and recuperate a bit, the rest of the week seems to have flown by) but a lot of things have been going frustratingly wrong, too. Nothing major or anything; just a mountain of tiny annoyances that, when added all together, just make me want to throw things.

For one thing, our coffee machine broke. It's been working perfectly for ages — about 13 months, if our receipt is to be believed — but the other day it just decided that no, it was no longer going to pour coffee out of its spout; instead, it thought it would be a much better idea to pour the coffee inside itself instead. (I don't even know how or why that is happening; there's nothing blocking the spout or anything, so I can only assume one of the bits that goes voonkarankachank when you turn it on has stopped moving to where it goes clunk.) Hopefully we should be able to return it to where we got it and get it replaced, though. If not, it's taking a trip back to Nespresso.

Then my laptop's battery buggered up again. I only had this fixed back in January, and now it's stopped charging again. Well, no, that's not quite true — Windows says it's charging and it works absolutely fine when plugged into the mains, but the battery percentage never gets off 0%. The Internet says I should try freezing it, but I'm not doing that. Fortunately, given that the machine was repaired not all that long ago, Novatech, bless 'em, are going to take a look and repair it for free. Their customer service has been consistently excellent any time I've needed it — which is mercifully infrequently with both my desktop and laptop systems I got from them — and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to others.

Then some documentation I sent off in order to cash in some investment I don't really understand that my parents had been holding for me didn't arrive at its destination, which has delayed me coming into possession of a pleasingly large amount of money which I could do with to do things like pay off my credit card and, you know, pay for things with the new house.

None of this issues are "game-breaking" as they can all be resolved pretty easily; it's just frustrating when all this shit happens at the same time — the same day, in the case of the latter two. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long to get them all sorted out and I can get back to being pissy at people who won't talk about anything but Titanfall.

For now, I'm off to bed with Hatsune Miku. On the Vita. Yes.