Let's review video games: Age of Mythology. Are the gods stronger than Empires?

Platform: PC - Microsoft Windows (XP or later), Mac OS X
Title: Age of Mythology
Developer/ Development Team: Ensemble Studios
Publisher:  Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: October 30 2002
Genre: Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
No. of Players: Single player campaign with up to 12 players in a multiplayer match
Where to buy it: On Steam or second-hand at your local EB or Gamestop store/s
M.S.R.P.: $19.99
ESRB Rating: Teen for Blood and Violence

An old relic from isometric view RTS games, Age of Mythology stands out as one of the stronger ones. Having good graphics for its time, an epic soundtrack and impressive voice acting for its campaign, it was definitely an RTS you could play for hours just on your own. It doesn't stop there either, Age of Mythology (or AoM for short) could feature up to 12 players either online or on a LAN connection, with a plethora of in-game maps to use. Developed by Ensemble Studios, the same people who brought us the often heralded Age of Empires (AoE) franchise, it's no surprise that these games function so similarly to each other. The game features three different races, as opposed to AoE's one or two dozen, the ancient Greek, Egyptian and Norse (a.k.a. Nord's or Vikings).

From an aesthetics stand point, the game looked impressive for it's time, with the trees and various other flora and fauna being incredibly detailed. AoM does feature a high detail and low detail mode that changes how the game looks, it's best to go on low when you're playing with huge numbers of people or you're on a machine with a CPU lower than an I5 or A6 chip. The weapons and amour sets of the various soldiers of each race match the time and the buildings of each race also match the era that they come from. The game uses an isometric overhead view of the world which, in most games would infuriate you, works here because you can turn on an option in the menu to allow you to turn the isometric around using the scroll wheel of your mouse. Since the game requires little CPU and GPU power, a modern baseline laptop can easily play the game at 30 fps.

The soundtrack and sound effects are amazing. The soundtrack changes depending upon the race you play, with the Greeks having a lot of string and brass instruments, the Egyptians having a lot of drums and the Norse just have a lot of aggressive sounding music. Just like AoE, the units will say different phrases when doing different actions. The baseline Infantry, Cavalry and Archers share a lot of the phrases of different races, but specific heroes like Odysseus or the Norse Hersir have unique voices and often have unique phrases as well. The voice acting through the campaign is superb, holding up incredibly well for an early 2000's game. The emotion really pulls through in the voice acting as well, immersing you even further into the world.

The gameplay is solid as far as RTS games go. It's mostly copy-paste of AoE since it's a direct spin-off so I won't go too much into the base stuff. Instead I'd like to focus on the major differences in how the two franchises operate. First off, Stone is gone as a resource. No more do you have to look for tiny stone veins across the lands to build your Fortress/ Migdol Stronghold/ Hill Fort. This also means that Walls no longer cost stone either, instead only requiring 3 x 1 in game metre (baseline) gold. New units were added in the forms of heroes and mythical beasts. Heroes do more damage to myth units and are generally good overall. Different races have different kind of units; the Greeks have one unit per age, the Egyptians have Priests, Pharaoh's and if you worship Osiris, the Son of Osiris, and the Norse have the Hersir.

Ancient Greek heroes are the strongest in the game (after the Son of Osiris) and can take on many soldiers or even myth units at once, hence why there is only one per age. The Egyptian Priests and Pharaoh are generally terrible to begin with, having awful range and attack, but this increases with each age you advance. The Norse Hersir is a hero version of their baseline infantry, the Ulfsark. They do slightly less damage but have better overall bulk, sporting better Health, Hack and Pierce armour. The other new units are the Myth units, which are trained from the new temples of each race. These myth units are based on the Mythology of the ancient civilizations, for e.g. the Minotaur from Ancient Greece, the Mountain and Frost Giants from Ancient Nordic culture, and the Petsuchos from Ancient Egypt. For the most part, they have special abilities. New abilities were brought in called 'God Powers' that work surprisingly well given the way the game functions. They're not entirely game breaking but can turn a loss into a win if you play your cards right. The game also features a tutorial mode as opposed to AoE which did not, and the tutorial mode is solid. It eases you into gameplay and teaches you what you need to know.

However, not all is well with the game. Just like AoE it suffers from having terrible in-game AI, being almost stagnant in multiplayer modes and making the campaign incredibly easy unless you're either new to RTS games or aren't playing the game on Hard or even Titan mode. The game is 1020p capable but not native, so if you play in windowed mode you may experience some frame rate issues. Speaking of, if you're playing on a mid-range PC against 9 other players or more, you're fps can tank to below 30 fps every now and then. The in-built maps can get old fast but thankfully you can find more maps online made by modders. Speaking of modders, you can get various mods to change how the game looks.

Overall the game is fantastic for its time and plays extremely well, on- and off-line. The story of the main campaign is solid, the overall voice acting holds up well, the new units balance the game extremely well and the loss of gold as a resource means less overall micro-management. I'd easily recommend the game in its current state and look forward to the release of the extended edition on Steam. An 8/10 overall.

Overall rating: 8/10 - A must buy for RTS fans, new and old alike.

Let's review video games: Antichamber - The most break your mind logic game

That's right, this will be my first video game review on this blog and I decided to do a review of a game I recently finished and had a lot of fun playing, Antichamber.

Platform: PC - Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
Title: Antichamber
Developer/ Development team: Alexander Bruce (Developer), Robin Arnott (Sound Design) and Siddhartha Barnhoorn (Music)
Release date: Jan 31st 2013
Genre: Logic/ Platformer
No. of Players: Single Player
Where to buy it: Steam
R.R.P.: $19.99 USD or your regional equivalent

Antichamber is an interesting little game that was released in January of 2013. The game has little to no story at all and the premise is simple, using critical thinking skills combined with straightforward platforming, you have to get to the end. The "logic" of the game as such is mind-bending and forces a lot of "out of the box" thinking. The difficulty of the game really depends upon how good the player is with solving puzzles and adapting to the rules of the world, and thus changes play-time. According to feedback on the website, it can take anywhere between 3 hours and 20+ hours. However, first playthroughs are never less than at least 8 hours due to the nature of the game and how hard the puzzles are after about halfway. My first playthrough took 30+ hours of on and off gametime, it's not a game that you can complete in one go. There are also little moral tidbits in the game that get you thinking about life. There are over 120 of these and they are all relevant in day to day life.

Aesthetically the games looks absolutely amazing, utilizing the Unreal 3 engine to such a full extent. The colours and textures of the game blend simplicity and complexity amazingly, giving a very unique look to the game that I have rarely seen before. There are no mirrors so we never know what the main character looks like, but the "gun" that he/ she uses looks marvelous. The complexity of the design is apparent, yet with a circular design it gives the illusion of being surprisingly simple as well, thus adding even more to the simple/ complex core that the graphics gives the game. The game is fully HD capable with a 1920 x 1200 resolution capibility. It also features a windowed mode but I have never been able to get that to work, the game ends up crashing every time I try it. There really isn't much more to say, the game looks fantastic.

The sound effects match the theme of the game, being semi-futuristic in design and layout. However, there isn't a large variety, so after a while the sounds throughout the game can easily get repetitive and increasingly annoying the more you play, especially the gun sound effects. The soundtrack in the game is amazing, it's the most calming and relaxing soundtrack I have ever heard in the game, and it really gets you in the mood and mindset needed to conquer the game. However, it's hard to appreciate the soundtrack since the music is very rarely played in the game, thus you spend most of the game in complete silence. This is a double-edged sword, as most of the time, when there isn't music it makes solving some of the puzzles incredibly easy. However, at times when there is music the puzzles can be a little bit harder to solve due to the rhythm being out of place in contrast to the puzzle. When it fits, it really fits. Like I said, the soundtrack is amazing and should be appreciated whenever it's in the game.

So how is the gameplay in Antichamber? Well... it bodes really well for the genre it is. The gameplay is incredibly easy to pick up and master, allowing you to focus on the puzzles throughout the game. Generally with a lot of PC games, especially PC ports, using a keyboard with a game makes the controls a bit iffy. This is most certainly not the case with Antichamber. There are few things you need to worry about controlling in the game, and thus keyboard integration is easy to do. The game knows what it wants you to do and it does this incredibly well. The game also allows you to skip entire sections if you feel that you have learnt a sufficient amount of gameplay mechanics to confidently continue. There's not a whole lot I can say about gameplay, it's incredibly simple and the keyboard integration is exceptional. I must emphasize though that there is NO controller compatibility from what I can tell, meaning that keyboard and mouse is the only option you get. You can decide whether to invert the mouse or not and change the sensitivity of the mouse as well, but leaving that on default is often more beneficial.

Overall the game looks amazing, the gameplay is solid, the music holds up really well and the puzzles are definitely mind-bending. The rules of the world suit what the game is going for and the game achieves it's seemingly sole-purpose, to get you thinking throughout the entire game. This is definitely a must-buy for those of you that are fans of the logic based genre and I can easily recommend it to anyone who just wants to have a refreshingly simple yet complex title in their collection. I give it a 9/10.

Overall rating: 9/10 - A must buy. An excellent game for those that prefer logic based puzzle games.

Let's talk politics: Freedom and our inalienable rights

It's been a while since I wrote a politically driven article, it sure beats the monotony of the Pokémon articles I write. Anyhow, this article is going to be a discussion on freedom and our inalienable rights, with a contrast and comparison between two major countries of the western world, the U.S. and Australia.

So what is freedom, you may ask. Well, there are actually many different definitions; such as "exemption from external control, power to determine action without restraint, political or national independence, or personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery."¹ So what does this mean in a political sense? This means that the government has no right to dictate our lives or infringe upon the rights of the people; such as the right to self-defense, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and so on.

So what does this have to do with America? Well, in all actually this has everything to do with America. For those of you that know me, I may seem a bit distasteful of Americans, but in reality I look up to them. They stand up for their freedoms and rights, and they're supposed to be protected by the best constitution in the world. The U.S. constitution defends the inalienable rights of the people, protecting their right to free speech and self-defense in particular. The second amendment of the U.S. constitution states that "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This was set up by the founding fathers of America so that the people could effectively counter a tyrannical and all-powerful government. Such a government would be one where liberty is sacrificed for safety, and in the words of Benjamin Franklin;

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty

to purchase a little Temporary Safety,

deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

There cannot be a graver truth, and the most recent example in history is Barrack Obama's government. It's no secret that I'm not Obama's biggest fan, in fact I detest almost everything he stands for. He willfully ignores the constitution, and would rather rule through intimidation and restraint in attempts to restrict the freedoms of the people. He has, many times, advocated the need of copyright laws on the internet through lazily and vaguely written bills such as SOPA and PIPA. These bills are designed to ignore the fair use laws in America, which state that if used for critique or educational purposes, and all credit is given to the content creators, such content can be used. The bills are incredibly vague in their approach, but pretty much any content made by a party that goes online without their permission can arrest the person/s who put up the content in the first place, with prison sentences being up to a maximum of 15 years, depending upon how many charges are pressed. This means that, if the content is for a review, the critic can spend as much time as a murderer or rapist in jail. This makes no sense, but thankfully the bill has been shot down several times and is unconstitutional, which means it probably never would have gotten past the senate anyways. This is why I'm such a big fan of America, they have a constitution that protects and empowers the people, unlike Australia.

When I first heard that Australia had a constitution, I thought it was utter bullocks because I had always been told we don't have one. However, after doing some digging, I ended up finding a copy of it, and oh boy, no wonder nobody talks about it. The Australian constitution is one of the most disgusting political documents I have ever seen. It freely empowers the government and the Queen, allowing them to make whatever changes they want to law. This is extremely discerning news, as this allows the Government to freely discriminate against the people, oppressing the people and ruling as a dictatorship. This is most apparent in Queensland, which has been the topic of controversy lately.

In Queensland, the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment (VLAD for short) laws were passed some time in 2013, and boy have they been under fire since their incarnation. The VLAD laws were initiated by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman in 2013 as a bill that targets motorcycle gangs that commit illegal acts, such as drug trafficking, homicide and disrupting the peace. Nevermind the fact that bikies make up only 1-2% of overall criminal offenders in Queensland, the VLAD bill gives the police near-unlimited power, and are rather vague in the bills "anti-association" attempt. The bill states that if people in a group of three or more are wearing the same insignia, whatever that insignia may be, those people can be arrested by the police, no matter the scenario. This has effectively not only turned Queensland into a more police state than it already was, but renders the phrase "Innocent until proven guilty" useless. This is a perfect example of a tyrannical government that we cannot effectively stand against thanks to the numerous restrictions of the people.

Recently in Melbourne a bill was passed named the "Move On Act" which made protesting illegal. This was brought about because of anti-abortionists protesting outside an abortion clinic. Now, I detest anti-abortionists who would restrict the freedom of a woman's choice between having a baby or not, but I will vehemently protect their freedom of speech, regardless of their stupid opinions or not. This is yet another infringement of inalienable rights in Australia, yet people STILL remain apathetic in regards to the atrocities of the government. What it take to get through to them, being spied up- yeah that's already being done. Australia has been spying on its people since 1994, and just like the NSA, has been keeping it a secret from the people.

So, where do I stand on the issue? I stand on the side of freedom. This means that I stand behind the American constitution, and whilst it might not be my own, it may be in the future. The acts being committed by the government are atrocious, and I will never support such anti-people actions. The reason the U.S. constitution and Bill of Rights exist is because the forefathers knew that someday the government may get too big for its britches, that someday a militia may have to stand up for what is right and to protect the people that they care for and the values they hold. That and these documents protect the peoples inalienable rights.

What do you all think? Are you for giving up your freedoms for the security that the government promises, or are you like me and are against the government attempting to restrict your freedoms for security? Leave your comments and opinions below.

References:

¹. Dictionary.com, definition of "freedom:" http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom?s=t

My thoughts on Frozen

Warning: Major Spoilers alert. If you haven't watched Frozen yet, do NOT read this at all.

I don't blame people for saying that Frozen is a great movie, because it is, but for what I got it's... really overhyped. Olaf voice irritated me but he got a few laughs, some of the songs were really repetitive (*cough* First time in forever *cough*) and the villain turned out to be rather one-dimensional with the liar-reveal trope. But in saying all of this, everything else hits the mark perfectly. The relationship between the sisters is perfect, and the roller-coaster of emotion it takes you on is well worth the ticket/ future DVD release price on it's own (I almost cried towards the end involving Anna and Elsa), the chemistry between Anna and Christoph is more than believable, most of the songs are amazing with my favourite being being "Let it Go," and the casting choices were perfect (apart from Olaf). Idina Menzel really brings the songs together with her voice and her acting is top-notch. Speaking of top-notch, the animation is beautiful, I haven't seen a movie that looks this good whilst being white a majority of the time. This is definitely going to be a Disney classic and is something I'd recommend to all audiences.