I have left a trail of dead behind me from the forests of Ivalice to the farmlands of North America.

In my defense, I only killed a few of them on purpose.

Characters die in games all the time, but when I am the one responsible for getting them killed, it tends to resonate with me a little more deeply.  I’m not talking about when someone gets dropped in battle and I have to throw a Mythic Bird Feather on them; I’m talking about when a character is dead and gone and not coming back. RPGs and story-driven FPSes can strike down a beloved character to try and tug at the player’s heartstrings, but these deaths are ultimately just stepping-stones in the storytelling process; no matter what choices I may make in the game, Aeris is still going to end up with a sword through her sternum.    

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I’ve only spent a few short hours with it so far, but Empire:  Total War has taught me that, no matter how convinced you are it’s a good idea, don’t isolate a line of your musketmen at the top of an overlooking hill when you don’t know what lurks on the other side.  My train-commuting game for this week remains Fire Emblem, and though I still stick by my general desire to keep all units in my army alive, this game seems to throw so many of them at you, and all with no personality or story, that I’m tempted just to say to hell with it and let a few of them eat it.  The further information leaking out from Atlus this week about Dark Spire seems to call out to me, singing a siren song that I will spending a lot of time with… My dramatic retooling of tactics in Fantasy General seems to have paid off for the moment, and I’m actually further in the game than I have ever managed to get before; the imposing fortress at the end of the jungle island lay before, but I am confident my cavalry forces will seize the day.  And finally, in the few spare minutes in between everything else, I started up a game of Master of Magic because, well, that game still kicks ass.

-Joel Haddock

The demo for Empire: Total War popped up on Steam earlier this week, so I gave it a spin; I’m a big fan of Age of Rifles warfare, though relatively few games are set in that period anymore.  The demo was short, but convinced me to definitely pick this one up; the sea battles, though, seem like they could end up being a little too slow to enjoy in the long term, but that can probably be more than made up by watching rows of musketmen get scattered by some well-aimed cannon barrages.   Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon arrived from Amazon on Monday, and that has become my current train-game of choice; only on chapter 6 at the moment, but I can say with utmost assurity that it is definitely a Fire Emblem game – I’ve already restarted several battles in order to find ways to save every unit, thus beggining the cycle anew…  My TF2 mapping continues on pace, and I think I’ll be ready to do some playtesting in the next week or so, thus telling me whether I’ve actually made something enjoyable to play.  Speaking of TF2, the Scout update came out on Tuesday, and it has quickly served to remind me why scout is my least played class; I figure I’ll have all the achievements right about the time Team Fortress 3 is ready to come out…

-Joel Haddock

For some reason, I can’t quite seem to focus on finishing a Team Fortress 2 map successfully lately; after scrapping my first CTF map concept, I started up another one (as mentioned a few weeks ago), but now I’ve decided to drop that one and start work on a new variation of the first one.  While this does manage to keep things fresh and new, it’s not so great in terms of actually getting a final product.  This week also feels like a bit of a holding pattern in terms of starting new games, as I know a whole slew of titles I’m interested in are coming out over the next several weeks, first and foremost being the new Fire Emblem for the DS.  With that in mind, I haven’t really wanted to get too involved in any older titles, so I’ve just continued hacking away at King’s Bounty and Hoshigami.  Speaking of Hoshigami, if anyone out there comprehends this confeigm engraving system, please enlighten me; even the FAQ writers don’t seem entirely clear on it…

-Joel Haddock