Alex Mason wasn't looking for trouble. All he wanted was to join his brother and get a job on the politically charged Mars. His brother is tied up with the Red Faction, and before long tragedy strikes and Alex has little choice but to join their cause and avenge his brothers death by overcoming the Earth Defense Force. The story serves and it doesn't really fail in any way, but it probably won't take long to forget that you even had a brother, and that is because you will be having so much fun destroying stuff.

While Red Faction is essentially a third-person shooter with a cover system, the open-ended map, mission structure and destructible environments make it feel more like a sandbox adventure game. The world is seperated into different districts, and your goal is to liberate each of these districts. To do that, you need to reduce the EDF's control of that district, which you can do by completing missions, or destroying important buildings. Once a district is liberated, then missions are opened up in the next district. Missions are marked on your map, and selecting a mission on the map gives you an onscreen indicator of how to reach it throuhgout the mountain ranges that make up part of the landscape. Vehicles play a big part in Red Faction Guerilla, and you will need them to reach you destinations quickly, take rescued hostages back to safehouses, or take marked vehicles back to a safehouse. On top of that, vehicles can be a great way of ramming buildings.

Destroying stuff is far and away the greatest thing about Red Faction, and the physics are excellent. There are no canned animations here; every building is made up of its individual panels, girders, door frames, support beams etc. So if you take out the support beams of a building with your trusty sledgehammer, it will be much more likely to fall over. Further to this, buildings don't always fall straight over. Sometimes pieces will fall off one by one, and that increased instability causes another to fall, until several seconds later there simply isn't enough to hold it together. Different parts of buildings have different toughness, so targeting the right areas really helps take them down faster. While you are given a purpose to destroy EDF buildings (reducing their control) you won't need much motivation because it is so much fun.

Of course, the EDF aren't happy about you destroying their buildings. If there is no reason for them to be chasing you, you can pass them on the road without them noticing, but once you bring attention to yourself, they will start gunning for you. It is during these instances that you will find you are as destructible as the buildings you destroy. The enemies can take you out in short order, but this feels like it is by design; hit and run tactics are a better option, as each time you die you respawn at a Safe House which can be a while away from your current target. While you can remain holed up in a building, enemies continue to stream to your location once they are on alert, and it can sometimes be tough to make it out alive, especially as you start running out of ammo, which usually doesn't take long.

During the course of the games as you unlock more missions, more potential weapons or abilities will be unlocked. Even if they are unlocked, you will still need to purchase them with the games currency, salvage. Salvage can be earned by completing missions, or picking it up from destroyed buildings or vehicles. There is a nice range of weapons, each offering their own perks, and most can also be upgraded. You can only hold 3 weapons on top of your sledgehammer, so you have to be strategic about what you bring in to battle. 3 slots full of explosives gives you plenty of options to destroy buildings, but if you come up against EDF soldiers, you might find things a bit more difficult. While a few weapons overlap, there is little redundancy and most of the weapons have their own uses. That said you are likely to find your favourites and stick with them for the most part, unless a missions seems to dictate switching things up.

As well as the regular vehicles, there are also some walkers which are like mechs. There are a few different varieties, but these are only available in specific missions. I found most of them too cumbersome to be as enjoyable as the rest of the game, but it was still fun. Later in the game a new gameplay type opens up, offering you the chance to destroy EDF forces using a sattelite. Again this isn't as enjoyable as the rest of the game, but it does add to the variety. On the standard difficulty the game offers a reasonable challenge, though at time you may feel a little frustrated when you die without feeling like there was a way out. I also found the final mission difficult to the point that I turned down the difficulty after an hour of trying.

While I have not played the online portion of the game, there are some round robin modes where players take it in turns to get the highest score. Basic rounds have unlimited ammo and a time limit, but the more interesting modes limit your ammo and this gives it almost a puzzle like feel, as you try and figure out the best way to maximise destruction with as few shots as possible.

While the destruction physics are the stand out feature of Red Faction Guerilla, everything else about the game is solid. There can be a bit of background pop-in from time to time, and some rare physics glitches, but otherwise everything technical about the game also works well. With a campaign that can take you 20 hours if you explore all the side missions (and you will want to so you can unlock the best weapons and upgrades), liberating Mars is great fun.

Score 8.5

If you like Tower Defense Games, buy Plants vs Zombies now.

If you THINK you don't like Tower Defense Games, download the demo, you might be surprised.

I played it for a good 4 hours straight last night, not realising what the time was until Megan got home from a night out on the town. So many options, but also introduced at a great pace so you aren't overwhelmed.

Also finished Braid, great game, but I don't think I will go for the secret stars.

I finished Red Faction Guerilla. It was a great game with a few frustrations. The final mission I found tedious after about an hour of trying, and turned down the difficulty to easy, but otherwise was a great game. I decided to spend some money of XBLA as I probably haven't downloaded anything for a year plus, and got myself 6000 points, thinking I would have no problem selecting thr 5 or 6 games that those points would afford me. So I grabbed Braid, Plants vs Zombies and Shadow Complex. But now I'm not sure what to buy with the other 3000 or so points. I've got a few ideas but I'm not sure yet. Winterbottom, Rez and Trials HD seem like strong possibilities. Any suggestions? For the record, other high profile games I already have are Castle Crashers and Geo Wars 2.

So I've been playing Braid. I don't know if I'm yet sold on the extremely high scores that it garnered, but then I haven't finished it either. I'm up to world 4 (moving left reverses time) and I'm starting to get stuck on some puzzles. I'm tempted to look at some videos showing how it is done, but I don't think I want to do that just yet. It is interesting though, the whole mystery of the game. Why does it start at World 2? What happens when I complete a puzzle? Is that seemingly impossible to reach puzzle piece achievable right now, or do I have to wait for something else later in the game before I can come back? I'll try and refrain for now. On with the music.

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Jacques Brel - Olympia 64 - 1964
This album opens up with a powerful performance with Amsterdam, and its obvious that there is a lot of passion throughout the album. That said, I think it is in French. The book says his nationality is Belgian, so maybe he is speaking Belgian. French are mentioned in the entry, so I suspect it is French. So that said, I don't know what he is really talking about. I guess frog legs, snails, and surrendering. This live performance sounds grandiose, and sounds more like a cross between a theatre performance and opera than someone performing a concert. Every now and again he will enunciate some weird sounds which I can't possibly do justice in explaining in words, and it is those that add to the drama of some pieces.

However, it is in a language I don't understand. And that isn't a problem. But this music didn't really excite me (although it wasn't bad and suited his performance), and without really knowing what he was talking about, I found it hard to be interested. So good performance, and if you are interested in French music, I'd check it out.

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Solomon Bourke - Rock n Soul - 1964
I suppose I would chalk this one up as solid. Another album that I'm finding fades into the background unless I am actively trying to pay attention. But when I am paying attention, everything is performed well, and his performance doesn't really falter. A good I think the title tells you everything you need to know; this album is a good mix of rock music and soul, perhaps with a higher emphasis on soul. As this was another 'middle road' album for me, I find it hard to tell you much about it. I'm sure anyone who has followed my blogs for a long time knows I'm not racist, but this album sounds 'black' to me. I don't know how to define how a black man (or woman) should sound, but it seems to make sense. There is some good chorus backing as well.

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The Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones - 1964
Despite them being well reknowned, I've never heard a Rolling Stones album before. I'm sure that I must have heard some songs, but nothing I'd be able to pick out if I heard it. This wasn't a bad listen, and there are a few catchy tunes. Mick Jaggers voice doesn't really do much for me though. I think this is kind of like The Sonics; as musicians they may not be the best, but it does all come together. But it's the sort of catchy that gets you singing along while you are listening, but not really memorable outside of that. Perhaps if I listened a bit longer then some of them would stand out a bit more. Can I Get A Witness is decent, and Mick Jaggers stutter on Walking The Dog is entertaining, but nothing to hold my interest for the long term. I'm assuming there is more of their stuff in the book, and we will see if it grows on me.

Ray Price - Night Life - 1962
The first two times I listened to this album, I wasn't really that impressed, and figured I wouldn't really like it. But third listen around I found myself singing along anyway. The intro is a bit interesting, with a spoken yet slightly lyrical portion as though he is speaking to you directly, which I guess is something that was a little more usual in its time. I suppose this is typical country, where most of the songs are pretty sad and negative. Depsite a couple of tracks I could get into a little more (Lonely Street, 24th Hour) overall it didn't really do a lot for me. I ponder if you were to photoshop what you can see of the guitar out of that shot, what most people would think of that cover...

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Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto - 1963
I don't remember what I said about the previous collaboration from Stan Getz that was on this list, and I don't really want to check until after I've written this. Joao sings in Portuguese, and his voice wasn't really like anything I'd heard before, and initially wasn't appealing. After a few listens, I imagine it has the potential to bring women to their knees, though I'm still on the fence as to whether I actually like it or not. On a few tracks, his wife sings, reportedly because the producers wanted some English on the album. And here I think is the highlight. I imagine the particular inflections she puts on the words are a result of English being her second language, and that combined with her beautiful voice just seems to work so well.

All that said, the music itself still seems to be background music like most jazz sounds to me. Still, I'd recommend anyone who likes latin jazz has a listen.

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The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night - 1963
Two Beatles albums in two weeks, crazy overload. But it makes it a little easier to compare. After my first listen, I was thinking that the opening title track is just like 'It Won't Be Long' from With The Beatles, in that it pulls you in straight away and is catchy, but then that the album fell away pretty quickly after that. After a few more listens, there were certainly more songs that I enjoyed, and I would say the albums are on par, though this one has better production. I think this album may be a bit more varied in pace, though it still seems the albums are all about the same subject. Something I did find perhaps a little hypocritical is 'Can't Buy Me Love'; certainly a highlight of the album and a great song in it's own right, but I find it funny that this follows an album that had a cover of 'Money' which seems at opposite spectrums with this song. 'And I Love Her' is a slower song but still powerful.

I still don't know that The Beatles are exactly my cup of tea and that I will be inclined to make a purchase... but I can certainly understand why they are so well loved.

Random updates before the music. I've been playing Red Faction Guerilla. It is pretty fun, especially now that I've purchased the 'warp to safehouse' upgrade. I'm glad they included that because otherwise it was going to get tedious. Otherwise it is fun to demolish things, althought the difficulty is ramping up a little bit. My last few forays to destroy key buildings have ended in tears, because the EDF soldiers keep swarming in once you start your rampage. But I suppose that is the point the game wants to get across; you can't just waltz in and stay on-site, if you want to survive hit and run is probably a better tactic.

I also played my first game of Risk (actual board game, not downloadable game) about a week ago and Megan slaughtered me. Don't know if we are playing it right. But now I have this idea for a board game that I think is going to haunt me if I don't start writing down a design document, even though I know I will never finish it. It seems like it is a hybrid of Risk, Hero Quest and resource management. The thing about Risk is that soldiers are all the same, and I thought it would be cool to have a game that offers different units that have different abilities or stats, and that territories produced different resources which you could then use to train/build new units, adding another strategic layer. I can see already it will be difficult to balance as I want different sides to have different units, but whether I will ever actually get it to a stage where it will actually be tested, I don't know. The things I have in mind are probably too complex to really make it into a normal board game, it is probably bordering more on miniatures which I don't even play. I don't care, I just like to think about these things. The mind works in mysterious ways.

So on to the music.

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Elvis Presley - Elvis Is Back - 1960
I haven't really missed Elvis since the last album I heard. While I wouldn't say this album has won me over, it has impressed me more than the debut album, despite the fact that this has less songs I know. In fact, I think the only song I knew was Fever, which I'm going to guess is a cover song as it doesn't seem to fit exactly with the rest of the songs... but what a cover it is, and my highlight of the album. It seems like such a simple formula, fingers clicking and bass line consistently in the background, punctuated by short sharp drum bursts, and Elvis' moody voice. After being mesmerised by it, the following song just seems like an odd contrast in tone. Nearly everything else on the album is more rock and roll, with a more upbeat tempo. There are a few swinging tunes over the rest of the album, but nothing that got me really excited; tunes that I can bop my head to, but I won't go out of my to listen to them.

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The Beatles - With The Beatles - 1963
For many years my father has told me all about The Beatles and how wonderful they are. And largely I've ignored him. Oh of course I've heard some songs and can sing along to them when they are on the radio (who doesn't know Yellow Submarine?) but I've never bothered to listen to the CD's. Maybe it is that rebellious nature of young teenagers to not like what their parents like. Based on this album, I'm wondering if I've made a mistake when their entire catalogue has been sitting under my nose until I moved out of home a few years ago.

The opening track It Won't Be Long drew me in immediately, it was just so infectious. The harmonies are so well done, here and the rest of the album. The production on the album isn't the best, but the raw potential is on display. While half the album is covers, I think it is quite telling that most of the best ones are originals. That doesn't mean they don't do some great renditions of covers either; Please Mister Postman is excellent, and Money was a bit of a prophetic vision given how much of it they've earned since it was released.

Will I buy this album? I don't know. What I can say is that I'm excited to see what comes from the rest of their collection, several more of which I'm due to listen to during the course of this expedition.

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The Everly Brothers - A Date With The Everly Brothers - 1960
I listened to this after The Beatles, so it was a hard act to follow (everything on this list I listened to the full playlist, then restarted again). It certainly isn't competing in the same space, but it just sort of felt average after The Beatles. Made To Love is a decent first track to get you in, and it wasn't long before I was singing along, but I think the drop in tempo for the second song made me tune out a bit. That said I don't mind Love Hurts as one of the slower songs on the album. Actually, now that I listen to some of the songs as I'm writing this, they aint half bad and I'm finding it easy to sing along to. It's a non-purchase for me, but if you are interested in what seems like a slightly slower rock and roll tinged with a little bit of country, you may do well to check it out.

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Jimmy Smith - Back At The Chicken Shack - 1960
An entry just wouldn't be complete without jazz (I'm too lazy to look back at every entry and see if there has been one). This one stands out a little more due to the organ that plays a major part. But like most jazz that has been on this list, it fades into the background not long after I start listening. I'm finding it hard to tell generally when jazz is good or bad, I think because I'm just not into it. I suppose if if I like the sound of something as someone who doesn't understand jazz, then it might be worth other non-jazz fans to maybe see what it is about. But this is another non-event for me. It doesn't seem very exciting, even compared to others that I thought were non-events.

So I've managed to obtain the first 75 albums listed in the book, so I can go back and fill in a few gaps for albums that I hadn't listened to. And I can say that next week has two really big music icons in it (I just started listening to them yesterday). Probably two of the biggest in the book. I wonder if you can guess who they are?

Fat Domino - This is Fats (1956)
Err... I've just had to look at the entry for this album in the book to confirm the year so I could add it to the title. And these songs don't match up (some entries have the full track list). So what am I listening to, and what was I intending to write about? I had trouble finding 'This Is Fats' when I was looking before. And I've tried having a quick look now, seems like The Rooster (the first track I have) is from an album in 57 but I can't seem to find enough details, and it isn't worth my while continuing to search. So in any case, I suppose I should give an impression of the album I'm listening to. I guess you would call this kind of swinging rock, with Fats on vocals and piano. The Rooster is the first track and probably my favourite. It just seems like Fats is having fun. The album is varied in tone, with a few slower and slightly moody pieces without detracting from the overall rock feel. Pretty good album, but not quite my thing. I won't be bothering to search for the actual album 'This Is Fats'. If someone else has it and wants to send it my way then I'll include it.

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Little Richard - Here's Little Richard (1957)
So what's with these artists announcing themselves? This is Fats? Here's Little Richard? I guess it was just the way it was done back in the day, as these certainly aren't the first on the list. Maybe this still happens today in the genres I'm not familiar with. Didn't Justin Timberlake release something with his name in the title (as opposed to a self-titled album)? Anyhow, back to Little Richard. We've got some rock and roll here, and the glorious cover shot gives you an idea of the passion that he brings (or maybe he was a star in all-male adult films and he used a shot from that). The album open with Tutti Frutti, and while I wouldn't say I'm the most familiar with the song, it is probably the best version I've heard. All the songs are delivered with fervour, and I guess if you want to make a negative comment about this album, it's that there isn't a lot of variety in the tone. But I think that is also for the best. It seems like, at least from listening to this one album, that Little Richard is doing exactly what he does best; belting out rock anthems.

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Charles Mingus - The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady (1963)
Ah jazz, we meet again. I expect the tone of some of my previous entries has given the impression that I may be getting a little tired of jazz. And you'd be right. I just don't seem to be getting jazz. So here we have a measly 4 tracks. So you'd expect a rather short album. On the contrary, this album goes just short of 40 minutes, and while most of that owes to the 18 minute final track, the first 3 still average 7 minutes a piece. Like most jazz without vocals, I find it hard to really get into and focus on, but I'd call this one of the better instrumentals that I've listened to so far. It seems to evoke a bit more emotion than most.

One track in particular has a standout part, perhaps mostly because of the imagery that it conveyed while listening to it. At one point what I expect to be a tuba sounds like it is dying, and it generated an image akin to a slightly darker Disney film. I was imagining a personified tuba (you know, like the candleholder from Beauty & the Beast) lolling around in misery, head drooped, wandering around without purpose. Has jazz just evoked something in me? Still, those moments for me were fleeting, but even without those this was still a good album. If you like jazz, I suggest giving it a listen.

After listening to a couple of the albums listed this week, I've come across some songs I've heard before, but not necessarily by that artist. Usually it is a contemporised cover song. I ponder whether this should factor into my 'review' of these albums. For example, I'm guessing the songs I've heard before from The Sonics are standards and aren't their own work. On the other hand, I'm going to guess that Dusty Springfields standout tracks are hers.

So after writing that sentence I had to check wikipedia. Turns out most of Dusty's songs were covers of her favourite songs. Does knowing things like this affect your outlook on an album? Prior to knowing this, that was already going to be the standout album from this entry for me. I don't think that has changed. Her rendition of those songs is great. Your thoughts?

On another note I haver err... found a way to obtain the first 75 albums in one go. One, this should speed things up a little for me, as they will be in a format I can make easy use of. Two, this should make it easy for anyone else who wants to try and catch up and share this experience with me. Let me know if you are keen.

Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba - 1962
Some laid back jazz here, no vocals, with what sounds to my generally naive ears to be a bit Latin in nature. I imagine for anyone interested in this sort of music, they could close their eyes and be in a trancelike state as they focus and appreciate on the music. Actually, I've just done that for the last 30 seconds since writing the previous sentence, and I think this might be the way to appreciate jazz. I felt instantly drawn in more. However I'm not one of those people who can do that. I want my music to appeal to me while I'm on the go. This is still laid back music that you could easily have on the background, but to me that doesn't seem like you are doing the music the justice it deserves.

Yeah, that sounded a bit wanky. But whatever. I'm not really into it as a whole, but if you are into jazz I would recommend it. Having just read the entry in the book, it is Brazilian influenced, not Latin.

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Sam Cooke - Live At The Harlem Square Club - 1963
This is definitely a solid performance by a male soul singer. I can't really fault any of these tracks that are performed live. I can't really think of much more to say though than 'solid'. No better, no worse. A consistently good confident performance but nothing that really stands out to me. If you enjoy this sort of thing, I'd still recommend giving it a listen though.

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James Brown - Live At The Appolo - 1963
James Brown is such an icon. But after listening to this album I just don't really get it. He is obviously energetic, yelling and making noise a lot. The crowd goes wild at the smallest thing that he does. Like Sam Cooke, I find this performance good, but not great. It is perhaps a bit more varied with some swingier sexier feeling rhythms as well as more rockin' ones, but I just can't really get into this either. Every now and then it seems like James Brown just goes crazy and almost speaks in tongues, or wants to see how far he can stress his voice while still being able to pronounce syllables.

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Dusty Springfield - A Girl Called Dusty - 1964
It's interesting the preconceptions we have about music sometimes. Originally I thought that this was going to be country; I think I may have made some correlation with Slim Dusty somewhere in the past for some reason. This is the most contemporary sounding album so far on the list (at least to my ears) and is more pop than soul. Also interesting is that I thought Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald were white singers, and they were black. I thought Dusty was black and she is white. Weird.

As mentioned above Dusty is my highlight of this group and I've had the chorus lines of Anyone Who Had A Heart running through my head for the last couple of days. Every now and then I will blurt them out to Megan, who can't believe I still have it rattling around. As mentioned in the intro, most of these songs are covers, but they are delivered brilliantly. The way she pronounces or holds syllables and words for an exact period of time seems to be her hallmark. The short and sharp 'So' in the aforementioned 'Anyone Who Had a Heart' is what makes it stand out in particular, and the way she can repeat a word in a later verse with a slightly different but distinct emphasis is superb.

While this is not what I expect to like, I do, and that is part of this journey. Good thing is Megan loves Dusty and has some of her albums already, so when I get the itch, I can always chuck them on.

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The Sonics - Here Are The Sonics - 1965
This rock album seems pretty rawly produced on all fronts. Drums and guitars are a bit fuzzy, and when the vocalist delivers screams it often distorts. That said, there is still a lot of energy in the performances here. Even if things are a bit sloppy, it still exudes an undeniable energy, and it just feels like the band is having a good time and it rubs off. It's a really big stretch, but it's just reminded me of Nirvana and the grunge movement in that kind of sound; not polished or well produced, but it all comes together.

Even though it is inconsistent there is a bit of vocal range on the album. Weirdest of all is 'Village Idiot' which is Jingle Bells sung like he has mental retardation. I have no idea what this is doing on the album; I can only imagine this is like hidden or bonus parody tracks we've had in recent decades. The album opens with the single 'Witch' , which I presume is their own concoction amongst a number of well known tracks which I can only imagine are covers, but 'Witch' has a really captivating tune that draws you in from the outset.

I don't know whether this is an album that I will revisit, but one of the quotes from the book is interesting. "The Sonics weren't great musicians, but they had this magic thing' - Buck Ormsby, signed the Sonics. After listening to the album, I think I would have to agree.

Decided to finally write a review for Halo Wars which I really enjoyed playing. As per my previous blog, it gave me a bit of an itch, so I've been playing Red Alert (the original) for the first time in probably 10 or more years. I'm up to the final Allied mission, then I shall play as the Soviets. It still holds up well, but there are some annoyances. Resource collection takes forever, and even building an extra couple of harvesters in the early game takes ages. Not having build queues is also annoying. The enemy AI also seems to storm your base early before you can set up a defense on most missions, and I found it hard to really start building up. Probably most annoying of all is having to micromanage boats to defeat submarines. So tedious. On with the review.

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Real time strategy games haven't really excelled on consoles; the complexity of the controls and functions of PC real time strategy games are difficult to replicate on a consoles controller. Built for a console from the ground up, Halo Wars overcomes most of those issues, and is an accessible experience for people new to the genre. While not overly complex, it still offers enough depth that should keep all but the experienced veterans of the genre interested.

Set 20 years before the events of Halo, the Covenant have discovered a reilc on Harvest, and the UNSC need to find out what they are up to. The man for the job is Sargeant Forge, who you will play as for most of the campaign. Sometimes you will have Forge as an infantry unit, though most times he will be as an upgraded Warthog. The story is told through excellent cut scenes, with believable characters, and it is those characters that often give you a reason for continuing your campaign. Certain plotlines might be predictable, but they are still effective.

You are eased into gameplay with two optional tutorials which tell you most of what you need to get started. The missions themselves start out quite easy, with no base building in your first mission, and some hand holding in your next few missions (can't build some items until you have built a pre-requisite building) but after that the reins are free and you can start building everything available in the game. Base building and resources is an interesting model; bases can only be built in pre-determined locations, and each base has 'building slots' and you can only build a limited number of buildings at each base. Bases can be upgraded to a total of 8 additional buildings, but if your base gets destroyed, all the building go as well. Supply pads are one of those buildings; you don't need to collect any resources from the environment, but there are a few crates lying about the place, and collecting these early will often acclerate your growth.

You could say the limited building spaces dictates your strategy, or vice versa you could say your strategy dictates which buildings you need. Building extra supply pads means more resources, but then you have less space for diversity of other buildings. To upgrade your tech level you also need reactors, so getting the most powerful units or upgrades means you need at least 2 reactor spaces (as each can be upgraded to provide 2 tech levels). That said you can often take over another base halfway through a mission to provide you that extra diversity you may not have in your initial base.

To take over those bases, you are going to need units, and you are provided a range of different troops to help you achieve that goal. The Halo universe comes alive in the units, and it feels fully realised. From regular troops, to Scorpions, Warthogs and Hornets, virtually everything from previous Halo games is here and fits perfectly. All units have various upgrades that can be applied at the place they are built. While some of these are passive, most are special abilities that can be activated once the units are selected. For example, Wolverines are good at anti-air, but with an upgrade they can unleash a missile shot that is devastating to buildings or ground units. Once activated, it then takes time to charge up again before you can activate it again. Spartans can also be on the scene, but these are provided to you during missions, and you can't train them. On the plus side, Forge and any Spartans can not be totally killed in combat; if they are defeated, they will remain on the battlefield until they health slowly restores to half, and sending another unit nearby will revive them. Spartans can also hop into vehicles to really increase their combat ability... or jump onto enemy vehicles and steal them. You may also find cover available on most missions, and infantry who are garissoned in cover, Spartan or otherwise, are extremely effective.

Whether as a result of hardware limitations or just the intention to keep battles small, there is a relatively low population limit of 30, which you can increase to 40 with an upgrade. Further to this, more powerful units can take up more than one space of the population, so you can't just spam 40 of the most powerful units if you are resource heavy. However this doesn't really feel out of place in the scheme of things. It keeps things moving, because if you have reached your population limit, it compels you into combat, and the low population limit means you are more effectively able to manage units special abilities. The Covenant are your main enemies who have the troops and vehicles you would expect from experience with previous Halo games. Suffice to say you will pee your pants when you encounter your first Scarab. The Flood also appear a little later in the campaign, though only a few missions have you directly attacking a major Flood enemy. Differently to the Covenant, their spawning grounds eventually regenerate, meaning keeping troops on hand to take them out periodically to prevent a build up of their troops.

The missions themselves are quite varied. You will defend ships as they evacuate civilians, remove Flood from the hull of the Spirit of Fire as a 'ring' periodically cleanses it (destroying defeated Flood while damaging your units if they are in its path), and rescuing troops who are stranded on the far side of a map. Perhaps my favourite is coming across a prototype Scarab, and a beam of light keeps scanning from the top of the map; any units in its way it will lock on to and destroy. Most missions also have one or more optional objectives. For some of the missions it's as simple as killing a certain number of a certain type of enemy, but others might include setting up a second base, or destroying a certain number of pillars with electro-magnetic pulses. These give the game some replay value once you know the map, as these tie in to the medal system. Often I'm not compelled to replay games, but I went ahead and went back to get all the gold medals for this game because I enjoyed it so much.

That's not to say that Halo Wars doesn't have some flaws. The camera is focused in quite tightly, and while you have options to zoom in and out, it still doesn't feel like it zooms out far enough to get a better handle of things. While there are a few 'hotkeys', you can't assign units to squads to recall at a later time. You can select all units on the screen, or all units on the map, and then cycle through those if you want to hone it down to a particular unit type. Due to the smaller scale of battles this serves reasonably well, but limits your options somewhat without having to scan the screen to select indivudual units, or if you want a squad of mixed units. While I only played on the Medium setting and perhaps should have cranked it up to Heroic, it did seem a little on the easy side. While the cutscenes are excellent in their production values, the in-game graphics are a little underwhelming, but it doesn't distract and everything is easily identifiable as from the Halo universe.

But still, I think these flaws aside Halo Wars was designed to be an accessible game and in this respect it has succeeded with flying colours. The missions in the campaign aren't elongated battles that take hours to complete, making it easier to digest in bite-size chunks, but on the flipside it makes the campaign a little short in that it only has 15 missions. Being able to play afterwards as the Covenant would have been welcomed to extend the gameplay. Even so, there is some extra replay value in obtaining gold medals for each mission, finding hidden crates and skulls (which can modify gameplay settings for missions), and playing skirmish either against the AI or via Xbox Live. While I have not tested the live multiplayer as it generally does not appeal to me, this then gives you the option of playing as the Covenant, and each side allows you to choose from 3 different commanders, which award you different bonuses on the field. Audio is excellent and keeps you informed as to what is going on and where. PC real time strategy veterans might be turned away by the lack of some options and features, but anyone who has a passing interest or wants to get their feet wet in what can be a daunting genre, I recommend giving Halo Wars a go.

8.0

I finished Halo Wars, then went back and replayed the missions to get Gold medals on all of them. It's the first RTS I've played in quite a long time (if you take out tower defense games). Years in fact. The last one I remember playing was Warlords Battlecry 2 which I still have for PC. Possibly there might have been something since, but nothing I can recall. I stopped playing them because I just didn't want to invest huge amounts of hours playing a single mission, or figuring out complicated strategies over dozens of hours of gameplay. I figured Halo Wars might be what I was looking for; designed for a console, and being a bit more simple and easily accessible. And it delivered. I really enjoyed it, even though it had a few flaws.

But now I think I have an itch.

Starcraft 2 is of course the talk of the town. A friend of mine showed me this the other night, and it looks pretty decent. A few of these seemed like new twists, but only because I haven't played an RTS for so long, and that includes the original Starcraft. Zerg units become buildings, Protoss can spawn them and then walk away, and the Terrans have to stay and build; sounded like these was interesting enough developments for me. Of course, my computer is amazingly slow, and I'm not interested enough to upgrade it at the moment.

So I'm looking at the back catalogue. I'm downloading the original Command & Conquer as I write this. And it appears there are a few others in that universe that are free to download too. BattleForge is also free to play; I don't know whether my PC will run it, but it is free so it can't hurt to download it and give it a shot. I doubt I will put down any cash and buy new cards for it, but the concept has interested me since it came out, having a collectible card game past.

Are there any other legitimate free RTS games you would recommend? I am pretty sure there was a browser based game I saw a while ago that seemed a bit like BattleForge, but I think may have been turn based. It was fantasy based, but you had to go around activating nodes to be able to summon better creatures. I don't suppose anyone would know what this game is? Also I recall another fantasy RTS that had things like Crystal Dragons that used their wings like magnifying glasses to burn their victims below. Does this ring any bells for anyone? I have done a search of RTS games on Gamespot but I can't seem to find it.

A long time ago I started designing a fantasy based RTS that was based on modifying Red Alert 2 (if I remember correctly) but never got anywhere with that. Wonder if I still have the documents somewhere? Probably nothing groundbreaking in anything I was thinking these days. But it has made me wonder again about potential mechanics. Seeing the Protoss energy crystals (or whatever they were that keep buildings operational) and it made me think of an idea. What if you had a building that drew mana (or some sort of resource) from the radius around it... but if the radius of these overlaps then you didn't draw any more of that resource. That would mean that you would have no choice but to spread these out, and then defend them. And then I thought, what if you could upgrade them so you could switch them over to stop producing resources, and make them heal your units. What if you had a plaguebearer that made all units in a radius around it lose health... including your own units. I can imagine micromanaging that unit and running around your enemies base taunting them would be kind of fun.

I'm considering writing a blog about ideas before I go and play too many of these games to see if they have already been done, or if there are still fresh ideas out there.

In any case I will have plenty of time next week as I have the week off. Will be interesting to see how Command and Conquer holds up. Then I might have to see if I can install Battlecry 2...

Someone tagged me for the shuffle music thing, but I just haven't got around to doing it. I was intending to combine it with this blog, but I just don't get my ipod out much these days and doesn't have a huge bunch of my music on it. So I think I will give that a miss.

Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard - 1961
I've had this one mainly playing in the background, and it hasn't really stood out for me. It's piano jazz, with a fairly strong bass backing. I'm guessing I still just don't really get jazz. It will be interesting to go back and listen to Duke Ellington, the first jazz album I listened to, as that album made me think I could possibly get into jazz. Maybe it was just the newness of it at the time, and now that I've heard a few, I might not be impressed if I go back to it.

Booker T & The MG's - Green Onions - 1962
Being the non-muso that I am, it took me a moment to figure out that the organ is the main instrument on display here. Occassionally the guitar comes to the fore, but those moments are brief before the organ steals the thunder again. It's obvious there is some terrific finger speed and skill being displayed here. Sometimes the same note is played so fast with such consistent time that it is hard not to be impressed. But at the same time, the novelty of the organ rubs off shortly thereafter. There are no vocal accompaniments (which is not necessarily a problem for me) and as such it seems like this album all just melds into one. While every track seems to express the same sort of groove with consistency, it makes the album a bit boring for me.

Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music - 1962
Once again I'm not inpsired by Ray Charles. Nothing wrong with this album either, but it isn't striking me as anything special. When I've been putting this on it seems to fade into the background pretty quickly and I'm not paying attention to it. I'm not sure what the Country and Western subtitle is meant for. It sounds like laid back jazz to me.

Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin Bob Dylan - 1963
I'm a bit divided about this album, a singer-songwriter playing guitar. Before I gave it my first listen, I asked Megan if I could chuck it on in the stereo in the lounge, to which she promptly told me no, explaining that while his song writing is good, his diction and pronounciation is terrible. I joked that I needed to come to that conclusion myself and she had now ruined it for me. But now I've given it a few listens, I think her description is pretty accurate. Perhaps based on her initial impression, the first two tracks didn't really impress, especially the harmonica on the second track; it shrills for an unecessairly long time and is really annoying. But then Masters of War begins, and while the guitar track he lays down is repeated throughout, it's the lyrics that matter, and his delivery make it sound like a truly heartfelt song.

That said, on other songs I have difficulty understanding what he is saying. Granted, I have a lot of albums that are heavy metal where I have yet to figure out all the lyrics, but when the vocals themselves are delivered cleanly and you still don't understand, that's just terrible pronounciation. On one track I'm sure he is supposed to be saying 'hair'. It still doesn't sound like it, but I'm guessing that is what it must be. The album is quite varied, but I'm not finding enough to keep me impressed for the long term.

Phil Spector - A Christmas Gift For You - 1963
I wonder if this one makes the list because of its significance for the time? According to the entry in the book, this contemporised many Christmas cIassics. I'm not sure exactly what that means; I suppose where these were sung by carolers without musical backing, they added in drums, triangles and what have you. I guess that may have been new in 1963, but almost 50 years on these versions don't sound much different to what I already know.