Tribute to a classic genre: Been a long time since a federal dime made a jukebox sound

Some genres receive a lot of attention while others are pushed off to the side and almost entirely ignored by the entire gaming culture. Deserving more credit than it ever receives, isometric turn-based strategies were one of the original genres that bridged the gap of pen and paper into the electronic realm. Game for game ITBS games make the entire genre one of the most difficult and complex genres to play leaving casual gamers crying for their mommy and hardcore gamers wishing there were more hours in a day and for their friends to stop calling your mom a cougar.

So in an effort to rehash on some happy years of gaming and to shine the invisible medals of games once defeated, I've taken some time for inward reflection to ponder which ITBS will always stick out and helped define the genre for what it is. That time of meditation produced the following list which is not in any particular order but was chosen due to each game's importance to their respective system over the years. Danger: This list contains games that still pass me middle school notes which to this day I still check yes, I do like you.

Shining Force 2: Sega - 1994 - Genesis

If you were lucky enough to own or know someone that did own a Sega Genesis, there was a slight chance that you could of played one of the first console ITBS games. And yes, since this is written in English, I'm not talking about all the possible previous Japanese games (notably the Fire Emblem series has resurrected into something worth playing).

This game was one of the first to introduce the idea of an RPG style game in which you could control a group of up to 12 characters at once and doing all of the playing on a grid style map. Characters were all very unique and allowed for choosing which were a waste of time and which would be the workhorses of killing the armies of Zeon. And on a brighter note, this game also had involvment from mythical centaurs which are so rare nowadays that seeing one in the shower applying Old Spice bodywash is the only chance at catching a glimpse of these majestic animal/humans. 

The main character was named Bowie to aid you in becoming delusional enough to believe his first name was David and he was taking a quick smoke break in Labyrinth to save another civilization with his dance moves and action batch.

The game overall was quite lengthy and made for good replayability if switching out characters. It didn't receive much credit from the world as the age of initial consoles were rough on the Genesis and if you loved games enough that you couldn't hate any console, you were more than likely either a large fan of pure RPGs or side scrollers and couldn't relate to this game well. This game did help vary and emphasize 20 different character classes helping stem later RPGs to utilize ones such as berserker and animal types. If you were lucky enough to play this the first time it was available, you may be inclinded enough to want to replay it again as it's now available on WiiConsole.

Final Fantasy Tactics - Square - 1998 - PS1

Years later the genre was quite stale if you only owned consoles, and especially if you were without one of those expensive personal computers. There were a few choices but most had no storyline or terrible gameplay. Enter the king of console RPGs to venture into the ITBS arena and squash the competition with FFT.

FFT took everything that makes a good ITBS great and trimmed the fat of annoyances.  Tons of story, different classes, and true strategic gameplay kept PS1 gamers so enthralled that owning an original version of FFT to this day can reward you with over $50 to collectors.  Fans of previous FF games saw for the first time the entire ensemble of old class choices combined along with a few extra to boot the most amazing of which was the Calculator.  If you were lucky enough to level the proper classes to unlock the Calculator, your mathalete skills could be put to use to heal or do damage to all characters on screen reminiscent of craps, trigonometry, and the board game Sorry.  

FFT set the bar high for later GBA and PSP ITBS games and reissues but sadly none have matched the original.  Opinions vary as to why FFT glimmers as others clash plaids, but many will agree that the story hits many high notes housing interesting characters such as one of the most badass playables named Wiegraf.  The rest of the opinions say that the gameplay, detailed environments, and balanced strategies requiring you to scratch the old noggin' to succeed put FFT at the top of the ITBS of all times.  And much to the appeal of people who find FF games annoying, chocobos and moogles are kept to a bare minimum.  Kupo?!?

X-Com UFO Defense - Mythos Games - 1993 - PC

Crank up the VGA display, whip out the 3.5-inch floppies, and start up MS-DOS, it's X-Com time!  Right when PCs were becoming a booming economic staple in everyone's home, competing against Coke's mission statement to have a vending machine every mile, X-Com made gamers some of the most patient people around.  Well patient or full blown domestic extra-terrestrial abusers.  X-Com was one of the most difficult ITBS games around and in case the first time through was too easy, you could also scale the difficulty higher to grind your teeth at night for the next century.  

X-Com showed the world a game in which the era of the Internet and TV would give people even more reason to keep staring into the stars as shows such as X-Files and the Sci-Fi channel took off.  Set all across Earth, the X-Com (Extraterrestrial Combat Unit) attempt to save the world from the on-going threat of alien terrorists much like the similar threats of Predator, Ko-Dan, Killer Klowns, or Martians from Mars.  As you spend global amounts of cash on bases and research, you attempt to reclaim Earth from these invaders using their technology against them while hopefully not creating a deficit over 2 months.  Yes, the US has had a deficit for almost the entire 21st century but blow your budget for 2 months and it's game over.

Much of the games acclaim over the years has been the intertwining of a Sid Meyer's Civilization-esque game and joining an ITBS with a great interface, sounds, and gameplay.  X-Com was also one of the first ITBS games to use projectile weaponry and urban military tactics within a game without shortchanging on fun.  While games such as Wolfenstein and Doom were busy making bullets per second enjoyable, X-Com was slowing the speed of battle down to where claymation directors felt at home.  So if you've ever played and finished X-Com: UFO Defense, you deserve a free beer to trade war stories over.  If you didn't get enough of X-Com the first time it is again available on Steam as well as it's many sequels.

Jagged Alliance 2 - Sir Tech Canada - 1999 - PC

Where would Jack Ryan be without clandestine black operations?  Well Tom Clancy might be flipping burgers and we wouldn't get great games such as JA2.  Not to skimp on the prestige of JA1, JA2 gave Rambo a reason to go back into Burma with the same cheesy lines and almost as much gore.  Ok no where near as much blood and guts but the same attitude.  

Taking a small group of mercs into the fake Eastern European country of Alruco, you attempt to free the civilians of the country from the evil clutches of dictator Deidranna.  Overthrowing her husband Enrico who escaped the country after her attempt at framing Enrico for her father's murder, you are fronted a small amount of cash, a laptop with direct links to all the websites a merc would need, and a one way ticket into the country.  

Rich with voice acting and distinct personalities for an array of characters, JA2 makes replayability unique and a quite varied experience each time.  Some characters such as the Russian brothers Ivan and Igor make such a lovable pair you begin to prevent their deaths at every turn sometimes reloading savepoints until you can't stand it anymore.  JA2 plays on the map overview strategy mixed with turn based battle action made famous with X-Com and takes the fighting to a new level introducing more layers of physics down to differing bullet calibers and ballistics. 

You could hate ITBS games but the storyline presentation in JA2 is one of the more humorous around.  As you progress further into Alruco freeing town after town, Diedranna receives reports from her assistant Elliot who then in return receives a proper beating for each piece of bad news.  After a while it becomes one of the oddest rewards systems for a job well done.  Well those that can't feel sympathy for digital Urkel wannabes find it laughable since we can't save the rest of the Family Matters cast from Jaleel White's suspenders.  

Fallout - Interplay - 1997 - PC

Two men enter, none leave.  There are a few games here and there that touch on a futuristic Earth but none had ever been as bleakly honest as Fallout.  Some would show the world uniting in an effort for space exploration, others would have humanity unite in order to defend off invading aliens, but Fallout would go and say no to handholding togetherness and instead stay on the edge of suicide when resources become scarce and care not about the repercussions of scorching the Earth.  This post apocalyptic environment becomes one of the biggest characters and gives a great sense of being alone and fearful of death around every corner.  

Set in Southern California in the year 2161, you are a survivor of World War III living in an underground vault.  The vault's water chip breaks and you are chosen to go into the wasteland to search for a replacement.  

Much of the personality of the game is contained in references to pop culture a lot of it 1950's related.  The presentation of the RPG portions of the game are done through a Monopoly man type character that makes light of the darkly vast wasteland that is now the world.  The childhood innocence clashing with the dark humor makes for quite the combo making the entire journey unforgettable.    

Fallout became one of the starting RPGs to flirt with the idea of choices and repercussions morbid as many would be.  Any NPC can be chosen to become a target for random violence even down to children.  Prostitution and drug use can become hobbies while you choose to either help your vault or totally ignore them and become the wasteland's biggest fan.  Multiple endings can be gained depending on choices made throughout the game even down to the last seconds as you receive an ultimate reward for helping your vault.  All of these aspects took ITBS games to a new level of quality and expectance including the atmosphere and ethics.

Syndicate - Bullfrog - 1993 - PC

A quick honorable mention since it's not turn based goes to the isometric wonder known as Syndicate.  Taking place in a  future where corporations use cyborgs for hostile takeovers, Syndicate puts you in charge of your own corporation as you fight against the futuristic Wal-Mart known as Eurocorp.  Using a four agent team, you roam the gritty concrete landscape of cities exterminating, persuading and stealing corporate goods.  Much of the setting derived from the movie Blade Runner, as well as the attitudes toward cyborgs and civilians.

Besides the Lorenzo Lamas trenchcoats that your agents are forced to wear, the action is where this game deserves the mention.  Just about everything can be destroyed and there is no consequence for killing off civilians.  In fact, an item called the Persuadertron can be used to convince mobs of civilians to become a wall of protection for you and then can be sent to their death if you feel a twinge of nervousness for your cyborg buddies.  The overall idea of Syndicate would make for a great game today but sadly no confirmed remakes are in the works.

Empire Total War: South of the river you stop and you hold everything, a band is blowing dixie double four time

Remember when you used to sit behind Heather L. in 6th grade History class and each day you took bets on whether the teacher would have sweaty armpit stains or not?  Unless your name was Ryan K. you probably weren't doing exactly that, but I'm guessing that you remember just as much similar nonsense from those days than actual history that was taught to you.  And now you wonder why you can't answer any trivia questions about who Saxony was aligned with during the 18th century.  Care for a refresher on history so you can start winning arguments at your local watering hole?  Better go out and grab the interactive teaching tool called Empire: Total War from Sega.  Ok it's not focused on teaching per-say, the teaching of the 18th century comes as a nice result if you pay attention to the details in this immense game.  

A gigantic turned based strategy game (real time during battles) for the PC, Empire is a great mashed potato mixture of older strategy games such as Risk and Civilization.  If you have sat at home and had a few bed days lazily watching the History Channel, you may recognize the older versions of Total War being utilized to reenact great historical battles of the world. 

As seen by this in-game screenshot, the game in motion is as beautiful as a new bride walking down the aisle minus the flowers and cottony whiteness.  The camera, while in battle, can be angled high in the sky to see formations and flanks shifting to zooming right down to the soldier's point of view to watch them load and blast grape shot at nearby sloops.  Naval battles in particular are quite impressive as ships broadside one another having sails, masts, planks, and sailors become part of the watery wreckage.  

Those eye catching things aside, the game plays out like you would expect any typical turned based strategy.  After picking your favorite allegiance, the primary campaign starts in the year 1700 with the territories your country of choice owned.  From there you begin to amass land and naval troops, pick new buildings for cities and capitals, research military, philosophical, or industrial upgrades, establish trade routes, adjust taxes, send spies on sabotage missions, rearrange heads of state, and conquer opposing faction territories to claim for your own.  After exhausting all possibilities, you end your turn and a 6 month time period passes as all other factions do the same repeating the cycle until you reach the end year of your campaign.  

One thing that's impressive is the AI's ability to do its best in replaying history out to how it truly happened.  The "what if" choices make interesting results as the AI adapts to your decisions while simultaneously keeping as historically close to reality as possible.  A separate campaign mode for the colonization of the US is also included called the Road to Independence for all those wishing to brush up on why Britain had such a hard time keeping tabs on those in the New Land.

The difficulty of the game seems much harder than previous Total War titles as the turtling and steamrolling is an almost non-existent strategy with high upkeep prices for each unit.  A lot of political micromanagement is needed after completing philosophical upgrades and the people clamor for reform.  Alliances and trade routes all come with their respective ex-girlfriend type baggage as the rest of the world is trying to accomplish the same thing as you.  

The learning curve is about 5 - 10 hours depending on your past history with turned based strategies not to be confused with your past history with Stratego.  There are a good amount of tutorials to step you through how to play the game but those things are for losers right?  Once you get a good grasp on how to play the game, there is little that will piss off any player.  Extra difficulty occurs dependent on the faction you chose at the start (large naval presence of northern European countries like Sweden vs almost exclusive land military presence with central Europe like Prussia) and may make for very different starting points and strategies but with one choice there are advantages and disadvantages abound.  

Loading screens can get lengthy at times and Empire relishes in the latest technology by taking time to point out that it is "best played" with the newest i7 chip during initial loading screens.  And it's just like a company to help remind the world how to spend all the disposable income we all have during this economic time.  

Some pathing of your troops can be harrowing.  On the map screen it may seem like only the most direct route can be chosen while the AI controlled troops will show you some type of tricky avoidance pathing.  You will see the AI sidestepping right around forts and cities with troops in them making a sprint for your capital.  Similarly in battles your troops will walk right in front of your artillery and take friendly fire causalities instead of walking behind them.  After losing a general in battle to your own cannons you'll quickly learn what seems like a simple command can turn into a slap in the face and an embarrassment that your kids will never forget. 

Great battles, graphics, sound, historical alignment, depth, and play make Total War: Empire an all-around strategy game into a benchmark of the first decade in the 21st century.  With little to complain about, this game is worth the time it takes to complete just the "short campaign" and worth the extra time to replay it over and over trying out different sections of the world in the 18th century.  I only wish that more people would be able to see games such as this and realize how great history class could of been as well as what most kids were probably daydreaming about in those 6th grade classes.  Yup, you and Heather L., I mean the wars and what they must of been like.

Rating: 8.0 {on a scale of -10 to 10, a 5+ being a must play}

Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing

Hired Guns Jagged Edge: Last night I held Aladdin's lamp, And so I wished that I could stay

The ever vagueness saying "AND MORE" couldn't be a more hopeful statement when it comes to the latest installment of the Jagged Alliance series: Jagged Edge Hired Guns for the PC.  Brought to us by the company GFI (Russian so I wouldn't go screwing with them) HG is a total revamped game in the series which has traveled down the usual path of separation from the originals.  

The series is one of the rarest types of strategies in that it is a small squad turn based strategy.  Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, the Commandos Series, Fallout, and Front Mission are some similar types but if you are looking for modern guerilla warfare strategies, you are even more limited in your choices.  

This time set in Africa, HG takes you through most of the core values of the Jagged Alliance series such as laptop received directives to online purchasing of equipment and mercs to increased usage of action points for better accuracy per shot to the removal of an evil dictator.  Hell, XEP624 is still the code used to start your psych test in the creation of your own character and many of the questions are still the same just reworded.   

The squad screens within and outside the battlefields are very similar to the originals as well as the idea of needing to sap the resources of the land you are fighting on to make necessary expenditures unforgettable.  

And this is where our journey through magical nostalgia land ends.  The first step away is the utilization of three dimensions.  The camera can be shifted every which way to get a good line of sight or to frustrate you to the point of launching your mouse pad across your living room.  In order to not allow the camera to journey through objects (that's the way they set it up) you will find yourself spinning and angling until you give yourself a case of vertigo.  

Most games of today will step you through some sort of tutorial and HG says, "um no" to that idea as they throw your face down in the muck to learn things the hard way.  The learning curve for someone that played the originals multiple times through was still around 4+ hours.  Someone entirely new to this type of game would sadly need 8-16 hours to get a good hold on how to play it.  I am not exaggerating in the least about this as there are many mistakes that can be made and no way to catch them until it's too late.  

For example, in the originals you could take over mining operations to help fund your mercenary needs which were payments for your equipment and guns for hire.  This game however does not prompt you in any way except for small notes in the game manual and load screen tips that your hired assassins need cash more than once and must be paid promptly every day at 00:00.  And where are you to secure means to pay your employees?  Well, by taking over areas that have random amounts of income generation which cannot be known until you take over the area.  You also can again recruit militia to defend your owned areas but in this game the amounts required are so enormous and non-refundable that it's worthless to do so.  

Most of these differences stem from less micromanagement on the map screen.  No more worrying about medkits vs first aid packs, vehicles, SAM sites, mechanical kits, need for leadership increases, landing zones, etc.  Each contract for a specific merc is for one day reoccurring instead of choices of weeks.  There is no way for a quick figure of next day income or contract expenses which again will lead to a mercenary leaving with good equipment to be forever lost if you can't afford their contract.  

The battles are relatively good.  Most show off modern techniques and keep bug issues to a minimum.  You can now lob grenades easily through windows and even using bullets to help change the terrain around you.  You can burn a few rounds into a door, creating a large hole and lay waste to everything behind it in a single turn.  The battles are what make this series good and they are done with that intention.  The available weapons are gigantically numerous and realism is abound.  

But the major gap in the game is the storyline interlaced with environment.  After a few days in the imaginary African nation, I forgot why I was even there.  After a few more days I didn't care, I just wanted to finish the game.  I didn't get the sense that I was raping and plundering the land for any good reason or any guilt for pumping a 40mm grenade right past the faces of African civilians into another group of people that just happened to be shooting back.  You receive emails about your small triumphs over the evil dictator of the land but that's the only part of your progression that reminds you that you've, well, progressed.  There were large improvements over translations from the demo version but still the occasional Englilsh problem would poke it's head out.

Overall, the Jagged Alliance series was one that I was glad to see resurrected, but I do not feel the need to replay this game compared to the old ones.  I doubt anyone new to the series would even bother picking HG up, but for those that took a chance, will play through this feeling like they ate fast food even though a filet minot is what they were craving.  Fills you up but are you satisfied?

Rating: 1.5 {on a -10 to 10 scale, 5+ being a must play}

On a different note while I was purchasing this game I noticed another on the same shelf that caught my eye purely because of its name.  Space Siege made by the same guys (gas powered games) that did Dungeon Siege except this time is set out of the medieval fantasy realm and plunged into the space fantasy one.  Reviews that I later read make it seem like a run of the mill dungeon crawler but I'm guessing someone that enjoyed the others for co-op play will probably enjoy this one too.

Steppenwolf - Magic Carpet Ride