Featured Twice

 Find the castle that appears twice in these five photos:

The answer is the first two.

Simultaneous Turn-Based Strategy Games

Welcome Aboard Commander

Carrier Command 2 is not only a sequel to the 1988 original, but a return to form after the failed 2012 soft reboot Carrier Command: Gaea Mission.  Nowhere is this more apparent than the visuals.  Gaea Mission attempted to go with a semi-realistic near-future look while the direct sequel is a mix of voxel shapes and pixel textures that feel like a natural evolution of the original game.  

At heart, the Carrier Command series is a RTS/FPS hybrid.  The games create a simulacrum of actual carrier operations.  The big caveat being air, sea or amphibious operations are carried out by drones which are controlled remotely via camera links.  Alternatively, the player can issue instructions on a tactical display which the drones will then carry out semi-anonymously.  Ideally, a mixture of both is how the game is meant to be played.  While it is certainly possible to tour much of the titular carrier through the player's in-game character, most (if not all) the game will be experienced on the bridge.  In this room, there a nine stations (three for drone control, one for the helm, one for shipboard weapons, two for managing logistics, one for power/coms, and the captain's chair).  It's certainly possible to play solo though a lot of multi-tasking is required to achieve any degree of success.  That said, I can't see there really being a need for more than three or four players aboard a carrier.  The game allows up to 16 which can participate in PvE or PvP style matches.

Aside from destroying all enemy carriers, the main task which players will be focused on is capturing islands.  Unsurprisingly, the world is an archipelago consisting of (a default) 64 islands, each procedurally generated and defended by computer-controlled vehicles.  A shield rating system (from 1 to 4) indicates how heavily defended a particular island is.  As far as I can tell one-shield islands are guarded by lightly armed land vehicles only, while two shields means they have either air or sea units present.  Three means both of those are deployed in addition to turret and missile defenses.  As for four...well, let's just say they are tough nuts to crack.  Each island also has its own biome (volcanic, tropical, forest, desert or snow-covered) and manufacturing focus (fuel, small munitions, large munitions, air chassis, ground chassis, support equipment or supply barges).  Once captured, the player's team can use the island's facilities to produce some of what they need to keep up their war efforts.  The logistics aspect of the game is actually fairly important to the point that it can occupy a lot the downtime that occurs when traveling between islands.  Another island type of note is the player's starting one.  It's a stockpile hub, but more importantly has a shipyard capable of launching small single-purpose gunboats.  These are handy to have, but also completely dependent on the carrier for fuel and ammunition.  Overall, the vibe I got was one similar to Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.  So while Carrier Command 2 has a FPS perspective, it's really only there for emersion purposes.  The player can leave the carrier if they want, go swim in the sea or even walk around the various islands in the game, but there isn't any reason to do so.  Unlike Gaea Mission, there are no personal firearms or man-portable weaponry to be had.  The player can only attack through vehicle-mounted weapon systems.  Just to drive the point home, there is an option in the ESC menu that teleports the player back to the bridge regardless of where they wandered off to.  Welcome aboard commander!  Now that you are here you can never leave...well, at least until you win, lose, or quit to desktop.

Rematched in Space

Back in early 2019 I wrote a blog entry comparing the original Kerbal Space Program to SimpleRockets 2.  In that post I came to the conclusion that KSP had more features, but also a number of legacy issues.  Whereas SR2 represented a fresh start with much cleaner code and a few design innovations.  Well, a lot has happened in the last two years and now there's Kerbal Space Program 2 along with Juno: New Origins.

In a way this franchise rematch is reverse of what came before; KSP2 is the game in early access while Juno: New Origins is feature complete.  I'm not sure why the name was changed from SimpleRockets 2 to Juno...maybe it had something to do with the fact that the game isn't so simple anymore.

To get into specifics, Juno has fairly extensive editing tools.  Automation is one thing, but it's even possible to reshape individual parts into all sorts of shapes.  Rocket motors, in particular, can have their size, noxel pressure, and cone length all tweaked in ways that change their characteristics.  Detailed displays of each rocket stage's performance at any altitude are listed and once it launches off the pad into an orbital trajectory data like horizontal/vertical velocity, burn time, ISP, TWR, apoapsis, periapsis and a whole slew of other things are easy to see on pop-out windows.  It's all very nice information to have from quality-of-life perspective, but the presentation isn't especially elegant.  KSP2 communicates much of this pertinent information to the player in the form of an integrated flight HUD.  Granted, you're not flying or driving craft much in Juno.  Instead, there are two nav rings (blue/vertical and orange/horizontal) which make piloting any vehicle a simple case of drag and drop the hedding you want.  Overall, it's a nice feature to have, but definitely much more hands-off feeling than KSP and KSP2.

Another fundamental difference is the style of each game.  Juno goes with a look that I can only describe as "proto Star Trek".  The first character you meet in Juno is tech guru who looks like a combination of Elon Musk and Dr. Evil.  Meanwhile, the second contractor to appear with jobs on offer in career mode is the spitting image of Brent Spiner (the actor who portrays Commander Data).  It's all a bit weird considering "crewed" missions don't have actual astronauts.  Rather, "droods" (humanoid robots) are what is used.  Obviously, KSP has their iconic Kerbals (little sentient fungal people with disproportionately large heads).  They're adorable and provide players with some instant mascots to latch onto, but their brand of humor can occasionally become more garish than funny. 

It's also worth noting that KSP2 is still a work in progress.  Whether or not it ends up filling out its roadmap or implementing features found in Juno (such as being able to create custom planets) has yet to be seen.  Right now I'm sure that the developers over at Intercept Games are very busy squashing bugs and optimizing code.  Understandable, but there is one last huge difference worth mentioning - price.

Juno left early access only a little over a month ago, and yet the asking price is less than half what KSP2 is charging.  Worse still, Private Division (actually a subdivision of Take-Two Interactive; a major publisher and the parent company of Intercept Games) plans to raise the price even more in the future.  Personally, I find this mildly insulting, and very much against the spirit of what early access is supposed to be all about; namely it's an opportunity for small indie devs to generate some desperately needed revenue by letting people buy and play their game at a significantly reduced price point before it is done.  Anyway...this is quickly degrading into a rant about poor business practices so I'll end it here.  

        

Ambient NPC Dialogue

"Someone is doing stuff they shouldn’t."  - Hitman

"Huh!? What was that noise?  Whose footprints are these?  It's just a box..."  - Metal Gear Solid

"The box moved again!"  - MGSV

"You're not Alexander."  - Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me

"You have a heart of gold. Don't let them take it from you."  - Demon's Souls

"You must gather your party before venturing forth."  - Baldur's Gate

"MAN STINK!"  - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

"Pam Pam Pa Raam!  Uh-hu?"  - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

"Want some rye?  Of course you do!"  -  Return to Zork

"You are in my way, sir."  - SWAT4

"Must have been the wind."  - Thief

"How do you like them apples?!  I'll fix your little red wagon!"  - Far Cry

"I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee."  - Skyrim

"Zug-zug"  - Warcraft

"I think it's time we adopt a llama"  - Saints Row 2 (3?)

"Yep, I've been drinking again"  - GTA 3

"MUTTON! FRESH MUTTON!"  - Xillia 2