A War of Personalities

I am rivals with Yuan Shao, but we tolerate each other, play at alliance, for there is long personal history between us. To betray that history would risk the wrath of mutual allies and old friends, and do terrible things to our reputation. So we glare, and tensions rise, and we race to take valuable territory from mutual foes, but we remain peaceful and our alliance strong enough.

But Yuan Shao dies, fighting bandits in the north, and his sons have no such compunctions. The Yuans vassalize their old foes and, as I march upon Dong Zhou, declare war. Now I’m at war on three fronts, against the Yuan in the east, Dong Zhou in the west, and a variety of vassal states to my north. I strike deals and manipulate some smaller states into fighting the Yuans, distracting his armies and giving me time and space to plan my next move. It would not have worked against Yuan Shao, too well loved by many of the men and women who now besiege his border territories, but his son has no such reputation.

This is the diplomatic world of Three Kingdoms: Total War, and it has helped turn Three Kingdoms into the best game in the series.

You Come at the King

Fortnite has been the king of the Battle Royal for two years. Others have made their plays for the throne but none have succeeded. Its combination of accessible graphics, no barrier to entry, and early penetration into an enormous player base simply could not be stopped and nothing anyone tried to do would change that. Other early adopters like Player Unknown have lost market share, while the FPS titan Call of Duty has failed to dethrone it.

Then Respawn decided to take their shot.

They purchased no marketing, had no ramp-up to release, no gameplay demos or teasers, and a lockdown on information that only broke due to leaks. Their only sell was 48 hours of paying streamers to play the game.

It worked. They took their shot at the King of Battle Royal and if they have not dethroned Fortnite they have at least bitten off a sizable market share. They’ll have to keep it,  monetize it, and fend off the next comers, but Apex Legends has a shot at it

All it took was making the best Battle Royale currently on the market.

It’s not Titanfall 3, but I’ll take it.

Jet Set Squid Kids

Sorry for the giant delay, school’s been pretty busy, I’ve been dealing with minor medical issues (Fucked up a knee), and I’ve generally had a hard time finding time for the blog. This post’s gonna be pretty short, and I’ve got half-done stuff on Zeta Gundam and Dragon Age Inquisition in the pipe, as well as most of a post on the less-than-stellar Two of Swords Part One by KJ Parker.

So the Splatoon Global Testfire started yesterday and I was one of those fortunate enough to participate. It was the first large-scale demo of the game, basically meant to stress-test the servers, and was relatively limited. It did, however, provide enough content to solidify my first impressions of the game.

And let me tell you, this thing is gold.