Coal Collector!

The Great Gift Pile objectives are turning out to be a mix of quick and easy tasks and longer, more difficult challenges..

Atom Zombie Smasher: KringleJammer was fairly easy to get, as was the Rock of Ages: Snowball War.  Audiosurf: Candy Stripe required only the collection of red and white blocks in a line, but it took me a while to find something on my PC that played at the right pace to generate the blocks I wanted.  “Still Alive” was giving me blue blocks, so wouldn’t do for this!

Beat Hazard: Survive Christmas 10 required me to survive for 10 minutes.. and it took far longer than that!  After several attempts of under five minutes each, I realised I had unlocked some perks which might help: the Ultra DLC added Micro Missiles and a Reflect Shield which just about let me last long enough to complete the objective.

A harder achievement was the deliberate loss of a game in Fate of the World, where instead of trying to save the world, I led it towards global thermonuclear war and the Let it Glow achievement!  After a few attempts I ended up consulting the internet for tips on how to get the ‘right’ ending.. it turned out to be a rather tight list of instructions while hoping for the right random numbers to be generated each turn.  I think actually winning this game, as opposed to playing for an achievement, will be next to impossible as all territories seem to get annoyed with you very quickly! 😀

For another deliberate loss, I also tried to nuke Santa in DEFCON.. but found his movements too unpredictable, the AI too eager to react, and my supply of nukes too low for me to get him.  I quickly got bored of this, so I checked out the tips on the net again, and reduced the number of cities to 5 per territory, but then found the game crashing almost as soon as I launched a nuke!  Something to do with the latest update and Windows 7 🙁

Another not-quite-game objective was Winter Assault.. survive a 30 minute match on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution, on one of the winter maps.  Four of us joined the game, with one going AFK immediately.. only interested in the achievement itself.. but three of us met in the middle to trade blows until we’d met our time requirement!  I wished for more Great Unclean Ones, but settled for a squad of Chaos Dreadnoughts instead 😀

With the completion of all these objectives, I’m collecting lots of coal along with vouchers which probably won’t get used.. two are for Valve.. I already own all their games, as do all my gaming friends.  Although, if anyone does want them.. 🙂

I did win one game via the giveaway.. Silent Dreams’ Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes, a fantasy role-playing game with strategic combat and a sense of humour.  The games in this giveaway are provided as a token, which can be added to your own inventory or traded.. so if you already own the game you win, you can give it away or trade it for something else.

A friend bought me Space Pirates and Zombies by Minmax Games, which I tried briefly last night.  After stumbling through the first couple of missions, I decided I need to be somewhat alert to play! 🙂

The Steam sales are ongoing, and I also picked up ACE Team‘s rather Monty Python-esque Rock of Ages, mentioned earlier, and Croteam‘s Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, and Serious Sam 3: BFE, with the first two games below £2 each, and Serious Sam 3 at a reasonable price, considering I wanted a copy for me and a copy for Tim.

Other women spend their money on shoes: I spend my money on games! 🙂

Atom Zombie Smasher

Atom Zombie Smasher was recommended by the boss a while ago, after appearing in a Steam offer for just a few quid..

This is a top down strategy game in a world overrun with zombies, or Zed, as they’re called in this game.  Your task is to evacuate civilians from cities under attack, while attempting to contain the Zed outbreak for as long as you can.. a battle you can’t actually win.

Cities are randomly generated for each level, with civilians represented as little yellow dots, and Zed as pink dots.  To evacuate civilians you simply send in your Evac helicopter, which loads in as many civilians as it can before taking off..

The tactics come in placing the helicopter where it can safely load people with no Zed, as the helicopter will take off if Zed get near the landing zone.  The Zed enter the city via a few spots during the first day phase, but will start to flood in from all sides once night falls.. if you make it till night 🙂

To assist in the evacuation, you can also deploy military forces.. Infantry, Snipers, Artillery, and later, Barricades, Landmines and Dynamite, with a few more high powered weapons being allowed at other times too.  I found the Infantry and Snipers to be my favourite.. while Barricades were useful to funnel Zed around the city they are rather passive, and Dynamite in particular has to be blown up all in one go, which means it doesn’t always kill enough Zed.

After each Evacuation, points are assigned based on the overall performance, with individual points per squad.  A good performance can allow your squads to level up, allowing faster movement, more accuracy or other perks, which make the next mission a little easier.. though I found myself then hoping to carry on using the squads I’d upgraded, rather than another, less used one.

Points are also assigned to the Victory Track, which tallies up your influence versus the Zed influence.. with more perks unlocking as you go along.  I loved the Elephantbird.. a supercannon which I was given for just one mission, allowing me to pick off all the zombies in a highly-infested zone by simply bombing them through the city!

When the Victory Track fills for either side, they win.  The odds are stacked towards the Zed, as the infected areas spread after every turn, thereby gaining more points per level and eventually reaching a perk which enables larger outbreaks.

You’re maybe not meant to win the game, so much as lose as gracefully as possible 😉

I can also now add Atom Zombie Smasher to my list of completed games!

Steam Summer Camp Sale

After an amazing week away in Madeira, I returned to find Steam has yet another crazy sale going on, with lots of games at very low prices.  Should I fear for my bank balance now?

Friends have bought me a few games: Star Wars – Battlefront II, SpaceChem and my own copy of Oblivion 🙂

I’ve added to this with two tower defense style game: Sanctum and Atom Zombie Smasher, as well as a rather large bundle of Paradox Interactive games.  The Paradox Fantasy Pack got my interest because of Majesty 2, which I tried a long while back.. along with DLC for this plus the original game, it also contains a strategy game called Elven Legacy, plus follow-ups.  As Majesty 2 itself cost £5.35, and the bundle £5.89, this was pretty much a no-brainer!

Along with the Summer Camp Sale, there are a large number of “Camp Activities”, which basically amount to earning specific achievements in a variety of games to earn tickets which allow you entry into the Grand Prize Giveaway, where 100 people will win the top 10 games on their wishlist.  The tickets can also be spent on random in-game content, including map packs, extra characters, missions or vanity gear such as the Sunny Shades for TF2.  I’m only now up to 7 tickets, with a good number of achievements to get.. the HOARD one in particular is eluding me!

As for TF2.. this game has now become free, which has meant a lot more people playing!  We now even have somewhere good to play, as Jason set up his Closed on Sundays TF2 server, complete with silly Roll the Dice mod 😉
So far, the server has filled up quickly whenever we’ve played, which has meant a few good games.  Roll on the weekend!