Real-time strategy vs. turn-based strategy

Hey Danda!

I'm not entirely surprised that you don't like strategy games if your only real contact with them was Stalin vs Martians! Although that viral campaign looks like fun... A dancing Stalin? Why not!

Seriously, though, I realize that strategy games aren't for everybody. I played Command & Conquer mostly for the video sequences when it came out in the mid-90s. (A lot is possible with animated cut-scenes these days, of course, but videos of real people do have their own appeal.) I also vividly remember playing Command & Conquer against my brother via null modem (who does that anymore?) and also losing constantly. But I still liked the game.

Meanwhile (with age?) I prefer turn-based strategy games over real-time strategy games, though, as they're generally a lot less hectic. Games like Civilization III and, before that, Colonization, or even X-Com: UFO Defense and SimCity have captured my attention for many more hours than real-time strategy games have. Of course, it might also be that it's because Civilization, Colonization and SimCity were less about war and more about nation-building.

At any rate, as you know, I'm now quite taken with GTA IV now, even though I didn't yet get to the part where it's possible to date that "lawchick". There's still a lot to explore in the game, and the in-game Internet is one of those things. By the way, it's a shame you can't choose to play the game as a woman, although I do admit that in this particular game, the story so far wouldn't really work if you could. (I recently read an interesting article about the "issue" of having to play male characters as a female gamer: Writer Ann Aguirre talks games | GameCritics.com.)

I was surprised to find out yesterday that I could make a "good" or an "evil" decision in GTA IV, and I wonder what the effect on the story will be in the future. However, shortly after that morally sound decision I made, I had to execute someone, and I don't think there was away around it, which makes the importance of the earlier decision doubtful.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what happens next, and I'm just glad that the people I accidentally hit with my car in wild chases through Liberty City don't weigh negatively on my karma!

Speaking of moral decisions in video games, there's another interesting article (Decisions, Decisions | GameCritics.com) about that on the same site as the other article, which agrees with you in the assessment that the moral choice system in BioShock was lame. (That's what you think, too, isn't it?) In retrospect, I have to admit that I was never tempted to replay BioShock as "evil", harvesting all the Little Sisters. From what I understand, the only difference would be that I'd get to see a different ending. That's not enough payoff for a casual core gamer!

Game on,
- Viv