infernovia

Great interview! I absolutely love the discussion on Blade Runner. One of the greatest games released in the 90s and I honestly wasn't expecting so much discussion on it in a strategy game podcast. I love his attitude and it's a shame that Westwood couldn't succeed on their ambitions. It would be absolutely amazing to see a new game like Blade Runner that in the modern age.

"Better music?" It's different, but imo, worse. The original had a sense of aggression that I sorely miss with the newer relaxing songs/remixes. Titans is pretty cool. If you really only played the original game in the beta stage, just give it a try now, it's a lot different. A lot of the improvements were already in the base game, but what are you going to do. First impressions. As an avid player and as someone who constantly played a lot of hour+ long FFA team games, I will state that I think it's way too geared towards offense now in the late team stage of the game. But I really like the new units and it has a lot more flavor now. The orbital game is a lot deeper than before with tanks and siege orbitals. The 1v1 is more defensive thanks to the platforms and the maps so even non-team players can see late game units. I will give everyone the same advice though, if you can play with a teammate that you can talk to, the game is way more fun. Way more engaging the Sins.

There is another lock to north option in the settings, but I just use N to re-orient. I usually don't need more than that.

Hit N to stabilize to North.

Yeah, I would highly recommend playing it with someone you are friends with (and have some sort of voice communication). And I agree with the above, communication is super important, but that's part of the fun in learning the game. You can parcel out roles/zone of controls really easily and the game doesn't demand everything from you as a result. You can more easily manage one/two fronts rather than 4-5 that can start happening (plus the economy, plus the production). I completely disagree with Rob when he says the UI isn't intuitive enough. I honestly can't think of a better way to do the UI. But he is still right in the sense that it is very difficult to keep track of multiple battlefields, and that's why this game is much more enjoyable when played with a shared army. This is especially true in the beginning where the new interface, the spherical maps, the unit controls, the economy can completely throw you off.

Rob, I saw your review on IGN: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/17/planetary-annihilation-review I am actually really surprised by the score, but my biggest gripe with this review is that you didn't mention the shared army option. This alone takes care of a lot of issues as you get used to the game and it really makes the multiplayer approachable to everyone.