Games report

I finished that game of Civ III last week, scoring a victory on Monarch level; that's a first for me on any Civ game, and the three iterations are similar enough that I really feel like I've crossed a definite point of skill development after more than a dozen years playing this game; like moving from Kyu to Dan, or something.

"Unfortunately" it was a Space Race win, which in my humble opinion is the least interesting of the victory types. I employed the ol' Let's you and him fight strategy to get there, letting the other civs have it it throughout history, remaining a friendly and trade-generous but strictly neutral neighbor to them all. Actuallly, I decided early on that I'd try for a Diplomatic win, but even though I built the U.N., three attempts at a secretary-general election led to no consenus. This was also an interesting first for me; I've flat-out won or lost all previous games' elections, when they happened. (Also, I ask: why does the game bother letting you vote for someone other than yourself? Can you get another leader to like you by voting for them (while wagering that they'll nonetheless lose the election)? That would be fun and Nomic-like...)

There was a little squirt of violent fun near the end when Hiawatha snapped and declared war on me, and I was able to whip up two military alliances (with Aztecs and Greeks) against on the same turn. Oh, my toes did wiggle.

---

Finished Beyond Good & Evil. It really is a nice little game, and I recommend it. (Erm, putting aside that one maddening scene with the broken POV-camera -- which is, I discovered, encountered only if you try solving a particular problem in a way that the game doesn't expect. But still.)

* It is kind of short (there are only two "dungeons" in the mid-game, couched in a whole lot of less intensive world-exploration) but it's very rich, among the most story- and character-centered action-adventure title I've ever experinced. (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time did this very well too, but had a much smaller cast of characters and less complex setting, and a greater emphasis on the gameplay.) There is a lot of setting, and you see and experience a very wide variety of game world as you follow the story, all rendered with beautiful environmental graphics, colorful and -- if you'll excuse me -- empathic character designs, and excellent music.

It's also nice to see a female main character who is made attractive by her characterization, not because the game gives her appearance or manner the Lara Croft/Bloodrayne/etc treatment. (Actually, I could extend this praise to the sidekick characters. They look like big dumb guys, and the story could punt and make them so, just playing them for comedy or whatnot, but it instead makes them signifantly more complex, and that's very nice.)

* The game's title is pretty awful, at least in English -- it makes it sound like a God Game or some other kind of sim, not an edgy/goofy SF cartoon starring an Intrepid Action-Girl Reporter and her Talking Pig Sidekick -- and now that I know from the closing credits that it's a French production (or maybe a French-Canadian one, as Prince of Persia, another Ubisoft title, was), I wonder if it's just a bad, or rather an over-literal translation from the original French, where it carried more weight, or rhymed, or was pun about photography, or something. Can any of my polyglot pals offer insight here?

* Speaking of Prince of Persia, some amusing role-reversal compared to that game: this time, the player-character is a smallish woman who can slip through tight spaces, and must often temporarily leave behind her male sidekicks (who are too big-bellied or barrel-chested to fit). (PoP has you as the big guy, and your lithe lady-friend is constantly squeezing through cracks in the walls to run ahead of you.)