NOLAG Lans

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you combined Tetris like puzzle patterns with frantic 8- player Real-Time Strategy (RTS) battles? No, well neither did I…until I played Netstorm: Islands at War.

Produced by the appropriately named Titanic Entertainment and published by Activision in 1997, this wildly underrated game proved to be a financial flop, but a design masterpiece. So much so that the game servers, after having been shut down in 2002, were revived by the game community and continue to thrive to this day. But you are probably wondering what makes this game so great, aside from being free of course. The answer to that can be summed up in one word, innovation.

Taking place on Nimbus, a series of floating islands, you play as a religious faction, worshiping one of three different gods (or fury as the game calls them), representing rain, thunder, and lightning. The goal of the game is two incapacitate your opponent’s priest, of whom every player is given one, and then take him to your altar to be sacrificed by your priest. Now this is easier said than done, as unlike most RTS games, this game is not all about massing units and swarming your opponent. Rather, the game limits you to only a handful of units that can be controlled, of which virtually none can be used offensively, except to retrieve enemy priests and storm crystals (the game’s resources). In lieu of units, Netstorm requires that players carefully place defensive and offensive structures to destroy your opponent’s structures and inevitably allow one of your few units to walk in and carry them off.

In terms of structures, the game gives you a wide diversity of weather related weapons, ranging from icicle cannons and gyrocopters to towers that spawn Lightning spewing Jellyfish (though these units simply make a beeline for the enemy and cannot be commanded or micromanaged). Careful placement of buildings is key, as they vary in angle of fire and range. You will quickly find however, that land is in short supply, what with the whole world consisting of a few floating islands. Furthermore, you will find that the game’s single resource, Storm Crystals, are in geysers randomly scattered around the map. So how do you access these geysers and your opponent’s islands…why with bridges of course!

Now this is where the Tetris part of the game comes in. Basically, you constantly given a choice of one of four or five bridge pieces to lay down , with the condition being that they may only be attached to either your island or to an open end of a current bridge. The variety of shapes however, means that some forethought must be put into laying bridges, lest you wish for your bridges to be coiled up messes that go to nowhere. The addition of randomly selected bridge pieces replacing the piece you just laid in your selection of future pieces means that all those hours of Tetris will finally come in handy for than impressing you Easter European friends. Additionally, buildings can be constructed on the open edges of bridges, adding another layer of strategy when laying bridges. When you add in the fact that bridges deteriorate with time and the potential use of your bridges by your opponent, you have one frantic multiplayer match.

The game is strictly built around multiplayer play, with the single player acting as more of a tutorial than anything else, which was quite different from any RTS games at the time. This is further compounded by that fact that when you first start playing, you will be severely limited in the number of structures available to you, with new structures and units only becoming available as you play more online matches. This prevents you from being overwhelmed with choice early on and encourages online play, though definitely gives a leg up to experienced players. But don’t let this deter you from playing this wonderfully unique little game, as it’s unlike anything made, not only at the time but to this day as well.

Download it here

The other day I felt in the mood to play some Supreme Commander. After all, I had bought the game on release day and, despite multiplayer connectivity issues with the Gas Powered Game’s Online Network (GPGO), felt the game’s epic battles and scale made it a lot of fun. When my friends moved on to other games however, I had somehow forgotten it in the shuffle and the game began to collect dust. It didn’t help that an expansion pack, Forged Alliance, was rushed out a year later with a bunch of needless changes (the interface became screwy and the new faction did little to break the mold) that managed to split the games relatively small community base. None the less, I yearned to get in a few epic battles and decided that, not having class at the moment, I would play a round or two.

Realizing that the game was no longer installed in my computer I grabbed the game box from a dusty alcove at the top of my desk and threw the installation disc into my computer. Upon starting the installation, I was quickly reminded that the slow pace of the game applies to the installation as well. I accepted this however, as the game was seven Gigabytes and I was looking for an excuse to make lunch and check my email, which the game courteously provided. Upon returning, I was pleased to see the game had finished installing and was prompting me to log onto GPGO and had even remembered my login from way back when. Excellent I thought to myself, I should be playing in no time. Oh how naïve I was.

You see, GPGO has a process of automatically patching your game version to the newest version, which it does when you reach the game lobby. While patching, you are understandably prevented from playing any games, resulting in you more or less sitting there watching the progress bar crawl along and surfing the lobby’s news and player statistics. Finally the download bar gets to the end and I move my cursor over the presently un-selectable join game button, ready to play. Suddenly, a screen pops up informing me that the patch will now install. Damn, false alarm, oh well the install shouldn’t be too long. The install take a surprisingly long five minutes, but I figure it must be updating all the way to the current version, which would understandably be quite a jump give that the game has been out for a couple of years. As the install completes, a flurry of screens pop up containing other install bars that fill so rapidly and disappear that I am unable to even read what the install pop ups were. Okay, that was strange but at least I can finally get to play the game.

WRONG!!! To my horror, after clicking the join game button once again and getting no response, I see that GPGO is now downloading another patch. With my dreams of getting in a match in the foreseeable future quickly diminishing, I return to surfing the GPGO lobby, looking at player name as strange as they are unpronounceable. This system of download additional patches continues for another 25 minutes before finally ending. Unfortunately, the cycle of patching does not end on a positive note. It seems that the game is unable to complete its sixth patch as it is unable to find a file in game folder. Now I should point out that at no point in this process did I manipulate or adjust any of the game files. The God F*%$ing D%#M patches removed the files and then complained that they couldn’t find the files…%*#@. After restarting the patch three times and trying the install in Safe Mode, I check the Supreme Commander official Website to see if a manual patch exists, but I have no such luck. Reluctantly, I then turn the greatest bastion of knowledge and retardation, Internet Forums, to see if a solution is available. After sifting through endless pages filled with insightful posts such as “First” and your mom jokes, not to mention a smattering of random manual patches, none of which I require, I come across a post that sends me to the holy grail of Supreme Commander patches (http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=13046 for those of you that are interested), though in the post, it informs me that to successfully patch I will be required to reinstall the game…%*#$.

Fifteen minutes and a load of laundry I have finished reinstalling the game. Beginning at the retail patch and working my way up, I tediously begin to download and manually patch each game in succession, using the free time to read up on strategies for the game, realizing that if nothing else, by the time I can play the game I will be a walking encyclopedia on the game. Once again my progress stalls half way through my fifth install patch, the game again claiming that it can’t find key files. At this point, there is a brief interlude as my dad coaches me into putting down the family’s Fire Axe. I then realize to my horror, that further up the list of patches are an assortment of incremental patches, but of course none that match where I am currently at in the patching process. After several vain attempts to apply some incremental patches to my current version, I decide to reinstall the game a final time and try to patch the game directly from the retail version to the newest version, the incremental patch for it having not been noticed by me previously. While the game once again reinstalls, I pass the time practicing axe swing in the backyard. Fifteen minutes later, I return to my computer, axe in hand, ready to give this install one more try.

I begin the incremental patch, it download slowly and installs even slower. I sit their tense, watching progress bar cross the screen, sweat dripping from my forehead and hand throbbing from clenching the axe handle. Twenty agonizing minutes go by as the game patches and then, it’s done. ITS FREAKING DONE. After close to three hours from when I began, the game is finally done patching and, dropping the axe, I sit down to a game. My opponent taunt me about the superiority of Tier 3 Ground and how he Pwn me with them. That may be true, but remembering the many strategies I had read earlier that day I respond with a tactic which has been a safe bet since back in the beta days of the game. Rush for Tier 3 Bombers and hit his commander. The plan works like a charm and, as homophobic cries of defeat appear from my opponent, I end the match with the pride I had all but forgotten.

Seriously Gas Powered Games, I like you guys a lot, but you have really got to get you patching system together as patching a strategy game should not be a three hour affair.