As you sit in your booth, you call people to show their papers. You check whether the names, serial numbers, dates and data match. If all is good, [...]]]>

Dealing with immigration: the best way to understand the word "bureaucracy"

Papers, Please puts you in the hotseat of an immigration officer in a fictional country of Arstotzka where you get to decide who gets in, and who doesn’t.

As you sit in your booth, you call people to show their papers. You check whether the names, serial numbers, dates and data match. If all is good, you can approve this person. If it isn’t, you deny or detain him or her, depending on the severity of the issue.

Detecting a discrepancy of wrong issuing city by cross-referencing your official handbook and a person's passport

There is a backstory to the game. It goes like this: a border has just open and you have been given the job as the one and only immigration officer in this border. For thirty days, you will go to work and every person you correctly approve or deny will reward you with money, along with bribes, bonuses and other one-time events.

You have a family to take care of, which will cost you money to upkeep due to rent, heat and food. Your efficacy at work will determine if they flourish or perish.

The game gets increasingly complicated. You start of dealing with two or three documents, but because of different world events such as terrorism, deteoriating relations between nations, and disease, you will increasingly need to deal with more paperwork, weapons and dilemmas.

A dilemma you will encounter: do you help your government or assist a clandestine anti-government group? Do you take bribes? Each choice you make will lead to a different ending, of which there are 20.

A miserable ending awaits if you make the wrong choices

The game runs very well on a netbook and you can probably play it with a trackpad should you wish. It is certainly advantageous to play with a mouse since speed is of the essence in this game.

The only issue is that you must play fullscreen, because windowed mode is way too big for a netbook’s display of 1024×600. Fullscreen resizes it down, but oddly, it will scale it down such that Papers, Please will only take up half the screen, leaving a substantial perimeter of black bars on all four sides as evident on the first two screenshots.

Papers, Please offers some of the best value for money and an addicting factor that is up there with highly rated regular games. You can play it through once to get the story, or you can play it again and again to experience the different endings. It’s fantastic.

Like

A unique game with a good replay value

Great storyline, thrilling endings

Fun because of the constantly changing environment

Dislike

Suboptimal fullscreen scaling

Verdict

Great fun, great value, good replay value.

Gameplay: Great!

Graphics smoothness: Excellent

Work needed to get game to play: None

Future patches might change it, but as of now, you’re stuck with either playing it on an external display or a different [...]]]>

Faster than Light is not really netbook compatible... this is how the game looks like at a non-native 1152x864 resolution.

Here at Netbookist, I take pride in helping my readers. So here’s something from the get-go: Faster than Light will not display properly on netbooks that do not support at least a 1280×720 resolution.

Future patches might change it, but as of now, you’re stuck with either playing it on an external display or a different computer altogether.

This is how full-screen on a standard laptop screen looks like.

The game is still playable if you really, really wanted to play it on a netbook. The game’s native resolution is 1280×720, which means that on a typical netbook, you’ll have a lot of horizontal resolution truncated. The fix to this, to make this game playable, is to familiarize yourself with the way the game works before attempting to play it on a netbook and playing it at the maximum resolution which your graphics card will allow. More crucially, play the game in windowed mode, so you can move the window around to see parts that are truncated.

Finally, for the majority of netbook users with integrated Intel graphics drivers, it can be hacked to 1152×864. If you haven’t already hacked the drivers, follow this link.

Readers, if a future patch solves this problem, please do let me know!

Quick Review

Faster than Light is a unique game. For ten dollars, you get many, many hours of fun.

The game is basically a point-and-click game, where you have to manage the roles of your party. For maximum efficiency, you have to match certain jobs to certain people. Each space race has attributes that make some better at attacking, some immune to fire and some can repair your ship faster. Your job is to make sure you’re getting most out of your (non-)human resources.

With that done, your job is to constantly upgrade your ship so that you can fend off the final ‘boss’, the Rebel Flagship. On you way to meet the Flagship, you will attack lesser enemies who will dispense resources such as Scrap, which is the currency you use to buy upgrades for your ship.

With these two elements – a good ship and a good crew – you will then be tasked to defend yourself against pirates and other aggressors. Combat involves choosing your target and crossing your fingers, much similar to X-Com games. In Faster than Light, you will have to choose discrete faculties of the ship you want to destroy – you can destroy the shield regenerator,  the weapons first, if your strategy is max damage to them, and less damage to yourself.

On the other hand, you can pick an alternative strategy of maximum resource gain, by teleporting your best troops to their ship, and killing the crew in it. Leaving the ship in tact will generally give you more resources per battle.

All these minute considerations might seem unnecessary, but the real test of how well your strategy is will come together when you face the Flagship. And fear the Flagship much, because this game has no save game feature that features like a “backup”. Instead, the save game feature is there only to allow you to pause and resume the game once. A deliberate feature that was annoying at first, but I learnt to appreciate it as a means to keep the game challenging, and to make you keep coming back for more.

It’s hard to classify this game. In a sense, it’s a game where you take on the role as a hacker, using programs to crack passwords, your wits to [...]]]>

If you like 'hacking' Facebook profiles...

Uplink is a very unique game. Even up until today, there hasn’t been a game this similar to Uplink, and it has been over ten years…

It’s hard to classify this game. In a sense, it’s a game where you take on the role as a hacker, using programs to crack passwords, your wits to fool authorities into framing someone, and covering your tracks to ensure you don’t get caught for your crimes. You act as an agent of a company called Uplink, which manages its ranks of freelance hackers by providing a central location where you can find jobs, buy programs and read the news about successful infiltrations, arrests and it also serves as a place for you to get a glimpse of the storyline.

The game is a true one of a kind, but it has a moderate learning curve and a really unforgiving ‘game over’ mechanism, you’d be glad you played this game. In this game, you only get one shot. There is no official way of saving the game, so if you were slow in covering your tracks before the Feds come after you, it’s a hard-hitting game over where the only way back into the game is to start all over again. The makers of this game probably were trying to inject some realism into the game… or maybe it’s because the game was created in 2001 when games were tougher.

Missions are varied, and you get more challenging ones as you climb up the ranks

The progression of the game is simple. You start out with a pretty lousy machine capable of doing things at a snail’s pace. With the 3000 credits you start with, you must buy the basic tools such as a password breaker. This allows you to take up beginner missions which require you to hack into a system and delete or copy a file.

As you progress, you will be up against higher security computers, such as government computers or banks. Hacking a government computer will allow you to change someone’s education credentials, or authorize his arrest. Yes, there are no females in this game. Similarly, if you hack a bank, you can view someone’s balance, max out their credit limit, and (riskily) transfer their balance to your bank account. Mid-level missions usually require you to do something of this sort, although at this level, there are proxies and firewalls to counter against, which require you to buy programs to counter it.

But the chief characteristic of how Uplink makes itself extremely exciting is in the fact that everything you do seems like brinkmanship. One of the most basic programs is called a Trace Tracker, and what it does is it tells you how far you are to being caught. As the server you’ve hacked into traces your footsteps backwards, the Trace Tracker tells you how much time you have left in the worst way possible – beeping like a bomb. In high security computers, you might get traced really quickly, and the constant sound of BEEP BEEP BEEP will definitely put you on your toes.

Uplink runs excellent on a netbook. It runs great, is extremely addictive, and has few problems. The best way to get an optimal experience is to ensure you patch it to the latest version once you install it. Version 1.00 only allows you to play at 640×480, but once you upgrade it, you can play the game at a resolution compatible with a widescreen display, and it also smooths out any bugs.

The graphics are simple, the soundtrack is excellent and the game is extremely addictive. Try it!

Digital footprints... must be destroyed!

Tweak: How to Save Game

The game doesn’t come with a simple ‘save game’ button, so you need to do it manually. In order to save your game, you’ll have to head to your installation directory, and copy the contents of the users folder to somewhere off-site. Remember to always go into the main menu by clicking the ‘X’ button in the top left hand corner while in-game before you attempt to copy the files.

Like

The thrill of being a hacker with the ability to change things

Wonderful soundtrack

Plays excellent on a netbook

Dislike

Some bugs

Extremely unforgiving!

Verdict

Three days, three nights. Prepare pizza delivery numbers.

Gameplay: Keeps you planted at the edge of your seat for hours.

Graphics: Not fancy but functional.

Work needed to get game to play: Get it patched ASAP.

Building roller coasters is unbelievably addictive.

Holy mother of addictive god. As if Lords of the Realm 2 isn’t extremely addictive already, I recently installed Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, and these two games have been keeping my neck strained as I hunch down to look at my netbook screen – better fix this problem using this guide. A little cautionary tale.

Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 is one of the most unique games out there. It comes as one of the most outstanding games of the early 2000′s due to the fact that it is extremely unique, and it is also lots of fun.

In the spirit of tycoon games, your goal is to ensure that you manage your theme park well and you make a lot of dough. Yep, that’s pretty much the basis of a lot of missions. Sometimes the missions have other requirements such as ensuring that your park rating does not drop below a certain score, or that you have a certain amount of rides that have a high excitement rating, etc., but the basis of the game is that you need the dough so that you can keep the park clean and tidy, and always with new rides that are enticing and exciting.

Well, f***...

The game is quite engrossing because of one key feature – designing roller coasters. While your park must contain other elements such as ‘Gentle Rides’ and ‘Thrill Rides’, which are basically rides such as a ferris wheel or a rocking ship, designing a roller coaster will be the feature that will keep you coming back for more.

In order to make a roller coaster entertaining, you have to know your crowd and design rides that are not too intense, not too nauseating, but are as exciting as possible. ProTip: high lateral G-forces will cripple your ride.

Then comes the other little bits of the game, and what I like to call the ‘nitty-gritty’. Your rides don’t last forever, they break. So you have to make sure your mechanic is always on-site, not stuck in the sticks where he’ll take three (in-game) months to arrive from the jungle to the broken ride.

People puke too and that’s because they refuse to go into a toilet to let it all out, or head to a first-aid clinic, so they vomit on the path. It almost feels like it’s Theme Hospital as you call a handyman (yes, they’re all men) out.

As you build your next great masterpiece, keep that financial statement window open, so you can conveniently loan thousands.

Lastly, certain eccentric individuals also pay a premium to enter your park, and then head out to vandalize the benches, which is a sign you don’t have enough po-po patrolling.

But despite all these, the game is extremely entertaining because of how it gives you satisfaction to be the owner of a high-rating, revenue generating park.

The best part about this game is that it runs smoothly on all netbooks, because the game is essentially a throwback to the heydays of 256-colour, meaning that you won’t need any fancy graphics card – Intel GMA would do fine. It even supports widescreen displays natively, how rare!

Like

Building roller coasters!

A well-managed park is a reward in its own

Dislike

It can get repetitive if you play this game constantly over a short period of time

Verdict

As always, a game with a good concept can last through all sorts of ageing. While RCT2 has pretty old-skool graphics and cutesy music, the game makes a great tycoon game because it has a great build-it-yourself concept, a bit like how Lego is fun. The endless combination of roller coasters, dealing with the ‘nitty-gritty’, and then launching your way to capitalist heaven makes RCT2 a must-have.

Gameplay: So simple, yet so addictive.

Graphics: A throwback to the mid-90s.

Work needed to get game to play: None!

I have often triumphed a truth about games – good graphics, great sound and a great storyline is nice to have, but these elements don’t make the game. There are games out there which you play once, and then never play it again, until, perhaps, nostalgia hits you, and then there are games out [...]]]>  

Crappy screenshot? Sorry - I can't seem to take pictures in Windows mode without getting the colours all garbled.

I have often triumphed a truth about games – good graphics, great sound and a great storyline is nice to have, but these elements don’t make the game. There are games out there which you play once, and then never play it again, until, perhaps, nostalgia hits you, and then there are games out there which can be infinitely replayable. The key difference? A game’s concept.

There aren’t too many games out there that don’t follow the logic of safety. The biggest example out there is probably Call of Duty with its many iterations of pretty much the same thing.

But then there are games out there which also try something new. If we look at The Sims, which was a game that was predicted to fail, or if we look at Theme Hospital, we see how unique ideas can translate to a timeless game. People still play Theme Hospital – just look for mods that try to wrestle with Windows 7 compatibility issues.

And on that note, my friend recently introduced me to a game that is so addictive, I haven’t had time to… write on Netbookist. I’m sorry.

The game is called Lords of the Realm II. It’s a sixteen year old game that has such a good concept that I don’t even mind suffering 256 colours and 640×480. It’s a game that seems like a mix of Civilization and Age of Empires. Yes – your goal is to conquer and smite your enemies until you are the one and only left.

Every turn, you have to deal your domestic issues first, and then military issues next. A bit like Civilization.

You allocate your citizens into different industry – wheat farming, cow herding, stone and iron mining, forestry and blacksmithing. There’s a cycle to this – you feed your peasants so that they multiply and provide you with labour (and don’t overthrow you), once you have extra labour, you allocate them to resource hunting, and then putting these resources into building arms. You then raise an army with the weapons you have – all while taxing your peasants a nonsensical 5% tax that won’t put much into your coffers until your empire becomes massive.

With the army you raised, you then go out to conquer neighbouring counties. And this is where this game turns from being a turn-based strategy into a real-time strategy. Every time you fight an enemy army, you must strategize on how best you can make the full use of expensive-but-strong knights, or your archers, which are terrible at self-defense but can shoot enemies miles away. Or you can go trampling on their land, disrupting their economy and causing a displeased peasantry.

The game ramps up in intensity as you proceed from fighting just one opponent to have to deal with four of them. Things get tougher too – land starts out unarable or you might not have an iron mine in your county, causing you to need to buy it from roving caravans.

And because of this convergence of Civ-like elements and AOE-like elements, Lords of the Realm II tends to have the addictiveness of Civ, while giving you more control over battles by putting you into a real-time fight. You’ll see your time disappear as you have one more turn… and then another.

If you want to get this game, you have to search it up online – it’s considered abandonware, so I suppose you can find it really easily. I’d recommend you the place I got the game from, but I don’t want you to suffer 5kb/s speeds.

Like

Civ-like turn-based strategy

AOE-like real-time warfare

Extremely addictive, in a “one…more…turn…” sense

Dislike

Low-res graphics

Verdict

This game is so good, you probably could play it all day, all night. It’s simple but extremely fun!

Gameplay: Engrossing.

Graphics: It’s the 90′s!

Work needed to get game to play: Minimal, though getting a screenshot… oh god why…

Well, they did, and Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun is the last one which can be obtained free and absolutely legally. This game builds upon the original C&C and brings it to a new level of sophistication and [...]]]>

The final, free C&C game is one of the most memorable.

Who knew a company like EA would release so many classics to the public for absolutely free?

Well, they did, and Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun is the last one which can be obtained free and absolutely legally. This game builds upon the original C&C and brings it to a new level of sophistication and depth. The game is highly exciting, and definitely something you want to try, especially since it’s absolutely free and pretty simple to install.

Just like the original C&C, the game is very similar – build a base, gather Tiberian, amass an army and then attempt to massacre your enemies. The game brings familiarity to people who have played the good ol’ games, whether it be Red Alert or the original C&C, both of which are free too, by the way.

The essential difference between this game and the original C&C is that it’s been complicated to good taste – you get more units, more buildings, and more ways to slaughter your enemies. For example, in the original C&C, you had the option of one superweapon. Now you have about three. Remember Tanya from Red Alert? In C&C: Tiberian Sun, you have Tanya-esque units, such as the Cyborg.

Tiberium Sun is a great game, especially so because it’s free and it’s quite engaging. One thing that I find a bit unfortunate has to be the lack of multiplayer capability. Out of the box, you are unable to play with your friends.

Now, my two cents. Since all three games are offered free, you do have a lot on your hands if you try to play all three at once. You’d miss work, lose your family and lose half your weight because you can’t get to the kitchen to cook. If you don’t want this to happen, however, I’d say that while Tiberian Sun is a great game, the original C&C is still a lot more engrossing than TS is.

My theory of why this is so lies in the fact that the original C&C is a much tougher game, where as Tiberian Sun is a game that follows a late-90′s-and-early-2000′s trend whereby games are gradually made easier and easier. In fact, the inclusion of a Skirmish mode just removes a large chunk of your impetus to play the Campaign – the slow, mission-by-mission release of stronger units, which keeps you addicted to playing the game just to see what cool toy you’ll have next.

Is it a bad game? No. It’s absolutely terrific. That’s why, if you’re bored, you should head over here and download it. Installation is pretty easy, you just have to copy the whole SUN folder onto somewhere in your hard drive and run SUN.exe. That will enable you access to both the original Tiberian Sun and Firestorm. It’s pretty much the easiest game to run among the three free games. In case you encounter an error stating that you are unable to open up the file, what you need is WinRAR, which you can download from here. Presumably, if you are running this on a netbook, you’d want to download the 32-bit version, that goes by the name WinRAR x86 (32-bit) x.xx.

Like

A great revamp of the C&C series with a lot of new units and new strategies.

Dislike

Graphics still looks like Gameboy Color

Not as engrossing as the first two C&Cs – IMHO, YMMV.

Verdict

Quite a sweet game for Skirmish, though campaign-wise, definitely try the first C&C.

Gameplay:  Great!

Graphics: Looks antiquated.

Work needed to get game to play: Minimal – extract a folder from the RAR and run the executable.