Most importantly, how cool are the driving license tests? That’s the one thing that’s unique to the Gran Turismo series, still, that no one has tried to copy.
RE: the boardgame Comancheria
Only if you play the latter stages of the campaign! If you want a conquest game, you can just play the first two historical periods, which model the arrival of the Comanche on the southern plains in the 1700s, when they handily beat back the local tribes and Spain’s confused attempts at colonization and rapprochement. But once you get into the 1800s, it’s all about a controlled descent, if you will. To “win” the game, you have to ride the Comanche into the sunset without suffering too many military defeats. As with Navajo Wars, it’s a game about holding on to your culture while your people are dying out.
Empire of the Summer Moon is a fun read, isn’t it? I was really excited when Derek Cianfrance, the guy who directed Place Beyond the Pines and Blue Valentine, optioned it a few years ago for a movie adaptation. I figured he was going to tell a story about Quanah Parker, or maybe a kind of revisionist Searchers about his mother, Cynthia Ann Parker. But it seems like nothing is going to come of it.
I think the more relevant read for Comancheria is Pekka Hamalainen’s Comanche Empire, which seems to be the foundation for Joel Toppen’s design concept: that the Comanche were a bona fide empire, and that a game about them can play like an empire building game (with the caveat that it can never withstand the arrival of the US). It’s not as accessible aread as Empire of the Summer Moon, but it’s directly relevant to so much stuff in Comancheria that I recommend it to anyone who spends much time with the game:
That sounds rough, but compelling.
100%. Driving games (and fighting games) have so many niche mechanics that are difficult to parse in the heat of gameplay. I’m super thankful for as much challenging tutorial as they’ll throw at me.
I was loving the Street Fighter 6 beta test, but now it’s gone. What will fill the void?
I finished Katana Zero last night; it clocked in just under 8 hours and was a satisfying, if sometimes hyper-violent, experience. The art style reminded me of Indiana Jones: The Graphic Adventure, but not the gameplay. The visuals were stylized, which served the story well; I felt the first act was a lot stronger than the ending, which left too many things hanging.
Recommended!
Brotato.