Monday, May 18th, 2009
I am going to talk about a video game that enraged me this morning– if you don’t like it then (jerks thumb) screw.
I had heard vaguely good things about a game called Puzzle Quest before, and I have enjoyed puzzle games in the past (Chuzzle, Zuma, Bookworm, etc.) so when I saw a featured game on Xbox Live Arcade called Puzzle Quest: Galactrix I bought it. What appeals to me is the ‘gather strength and weapons’ aspect of RPGs mixed with the puzzling action. I won’t get into exactly how Puzzle Quest mixes weapons and tetris, but if you even care you’re probably the type of person that can imagine how it works.
My progression was fine until this morning. As you defeat stronger enemy ships in combat you get money, cargo (which you can sell for money), and plans (which you can use to create new weapons and ships). You have the choice of purchasing new weapons and ships, or you can combine plans and cargo to create your own. I was content to purchase the weapons I wanted, or sometimes I crafted them. However, at a certain point in the game you face increasingly tough enemies who can wipe your little ship out in two turns. At this point all the weapons in the world can’t help you– you need a bigger damn ship.
So, as I mentioned above, the ships are obtainable in three ways: buying, finding, and crafting. You hardly ever find a ship, but that is how I moved from the small version to the medium version. I kept hoping to ‘find’ a big ship but so far no luck. I did, however, get plans for building a huge ship. It had lots of preconditions (an immense amount of cargo, and you have to solve an incredibly hard puzzle) but I spent all morning cruising around the galaxy, mining asteroids and running errands for asshole aliens. Finally, I have assembled all the ingredients to make my huge ship which will propel me to victory against the Borg– er, ‘Soulless’ (I see what you did there, developers).
Here I should explain how the cargo, or ingredients, work. Your ship can only hold so much. You can have up to three ships at a time. This becomes important later, but for some reason even though you fly and fight in only one of your three ships, your total available cargo room is calculated by adding up all three ships’ cargo capacity.
Ok, I got the ingredients, I got the plans, let’s craft ourselves a Voltragg Battlecruiser! Er, no. “You already have three ships in your fleet.” Hmm, ok, I’ll sell my smallest ship that I never use. Then I’ll have room in my fleet for my Voltragg Fucking Battlecruiser. (sell item) “You can’t do that because you have too much cargo.” So I can’t sell my smallest ship because my cargo would then exceed the combined capacity of all my ships– I already had a feeling of dread. I sold off all my excess cargo, the stuff that wasn’t necessary to build my battlecruiser; not enough. So I sold more, and more until I was able to sell the small ship. And now? I don’t have enough capacity to hold the ingredients to make my fucking battlecruiser.
My only option now is to sell all my cargo, and my second ship. Then buy a new second ship that I have no intention of using but that has a large capacity so I can put enough fucking cargo in it so I can have a third slot open so I can build a motherfucking Voltragg Battlecruiser. pant, pant. Fuck.
I should not have to buy a second (very expensive) ship (let’s call it the Stor-N-Save) just so I have somewhere to put the materials I’ll use to build my Eradicator of Worlds. Fuck you, game-makers.
