Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:09 pm
So I just got this little game after a recommendation from Extra Credits (on the Escapist) and turns out, it's not so little. I haven't played a singleplayer game that was actually difficult in quite a long time, so this is a very pleasant surprise. I mean come on, I'm the strategy master, I should be able to jump in and crush from the outset, right?
No Crono, wrong! This game is hard, I got crushed.
FOTW is a serious game about global warming and human development. The second mission's objective is simple: survive till 2120 from 2020 (with each turn representing five years). Twenty turns? LOL EASY right? I got to around ~2090 and I was rewarded with the total societal collapse of North America, India, Russia, the Middle East and Latin America with millions upon millions starving in China and Japan, the collapse of global financial markets, the world temperature at +2.5C since pre-industrial times and no more polar ice caps. And I thought I was doing alright with my policies! Things were peachy in 2060, then it just went tits up.
You play as the director of the fictional Global Environmental Organization, an NGO that can enact sweeping policy changes and influence across all regions of the world in areas like environmental protection, technological development, social programs, energy research/usage and political/military decisions. Your job, as I stated above, is to stop the inevitable destruction of humanity whether by global warming, war, famine or a host of other disasters.
This is accomplished by recruiting agents in regions across the world and playing "cards" which represent policy changes. You can play one card per agent, and you can have six agents in a region. You're limited by your funding and political opposition from protesters. First you set up offices in five categories, Environment, Technology, Energy, Social and Political and you can then choose which cards to play in each category (with a sixth category representing GEO projects like funding space programs, protecting soil and land, committing to nuclear/renewable energy, etc). Within the offices, you can do things like fund Flood Protection, focus on biotech/robotics/software/etc, implement education programs, expand oil/coal/gas/biofuel utilization and deploy black ops or peacekeepers. There are probably hundreds of cards, and they change as technology improves (for example, developing 4th generation nuclear reactors or high tech drills), and they can range from fairly innocuous (spread awareness about the green movement) to hilariously extreme (deploy biological weapons to curb population growth).
There are graphs and data everywhere that list minutiae like an age breakdown of the population, HDI, coal mining, GDP, emissions, composition of the energy sector, LOTS of information. And this is not a simple game, you have to take those varying factors into account when you make your decisions as well as political support/opposition and also the fact that policy decisions in one region can severely affect conditions in another.
For example, committing to renewable energy in China temporarily led to energy shortages, which led to decreased agricultural production, which led to food shortages in the Middle East, which led to instability, which led to falling oil production, which led to more energy shortages around the world, leading to total global food production dropping precipitously, which led to everyone dying of hunger. You really have to think about the decisions you make in this game, and develop an understanding of how regions can affect one another due to globalization.
As another example, I made the rather drastic policy decision of deploying biological weapons on the Middle East and India to reduce instability and energy/food consumption, but of course, the consequences were disastrous. The population that was killed worked in the oil extraction field and agriculture, so guess what, less food and oil for everyone! Yeah I'm evil like that. Lost the game though.
So yeah, if this sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to check it out by buying it from the official website.
No Crono, wrong! This game is hard, I got crushed.
FOTW is a serious game about global warming and human development. The second mission's objective is simple: survive till 2120 from 2020 (with each turn representing five years). Twenty turns? LOL EASY right? I got to around ~2090 and I was rewarded with the total societal collapse of North America, India, Russia, the Middle East and Latin America with millions upon millions starving in China and Japan, the collapse of global financial markets, the world temperature at +2.5C since pre-industrial times and no more polar ice caps. And I thought I was doing alright with my policies! Things were peachy in 2060, then it just went tits up.
You play as the director of the fictional Global Environmental Organization, an NGO that can enact sweeping policy changes and influence across all regions of the world in areas like environmental protection, technological development, social programs, energy research/usage and political/military decisions. Your job, as I stated above, is to stop the inevitable destruction of humanity whether by global warming, war, famine or a host of other disasters.
This is accomplished by recruiting agents in regions across the world and playing "cards" which represent policy changes. You can play one card per agent, and you can have six agents in a region. You're limited by your funding and political opposition from protesters. First you set up offices in five categories, Environment, Technology, Energy, Social and Political and you can then choose which cards to play in each category (with a sixth category representing GEO projects like funding space programs, protecting soil and land, committing to nuclear/renewable energy, etc). Within the offices, you can do things like fund Flood Protection, focus on biotech/robotics/software/etc, implement education programs, expand oil/coal/gas/biofuel utilization and deploy black ops or peacekeepers. There are probably hundreds of cards, and they change as technology improves (for example, developing 4th generation nuclear reactors or high tech drills), and they can range from fairly innocuous (spread awareness about the green movement) to hilariously extreme (deploy biological weapons to curb population growth).
There are graphs and data everywhere that list minutiae like an age breakdown of the population, HDI, coal mining, GDP, emissions, composition of the energy sector, LOTS of information. And this is not a simple game, you have to take those varying factors into account when you make your decisions as well as political support/opposition and also the fact that policy decisions in one region can severely affect conditions in another.
For example, committing to renewable energy in China temporarily led to energy shortages, which led to decreased agricultural production, which led to food shortages in the Middle East, which led to instability, which led to falling oil production, which led to more energy shortages around the world, leading to total global food production dropping precipitously, which led to everyone dying of hunger. You really have to think about the decisions you make in this game, and develop an understanding of how regions can affect one another due to globalization.
As another example, I made the rather drastic policy decision of deploying biological weapons on the Middle East and India to reduce instability and energy/food consumption, but of course, the consequences were disastrous. The population that was killed worked in the oil extraction field and agriculture, so guess what, less food and oil for everyone! Yeah I'm evil like that. Lost the game though.
So yeah, if this sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to check it out by buying it from the official website.
) recommends a game for it being hard and it isn't a function of twitch I'll give it a whirl. If it was done right I will be best at this one given my background and innherent gen... 
gtg take the shot now