Suffice it to say, 2004 was a great year to be a PC Gamer. No matter what type of game you liked, there was a good chance that something released in the past year would sate your thirst. Well, adventure gamers had it hard, but they always have it hard. And single player RPGs were […]

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OK, so the Ensemble Studios updates were just a bunch of dates counting down all the momentus stuff before Ensemble was created and Age of Empires was made. They were not a clue as to the actual new game itself. Disappointing and a little anti-climactic. Fall of Rome = big deal “Rise of Rome” expansion […]

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Check out this piece and the associated comments on Scott Miller’s Game Matters blog. Tough question, since every bad game is bad in its own way. Since I know strategy games better than any other genre, here’s a quick and dirty guide to making a bad strategy game. 1. Bad interface – this is the […]

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For the last couple of weeks, Ensemble Studios has had little historical teasers on their website, advertising the upcoming Age of Empires 3. So far we’ve had the usual stuff on Sargon, the Greeks, the Romans, etc. Now we have one that’s clearly Medieval – “1096 – the First Crusade”. This can only mean one […]

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Gamespy’s End of Year wrap-up has three strategy games on their PC top ten list: Warhammer, Rome and Sims 2, with Sims 2 taking strategy game of the year honors. I guess you could consider Pirates a strategy game, after a fashion, but it’s really more action/RPG in my opinion. Warhammer gets the nod as […]

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While reading a thread on “Best RTS of the Year”, I noticed a lot of votes for Rome: Total War. It’s my favorite game of the year – so far – so I understand the sentiment. But is it really RTS? The real “strategy” component (the campaign game) is turn-based, not real time. The battle […]

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