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Entries from September 7th, 2006

How many genres are there anyway?

September 7th, 2006 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized

Slashdot has put out the call for the “definitive” list of game genres – no needless specificity or redundancy. For the PC world, Gamespot lists ten genres on their main page. First Person Shooters Real Time Strategy Role Playing Action Adventure Massively Multiplayer Other Strategy Games Adventure Games Tactical Shooters Racing Virtual Life This leaves […]

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Top Selling PC Games of the new century

September 6th, 2006 · 3 Comments · Uncategorized

We are halfway through this decade, so it makes sense to have a list like this. Doing it by sales is certainly not as iffy a proposition as doing it by opinion or Gamerankings, but it’s certainly not perfect. The NPD numbers are the best we have, but are still not completely reliable, especially for […]

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The First Americans

September 6th, 2006 · Comments Off on The First Americans · Ensemble, History

Allen Rausch has an interesting interview regarding the new Age of Empires expansion, Warchiefs, over on Gamespy. The theme of the interview is the challenge in dealing with Native American nations. Bruce Shelley goes through all the races and confesses where the Ensemble team had to break from history in the name of fun (no […]

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October CGM

September 5th, 2006 · Comments Off on October CGM · Uncategorized

October’s Computer Games Magazine has a few things with my name on them. Reviews of Operational Art of War 3, Harpoon 3 Advanced Naval Warfare, Rush for Berlin, Moscow to Berlin, and American Conquest Divided Nation, my Alt.Games column and a brief account of the first Apolycon – a convention of Civilization fans held this […]

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Open letter to Maxis

September 5th, 2006 · Comments Off on Open letter to Maxis · Uncategorized

Dear Maxis: I love The Sims. I love The Sims 2. I like many of the expansions. But would you stop making so many of them? Trying to install Sims 2 + expansions on a virgin machine is a forty minute job. Swap this disc, swap that disc… Put them all on one or two […]

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A History of Real Time Strategy

September 4th, 2006 · 3 Comments · Uncategorized

Trent Polack has started writing what looks like will be a very long history of the genre. (Like me, he separates the Total War games from the core RTS definition.) {spotted at Tacticular Cancer} The most interesting part of the initial chapter is an obiter dictum on the lack of “strategical prowess” in your run-of-the-mill […]

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