I’ve always described SimEarth as a better text book than game – if you took the time to understand how everything fit together, you could learn a lot about evolution, photosynthesis, the greenhouse effect, etc. As a game, there were just too many things to juggle.
Now you can download the TurboGrafX 16 CD-ROM version on the Wii’s Virtual Console. I can’t imagine that it will have a super huge audience there – or anywhere. But there we have it.
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Elven Legacy is one of those games that infuriates me. It is very traditional, which I like. It’s a hex-based fantasy wargame/RPG with elves and orcs and all that rubbish. But it is also one of the most difficult games I’ve played this year.
It isn’t difficult in the sense of hard to play or understand. Like I said, it’s a traditional design and will be instantly familiar to pretty much anyone who’s ever played a game like this. It’s difficult in the sense of impossible to win because they give two too few turns to finish a given mission. Elven Legacy gives you all the tools you need to complete a scenario and never enough time to complete it.
So you end up rushing to your objective and stretching your lines too far into enemy territory and your hero gets surrounded and then he dies. I could play on Easy, I suppose, but I’m not that invested in how the story of General Surly Elf and his Expendable Bowmen turns out.
It may be that I am regressing to a five year old mentality about games. I’m more easily frustrated than I used to be, and with so many better games on my desk, I’m easily distracted, too.
Not that Elven Legacy isn’t good. In fact, it’s an above average game with some unfortunate writing and sadistic time limits. But for now, Elven Legacy can wait until I’m ready for it.
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I’ve been pretty much unimpressed with a lot of gaming video content online, some of the CG content included. Sometimes things that look like a great idea aren’t. Even the still funny Zero Punctuation has kind of worn me out.
But I thought I would plug two new video series over at Crispy Gamer because they each bring something useful to the site.
On the thoughtful side, the Crispy Minute has the reviewers expand a little on their reviews. It’s a more personal look at the reviewing process. None from me yet, both because I haven’t reviewed anything very recently for the site and also because the only webcam I have is on my netbook, and I’m not sure how to use it. For a representative sample, here’s Tom Chick talking about Red Faction: Guerrilla.
I’ve also loved the comedic Joystick Master videos. Imagine the worst possible local sportscaster from the 1970s giving video game tips. A low rent Howard Cosell. Only two so far, and I like the Bioshock one best.
And if you haven’t visited the site recently, there’s been a redesign. Less orange. A more sensible community organization. A blog. It’s getting there, and it’s still a great place to write.
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I hope to have more to say about Theatre of War 2 soon – I think I’ve solved most of performance issues with it, and there’s a lot of good things (and some bad) to say about it.
But 1C and Battlefront is now going in whole hog with the mod support for the first Theatre of War. There are four separate mod packs and a modding how-to guide so you can do it yourself.
Someone make me The Battle of Dieppe.
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Maybe it’s Paradox’s fault for not having a floor display but instead hiding in a tiny box to the far right of one of the halls. But there is zero reason for the E3 critics not nominating either Hearts of Iron 3 or East India Company for best strategy game of show.
Especially when they only bothered to fill four of five slots.
Troy
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This week is all about Bruce as he goes on and on about how hard it was to write the manual for Dominions 3. The panel talks about how a manual is not the same as documentation, how even good games could be better with a paper friend and lots of other commentary that only reveals just how old we four actually are.
Listen here.
RSS here.
Subscribe on iTunes.
Rome on 640K
My thoughts on the Dominions 3 manual
GMT Games
Bill Harris on Dwarf Fortress
Bill Harris on Armageddon Empires
Silvia
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