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Colonization Retro AAR

March 25th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Blogs

The best thing about Rock, Paper, Shotgun is the comfort in finally having some serious PC gaming peers in a blogosphere dominated by console gaming.

The second best thing RPS is that the team is full of great writers, each of whom has a unique voice. Some of us soldier on alone.

The third best thing is that they’re not afraid to spend thousands of words on seriously long retro stuff, like Alec Meer’s new post about rediscovering Sid Meier’s Colonization.

[I]ts approach was not Civ-but-bigger, but rather Civ-but-smaller – focusing in on and expanding a very specific part of the game. Establishing remote colonies and trading were only minor parts of Civ, mere footnotes to its tale of global conquest and technological progress. Colonize zooms into and fills in this sketchy back-story. It could be said to born of the same quiet-the-mewling-fanbase thinking as the Star Wars prequels, only rather than simply filling in all the gaps on Wookieepedia it genuinely has its own purpose.

Meer admits that sometimes it is hard to be completely objective about games that you grew up with, and I think he cuts Colonization quite a bit of slack. I have a lot of design qualms about Colonization, especially regarding how you deal with foreign powers. But I grudge no one their nostalgia, so long as they are aware of it.

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Cult of the Wastelands

March 24th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Cryptic Comet

While I try to determine whether the game I am reviewing is just bland or just forgettable, I should probably remind you all to get the free expansion to Armageddon Empires. I haven’t tried Cult of the Wastelands yet, but I’m still pushing AE when and where I can.

Vic Davis can now begin work on his new game in earnest. I’m privy to a few of the details, but, of course, this is his story to tell. More news here about his next project once it becomes public.

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Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles (1988)

March 20th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Ancients, Feature:Anc, Retro, Review, Wargames

In 1988, Cases Computer Simulations and R.T. Smith released Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles, a game that was intended to be the first in a series of historical miniature games. The mid 80s was probably the high point of wargame dominance in the computer gaming market, and there were really no ancient wargames on the market; there were barely any wargames set earlier than 1800. Wargames were beginning to include editors, with 1986’s Wargame Constuction Set (from SSI) giving you almost complete control and 1987’s Universal Military Simulator‘s title promising more than it could deliver.

Ancient Battles was, at its core, a miniatures game. Though the Amstrad (1988) and Spectrum (1989) versions had very uninspiring graphics (one swords unit look exactly like another), the full miniature philosophy became apparent in the DOS (1988) version. You could tell your hastati from your principes, your phalanxes from your hoplites.

And there were lots of miniature armies to choose from. There were 24 base armies divided into four lists, from New Kingdom Egypt to the Visigoths. And within most of the armies, there were variants. Say you want [Read more →]

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New RTS Column

March 18th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Crispy Gamer, RTS

If you like real time strategy, and I do, make sure you check out Tom Chick’s new column at Crispy Gamer, “Rush, Turtle, Boom.”

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Tom versus Bruce Online

March 18th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · CGW

EDIT: Tom v Bruce lives on from time to time in their verbal skirmishes at this blog’s official podcast, Three Moves Ahead. From time to time, we’ll play games and relive some of that rivalry as well.

CGW/GfW’s Tom verus Bruce has probably done as much to amuse me as any single game has, and is, in many ways, a pioneering form of “New Games Journalism” though both men would probably slap me for calling it that. The idea is simple – two guys play a game against or with each other and try to make the description both amusing and enlightening. I’m not sure if Chick and Geryk were the first to do a collaborative competitive AAR, but they’ve clearly perfected the form. It’s an experiential review, and even when the two are justing making fun of whatever they are playing, there are often little design philosophy nuggets in there.

So it’s great news that 1up will be uploading each and every TvB, beginning with the original Age of Mythology article. You’ll note that the first bunch of TvB’s were less funny and more instructive, with the feature designed as a hints and tips piece as much as entertainment.

First, it’s usually good to distribute the cost of your military units. The gold cost for Hathor’s petsuchos would have been a nice counterpart to the food cost for Bast’s sphinxes. Second, the roc, a flying transport, is one of Age of Mythology‘s most underrated units. It can quickly carry 15 units across the map, regardless of terrain. On this Mediterranean map, where Tom seems to have me hemmed in on two sides, I could have loaded up a roc and sent it across the water to the middle of the map to ambush him. Now that I’m in the third age, I can start to build new town settlements.

No way that 2008 Bruce would spend so many words on the gold cost of myth units when he could be insulting Tom’s patriotism.

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Shrapnel Reassures on 82nd Airborne

March 17th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Shrapnel, WW2

Remember 82nd Airborne? No? You’re probably not the only one. The wargame has been in development for years, with barely a peep from anyone connected to the project. Shrapnel Games was formed specifically to deliver 82 Airborne, a sequel to Empire Interactive’s 101st Airborne.

Well, Shrapnel’s Timothy Brooks promises that it is still being worked on and that it will be completed once they work some bugs out

Microsoft’s Vista, that oh-so wonderful operating system of theirs, has a rather annoying habit of breaking things in All American: The 82nd Airborne in Normandy. Like network play on previous OSes. And there are other issues with Vista. So thanks to this crap OS we had several choices:

1. Strip All American: The 82nd Airborne in Normandy of the features that didn’t work with Vista, or had problems under Vista.

2. Not make it Vista compatible. Tempting, very tempting.

3. Recode the whole thing for DOS, since folks will probably have better luck running it under DOSBox in Vista than if it was Vista compatible.

Stripping features is not an option. Not making it Vista compatible would solve a lot of headaches but look, after all these years in development we’re not going to then shut out part of the market. And obviously the DOS thing is a joke. Doing it in Flash would be much better.

So, no release date. But progress of a fashion.

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