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Crusader Kings: Deus Vult

July 31st, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Medieval, Paradox

Has there ever been an expansion pack announced this far after the initial release? It’s been three years since Crusader Kings stole my heart, and now they are giving it an add-on.

And, despite the “Deus Vult” subtitle, the expansion seems mostly for the role-playing side of the game not the crusading. Johan Andersson says in a forum thread that the religious war system is being “reworked” but no details. And we’re only two months out. Instead we have loyalty, rivalry, foster-children, new education system for kids. Though, undoubtedly, many of these things will spill over into the war and peace and expansion part of the game, there is little here that screams high politics in the Medieval era.

Which is, by the way, perfectly fine with me. Crusader Kings was a middling strategy game married to a captivating household management sim, a sim that got more interesting and elaborate with every patch.

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Going Medieval, Urban Style

July 27th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Medieval, Preview, RTS

Looks like we are getting a new RTS about the First Crusade. Virgin PLAY and Neocore have announced Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come as a November release.

So far zero artwork or information besides stating that the game will be set in the First Crusade, when Pope Urban decided to keep Christian princes from killing each other by pointing them at other people to kill. Papal influence grows, nobles look for a shortcut to heaven by Crusading and the feudal order starts taking more steps towards centralized kingdoms.

This being a real time strategy game, you won’t see any of that stuff. Well, maybe the story based campaign will be about a French nobleman who tries to redeem his sins by joining the quest for the Holy Land. Maybe it will be about a French blacksmith who learns he is a French noble and then learns that the Templars are, like, total jerks.

November is coming soon, so it’s odd that there is nothing public available about this game beyond the press release. The only information I can find on Neocore is that they were working on a King Arthur game a couple of years ago, also real time strategy.

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I Love a Good Mystery

July 27th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Electronic Arts, RTS

Odds are this isn’t one.

A big Command and Conquer 3 announcement on August 7? Oh, whatever could it be?

A movie, with all your favorite B-listers reprising their roles in the cinematic glories of Tiberium Wars?

They are porting it to the Wii?

EA is making a new turn based version for all those people too smart to play RTS?

It’s an expansion, guys. I have no confirmation on this, but this is too much fluff so anything smaller and anything larger would be a little ridiculous.

Fill the comments box with your wishlist for what is the year’s best strategy game – so far.

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Good Question

July 25th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Me

Who is Troy Goodfellow, anyway?

Sometimes even I’m not sure.

Can someone help the man out?

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Five Out of Five But…

July 24th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Firaxis

Fellow Civ Fanatic Tom Chick’s review of Beyond the Sword is up at Yahoo Games. It gets top marks even though he agrees with me that the espionage stuff is “a mess” and corporations are “a crap shoot.” (I disagree that all the new naval stuff makes the sea matter; in my opinion, it’s still two-thirds of the earth covered with Who Gives A Damn.)

This review, probably more than any in recent memory, underlines the difference between a top score and a perfect game. Chick can’t recommend Beyond the Sword more highly, in spite of his many criticisms. This is far from a perfect expansion.

But Final Frontier, the Rhye’s mod and it being more Civ 4 are enough for him. Can’t say that I object too strongly.

I, of course, can’t review BtS in any real way because of my tainted love. I will have more comments next week, many in response to the inevitable flurry of reviews. Just because I can’t review it without being completely in the clear from accusations of teh bias doesn’t mean that I can’t reply to other people’s comments.

For now, the espionage is just too annoying for me to give it top marks, but people who miss the scenarios are missing some truly wonderful game moments. (I just started the Future War scenario, which has four super-states squabbling over the Earth with biological weapons, arcologies, and mechs.)

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E3 2007 Game Critics Awards Nominees

July 24th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Awards, E3

The nominees for The Most Pointless Awards Not Given By SpikeTV have been announced. No real surprises here, but there never are.

The strategy nominees are:

Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution (Firaxis/2K Games for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts (Relic/THQ for PC)
Halo Wars (Ensemble Studios/Microsoft Game Studios for PC, Xbox 360)
Universe at War: Earth Assault (Petroglyph/Sega for PC, Xbox 360)
World in Conflict (Massive Entertainment/Sierra for PC)

Isn’t it interesting that three of these are being cross-developed for the 360, and two of those three are RTS? Halo Wars, I’m fairly sure, has the console as its primary platform which makes it even more intriguing. CivRev is the only title of the five not available on the PC.

I guess I am now professionally obligated to try the World in Conflict MP beta. I hadn’t payed a lot of attention to this game until Dave Long wrote some stuff about it, and a colleague emailed me last month to ask if I’d played any preview versions.

The thing is, World in Conflict was a nominee in 2006, too. So was Bioshock, a Best in Show nominee two years running. Mass Effect and Hellgate: London return in the RPG category. Mass Effect won last year.

This is my big issue with the E3 Awards. I guess there’s nothing wrong with honoring games on display for marketing purposes, but there should be a one year limit on nomination, and only games scheduled to come out in the next calendar year should be eligible. Why? Because this would restrain the feeding frenzy over stuff still years away from completion. People were all excited about Spore, and now? How do these awards help the industry if they are given at a point so far from release that people forget about them? How do they help consumers, when the hype is for a game too far in the future to allow sound judgment?

I’ve never been to E3, so maybe you have to be there to get what these prizes are being based on. But I don’t see it. What are these awards honoring? Quality product or quality displays?

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