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Strategy Games of the Half-Year 2007

June 29th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Awards

The year so far hasn’t been rife with awesome, that’s for sure. Where last year I had Rise of Legends, GalCiv 2 and Battle for Middle Earth II in my top three, this year I have to make do with much slimmer pickings.

As usual, I don’t consider games I haven’t played or haven’t played very long, which means that Supreme Commander and War Front: Turning Point don’t have a chance. Ultimately, I decided to pass on SupCom because nothing I read made it sound like a game I would spend much time on and a colleague told me that it would appeal to the game design wonk within me, but not the gamer. C’est la vie. I’m a little sorry I haven’t found time for War Front because I like goofy games.

Also, expansions are excluded unless they make major changes to the core game or stand on their own as significant titles.

Honorable mentions for Commander: Europe at War and Ancient Warfare: Punic Wars – two good wargames that don’t have a lot of staying power, but do what they set out to do with style and simplicity.

Number 3: Europa Universalis III (Paradox) – A lot of Paradox fans love to complain about this game, me included. But the core design is so strong and improvements so noticeable that it’s hard to hold a grudge. I’ve come back to this game over and over again because so much of it works. Yes, it has less color than EU2. And yes, some of the functionality is gone. I still like it a lot, though. And, as I said, it’s been a so-so six months.

Number 2: Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar (Stardock) – OK, it’s an expansion. But it’s bigger and better than the original, which took second place last year. Some of the improvements are so obvious that you want to wring a few necks for not including them the first time around. The interface is better, the tech tree clearer, the planet colonization less hectic and the campaign passable. With this game, Stardock has exorcised the ghost of Masters of Orion; this is now the ultimate 4x space conquest game.

Number 1: Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (EA) – Damn you, EA. Again you dominate the first half of the year with a franchise sequel. And one with little to no real innovation. But I have to choose the game that has given me the most joy so far, and this is it. C&C 3 works because it is comfortable in its own skin and embraces its own heritage. Skirmish games manage the near impossible feat of merging the typical messy brawl of a first generation RTS with the unit/counter-unit/superpower chess match that has come to epitomize this generation. This game is a reminder that formula has its place in game design and that sometimes small changes (the Scrin, for example) can add freshness to that formula.

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Civ For Consoles

June 28th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Consoles, Firaxis

2k Games has announced Civilization Revolutions, a next gen console title based on the Civ series. From the press release:

Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution is a watershed game, offering players a chance to experience the epic empire-building world of Civilization in an all new accessible, visually immersive, and action-packed world specifically designed for the console and handheld gamer. Delivering Civilization’s renowned epic single-player campaigns featuring vast re-playability and unmatched addictive gameplay as well as revolutionary features like real-time interaction with leaders and advisors, extensive multiplayer capabilities and integrated video and voice chat, it will completely transport the Civilization series to a level of gameplay that fans have never seen before.

And, from a forum post by Firaxis’s Scott Lewis, news that Sid Meier himself is taking the lead on this one, doing the main design and AI stuff.

This shouldn’t be that surprising. Meier has often publicly expressed his love of console games and I’ve heard him say that the plop-and-play of consoles – minimal patching, no configuration issues – is something he’d love for PC games. Plus, there is really no reason that a turn based strategy game can’t run well on a console. TBS games are about selecting and moving with none of the haste and precision that RTS titles require.

Lots of curiosities in the press release though, archives of buzz words, talking points and insanity.

“Real time interaction with leaders” – I could use a translation here. “Action packed” – Are they going to make me be the longbowman? And the artwork (all taken from Games Press) shows a lighter touch than we are used to in the Civ series. For some reason, Cleopatra is half-naked (Cleo’s not in Civilization IV at all) and the wonder/relic artwork would look completely in place in Settlers II. And I think that pagoda looks like a Christmas tree.

Anyway, this is an early 2008 release, so there’s a lot to figure out between now and then. Consider me interested, but not excited.

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Jeff Green Interview

June 27th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Escapist, Media

Jeff Green has been covering games in the print media since Gutenberg, so it’s always great to read his opinion on the State of the Gaming Media. The Escapist has a new interview with the Editor in Chief of Games for Windows.

He doesn’t say a lot that others haven’t, but it has the imprimatur of authority coming from a veteran writer struggling to find a way to keep his magazine vital.

On the print side: Get over yourselves. It’s over. Your reign has ended. Adapt to the 21st century now, or go away forever. You can have a great monthly product that people will be happy to read on buses, planes, couches and restrooms everywhere. But you will be a dinosaur in the tar pits if you don’t adjust your editorial to reflect the fact that, 90 percent or more of the time now, you can’t possibly print something “new” that hasn’t appeared online already. So get creative. Use real writers. Show some depth and give people something beyond the old-school previews/reviews mediocrity mill. This can be a liberating time if you just take the chance.

Preach it, brother.

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Advanced Tactics

June 27th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Matrix, Preview, WW2

Matrix Games has announced a new “turn-based strategy masterpiece”. Their words, not mine.

Advanced Tactics WW2 is a wargame from Dutch gaming outfit VR Designs. It is based on their freeware wargame People’s Tactics, available on their website. Judging from the screenshots, seems to have both theater and regional combat. Operational Art of War III has made me wary of efforts to make one system fit all scales. Advanced Tactics promises even bigger things.

Advanced Tactics is a versatile turn-based strategy system that gives gamers the chance to wage almost any battle in any time period.

World War II is just the first module of a series to be released, with Civil War and Napoleonics modules already in discussion. Will players be able to create their own modules? That’s not obvious at this point, but it would seem silly to boast about a system’s flexibility and then keep it all under the hood. Not that I expect any 17th century musket module I made to be any good.

Best news about this game? Random scenario generator. Yeah, I know all the problems with random scenarios from a military history perspective. But random scenarios gave me years of enjoyment from both the Combat Mission series and Age of Rifles.

The name has that Generic Title Toolkit feeling, but Commander: Europe at War isn’t much better namewise. And it’s rekindled my interest in simple wargames. Here’s to hope.

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Civilization IV in Chinese

June 26th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Firaxis

Jason Bergman has the skinny on the Chinese version of the only game I still play at least twice a week. They get a shirt.

Apparently some changes needed to be made to get around censors, but he doesn’t say what they were. My guess is removal of religion and nerfing the Japanese. And maybe rice adds two hammers.

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I think I saw this on The Flintstones

June 25th, 2007 by Troy Goodfellow · Creative Assembly, History

A unit description for the upcoming Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms.

Mayan Hornet Throwers gather nests of stinging insects and hurl them into combat! Once thrown, the nest erupts on impact, sending forth a swarm of angry stinging insects which can even get inside European armour and cause serious pain to the recipient. The Hornet Throwers cover themselves in mud to protect themselves from being stung.

I’m going to need a citation, gentlemen.

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