Reviews

Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots
Cossacks: Back to War
Disciples II: Rise of the Elves
Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna
Hearts of Iron
Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun

Reviews

War Times
Civilization 3 Conquests
Europa Universalis: Crown of the North
Empires: Dawn of the Modern World
The Black Mirror
Rise of Nations

Reviews

Trash
Lux
Darwinia
Civil War: The Battle of Bull Run
Outpost Kaloki
Starshatter
Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great
Super Dudester
Derelict Review
Election Games Review
Spartan Review
Enigma: Rising Tide Review
Checkers Ultimate Review
Universal Boxing Manager Review
Dominions 2 Review
Rocket Duel Review
Geneforge 2 Review
Combat Mission Afrika Korps
Walls of Jericho Review
Alien Flux Review
Starscape Review
War! Age of Imperialism Review
Bridge Construction Set Review
Power Mad Review
Movie Studio Boss Review
Chain Reaction Review
Word Peace Review
BaseGolf Review

Editorials and Features

Pretty Pictures and You
Restore to Default
Blogging for Fun and Zero Profit
Unavoidable Inconveniences
So Where Are They?
So Scare Me Already
Where’s The Love?
The Gaming of Politics
IGF 2003 Recap Part 2
IGF 2003 Recap Part 1
Playing Oldschool
Interactive Fiction Competition
Is the free ride over?
No More Shame
Not Dead Yet
All By Myself
A re-introduction

A new year, a new crop of games to look forward to. Like many things, the anticipation of a new game can be almost as much fun as playing it. The slavering over screenshots, the guesses over what will and will not be possible, the temptations offered by the developers…all sweet stuff.

Here’s a digest of the strategy and wargames that I’m looking forward to in the new year:

1) Legion Arena (Slitherine) – I’m not a huge fan of Slitherine’s games, but I am a huge fan of the developers – nice people who are genuinely excited to make games that they themselves like to play. Legion Arena will be sort of like online Rome: Total War, at least the battle part of it, only with a ladder, upgrading armies and more realism. It will also be the test drive for their new battle engine, to be used in Legion II.

2) Imperial Glory (Pyro Studios/Eidos) – Speaking of Rome: Total War…this looks like an Ensemble game, but isn’t. It’s Napoleonic warfare in real time, with a strategy overlay. Sound familiar? It looks pretty and will even have naval battles on a small scale. Whether they can do more than copy the Ensemble Studios look remains to be seen.

3) Hearts of Iron 2 (Paradox) – The original was a good game plagued with too many AI issues to be fun for too long. Amphibious landings were a problem for the computer opponents and only a heavily scripted mod made it much of a game at all. But look out Rommel wannabes, it appears that the Swedish masters of grand strategy have finally put it all together. Early reports from people who’ve played preview versions say that they’ve made the game more approachable for newbies and more interesting for hardcore players. Less micromanaging with a more realistic sense of running a war.

4) The Movies (Lionhead/Activision) – OK, we all know that Peter Molyneux has been biting off more than he can chew lately. Black and White was a great diversion for a few hours but had no longevity. Fable was not quite what was advertised. And The Movies is every bit as ambitious as those two. Lionhead boasts that over four million possible combinations of movies can be made, and, if they pull it off, websites will be full of what the public has to offer. Once again, I think that Molyneux has set too high a PR bar to meet, but no one fails as spectacularly as he does.

5) Imperium: Rise of Rome (Michael Akinde) – This is more of a guess than anything. Michael is a Danish computer scientist who has been working on a hobby project for a couple of years now. He is making an ancient Rome grand strategy game. He is making it very slowly and very low tech. But it looks very promising and could be the game that I hoped Pax Romana would be. Considering the pace he is going, 2005 could be a little optimistic on my part. But a man can dream.

Feel free to add your own “eagerly awaited” list in the comments.

So a friend is trying to design a computer simulation based on the Community Land Use project of the 1960s. He has a forum devoted to this project, which he sees as a more realistic and politically driven SimCity type thing, at his cooly named website.

The forum has a section where input into the design document will be welcomed. At this point at least. How far he gets with it will depend on a lot of things, and he is still at the planning stage. But there are lots of people out there who know more about games than we do.

Mind you, he hates Children of the Nile, which I like a lot. In fact, I am beginning to distrust his judgment on games altogether. Still, he knows what he likes and has a good reason for most of the things he does. So keep an eye on what he does, even if it is just to see how long it takes to get something like this done.