Though some listeners were annoyed with Tom and Julian for devoting an entire episode of Three Moves Ahead to Brutal Legend
In other AIAS news, Uncharted 2 won almost everything else.
Brutal Legend Strategy Game of the Year
February 19th, 2010 by Troy Goodfellow · AIAS, Awards
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Close Combat Podcast on Qt3
February 18th, 2010 by Troy Goodfellow · Podcast, Wargames
I don’t usually link to the Quarter to Three podcasts, mostly because the most interesting stuff for me is learning about the other people on what has become my internet home.
But this week, Tom Chick talks to Morgan Gee (aka John E. Motion) about Close Combat. It’s well worth a listen because Gee/Motion does a good job explaining what makes Close Combat such a rich and rewarding wargame.
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Reign: Conflict of Nations
February 18th, 2010 by Troy Goodfellow · RTS
The English language now officially lacks the variety and flexibility required if we want to have strategy games with names we won’t immediately confuse with something else.
From Lesta and 1C Games, Reign: Conflict of Nations is a medieval RTS at the strategic level. All the screenshots are in Russian, but it looks like the strategic level of the Total War games with a bit of Knights of Honor tossed in for good measure.
There are 26 factions from 14th and 15th century Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Sweden, Teutonic Order, etc.) and you will level up six different types of characters as you develop your nation and conquer your neighbors.
I could probably make a list of ten or twelve Russian/Ukrainian/Polish games set in this period, but it’s still largely a foreign setting for most American and West European strategy gamers. There’s a lot of very interesting political stuff going on, and I hope that Reign touches on some of it. (There will be historical characters, it seems, and plagues.)
But the name is terrible.
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Civilization 5
February 18th, 2010 by Troy Goodfellow · Firaxis
Firaxis and 2k Games have announced that Civilization 5 is on the way. Reports of the game were leaked earlier today at CivFanatics.
This is not really a surprise. We all knew another Civilization would come sooner or later and it’s been five years. And no one complains more than I do about Firaxis mining its past for gold when all the talent there could be doing something newer, albeit riskier. Civ is, after all, a durable and profitable franchise.
I’m still excited, though. The Civ series has never really failed to please me, even Civ 3 which is sort of the black sheep of the family stuck between the isometric glories of Brian Reynolds’s Civilization 2 and the general genius of Soren Johnson’s Civilization 4.
A contact at Firaxis I approached for comment assured me that I would like some of the changes and probably not like others. Such is the way of the world.
Fall 2010, so very, very soon. You can read about it in this month’s GamePro.
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Three Moves Ahead Episode 52 – Sins of A Solar Empire: Diplomacy
February 16th, 2010 by Troy Goodfellow · Ironclad, Podcast, RTS, Sci Fi, Three Moves Ahead
Troy is joined by Tom, Julian and Rob to talk about the new expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire. How does Diplomacy work in a multiplayer game? Does it add more personality to a game with rather bland sides? Does Tom cheat? How should Rob refer to his significant other? Where does Julian go when the podcast is over?
Listen to the final podcast of the year long cycle to find out why this is the expansion that made all of us fall in love with Sins again.
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Zacny on EU3
February 16th, 2010 by Troy Goodfellow · Design, Paradox
Rob Zacny, whose performance on our Heir to the Throne episode of Three Moves Ahead convinced us to make him a regular voice, has written a column on the game for Gamasutra.
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