Category Archives: gaming

Thoughts: Age of Empires 2 HD.

CASTLE

Age of Empires 2 is the latest game to get the “HD” rerelease treatment, which is a recent and not-entirely-unwelcome trend for older PC games and one which I suspect pleases both the companies that make them and the people who buy them. The developer/publisher gets to sell what had previously been a dead product all over again, and the purchaser gets… well, in theory they get to have an updated version of that old game they loved that actually functions on modern operating systems. If this is what the HD update actually delivers then everyone goes away happy. However, I suspect that Age of Empires 2 HD will be the title that makes a lot of people realise that simply attaching the letters “HD” to a game doesn’t necessarily mean that what you’re getting is going to be an improvement over that physical copy that’s been gathering dust inside its jewel case for the last decade and a bit.

Continue reading

Tagged , , ,

The Trouble With XCOM.

archangel

Darren asks

 I was poking around in the archives yesterday and noticed that there was a comment from earlier this year regarding XCOM and its lack of replayability. I agree that the game has a serious replayability problem, and I’m a little surprised I haven’t heard much about this. Would you care to elaborate? Also, since Firaxis have been hinting at it, what would you like to see in an expansion?

Continue reading

Tagged , ,

What’s Better Than Old Games?

PANZER

*Free* old games, of course.

Yes, yes, I know I said I was going to have things more or less back-to-normal this week, but it turns out moving was slightly more complex than I anticipated leaving me with less time than I’d really like to write about stuff. As a substitute offering, I’m whipping up this quick post about a few free remakes of old games that really do deserve your time and attention. If you’re into that kind of thing, of course.

Continue reading

Tagged , , , ,

Thoughts: Bioshock Infinite.

city

SPOILER WARNING: Bioshock Infinite is a game that is best played when you have absolutely no idea what is going to happen when you do.  Unfortunately a critical appraisal of Bioshock Infinite is impossible without at least mentioning some of the general plot themes and elements, so while there’s not going to be any major plot spoilers of the OMG ELIZABETH IS YOUR FATHER variety I can’t review the game while avoiding talking about what’s actually in it. If you want to remain completely unspoiled, a potted summary of my opinion about Bioshock Infinite would be pretty similar to what I thought of Spec Ops — not the best of games, but absolutely worth playing through at least once.

Continue reading

Tagged , ,

Thoughts: SimCity.

city

SimCity! The game which, if you believe the gaming press, is irrevocably ruined by that Great Satan of modern PC gaming: always-online DRM masquerading as social functions . Many, many column inches have been written about SimCity’s disastrous launch, when (as with all online game launches these days) the servers fell over under the strain and nobody could play it for a week without sitting in an hours-long queue. The game was pilloried by its playerbase, as users flocked to Metacritic to dump SimCity’s score into the red and give it an average rating of just one star on Amazon1 It’s one of the most botched releases in recent memory, with some people blaming the resignation of EA’s CEO squarely on SimCity’s failure.

Continue reading

  1. Amazon even stopped listing the game for a few hours based on the number of refund requests they were getting and there’s still some bad business going on between them and EA.
Tagged , ,

Sunday Soundtracks.

Have I mentioned how awesome the Freespace 2 intro is yet? The pan up through the atmosphere and through the hole punched in the destroyer’s side — and then the subsequent Colossus reveal — is a great visual trick which is helped immensely by having this little bit of music play over the top of it.

Tagged ,

Thoughts: Heart of the Swarm.

Personal update: The good news is that I’ve finally found somewhere to live up here. The bad news is that I can’t move in until the start of April, and while I can bang together a game review in three hours on a train I can’t do science posts without sitting down and doing research — which is kind of impossible when you have no fixed abode. This basically means no posts aside from Monday reviews until after April 1st. Sorry!

zap

This is very disappointing.

Continue reading

Tagged , , ,