Off We Go Again

Review Supplement – Tropico 4

Strange thing, this. When I was thinking about Tropico 4 for my review, the game I couldn’t help comparing it to was Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, because both of them go deep into to the heart of such important issues of liberty and freedom, exploring the deep questions with a scholarly eye. Or not. They’re actually both sequels that have been criticised for being too similar to their predecessors. In my view, however, ACB gets away with it, whereas Tropico 4 does not.

 

Nostalgia Trip – Pokémon Blue

Charizard, Nidoking, Gyarados, Parasect, Graveler, Jolteon. What a team. Or not. I have no idea. You see, in search of some nostalgia I took my good ol’ Gameboy Colour (I don’t care if it’s actually spelt without the ‘u’) on holiday with me last week and ended up sidelining my other games in favour of the original Pokémon Blue. Wario Land 3? No! Super Mario Land 2? No! Ronaldo V Football? Hell no! Get me a bicycle, some pokeballs and a map to Celadon City!

Review Supplement – Pirates of Black Cove

Some time soon my review of Pirates of Black Cove will be up on Gamedot (EDIT: lo and behold…), at which point you can marvel at how very mediocre the game is. Not bad, not hateful (I can think of one other nautical game that was…) but still undeveloped and not very satisfying. It would take a concerted development on behalf of any development team to make blasting an opponent with cannon fire dull and Pirates does avoid this, but only just. It’s a line the game skirts frequently, being just engaging enough not to repel you at first sight, but soon enough the boredom mounts and the rewards for completing tasks aren’t enough.

Review Supplement – Virtua Tennis 4

In my review of Virtua Tennis 4, I came very close to using the word ‘meh’. Thankfully, some sort of linguistic integrity struck me at that moment and I swerved clear, rescuing whatever iota of reputation I had in the process. I couldn’t possibly have such base language going onto the website where my writing is actually read by significant numbers of people. This, however, is my blog. So: Virtua Tennis 4 is more meh than anything meh that you have ever meh-ed at. Who cares if meh doesn’t work as a verb? I can say anything! Wheeeeeee!

Review Supplement – Panzer Corps

Well that wasn’t what I was expecting. After hearing that Panzer Corps was going to be my next review, I happened upon this brief article on Rock Paper Shotgun. It wasn’t promising. I find RPS a great read because its writers go into loving depth on any number of niche games, but in this case all that was merited was five lines, a press release and a video that presented a very backward-looking product with cheesy World War 2 music and grainy sound effects. It looked grim.

How wrong I was. Panzer Corps is a well put together title, providing tidy, expansive war-gaming with no frills but a good degree of depth. You’ll be able to read more about it in my review, which should pop up on Gamedot in the next few days (EDIT: here it is now), but for now I’d like to look at something else. I’m going mildly theoretical again, so brace yourselves for some rambling.

Important News

I had my post for today all lined up, and it will still happen in a few hours, but this needs mentioning first.  This case has been one of the biggest issues facing the industry in recent years, so it’s fairly important to point out that the Brown vs Entertainment Merchant’s Association case in the US has been won by the gamers.  I won’t bother with the details – it went way over my head first time around, and I sometimes dare to think of myself as informed regarding gaming – but this is a tremendous victory for developers, producers, but more importantly for players.

To read more about the Supreme Court’s decision, one that may well have saved the industry as we know it, take a look at Rock Paper Shotgun’s excellent, fairly concise summary.

Thought for the Day #2 – Modern Warfare 3

I wish I could have been at Infinity Ward for that meeting. “So, Battlefield 3 has better graphics, a top-notch pedigree and an enormous earthquake in one of its levels. How do we respond?” Silence – then a lone voice pipes up: “Err…World War 3?”

Thought for the Day #1 – MotionScan

In keeping with my penchant for apologies and excuses, here’s another one: exams proper kick off on Saturday and I’ve got some eighteenth century battle plans to examine before the opener, along with a few Shakespeare plays and plentiful piles of Milton criticism. Unless I have a rush of inspiration, I may not be able to manage some thousand-word treatises on the benefits of x8 antialiasing – ‘for when x4 just doesn’t cut the mustard’ (A. Forumgoer, 2011) – until it’s all over. June isn’t too far away…hang in there…

Nostalgia Trip: Lego!

Where the heck has the PC version of Lego Pirates of the Carribean disappeared to? I’m not joking – this is a genuine, honest, confused query. Many review sites still have it labelled as a PC game, nothing immediately registers after a quick Google search and Amazon is still listing it in the States. So why don’t any UK retailers seem to be stocking it? If it doesn’t appear soon I may have to gather a crew and launch a plunderin’ raid on the dev’s HQ. Not much ocean between Birmingham and Cheshire, admittedly, but we’ll commandeer a canal barge for the purpose! Yarr!

Whilst I procure my cutlass, pistol and parrot, how about we look back at three other great Lego games from the days of yore? Well maybe 1998 isn’t yore-ish enough, but it’ll have to do.