Blogs related to computer games.
Sometimes I am taken by the oddest notions. I never played Supreme Commander 2 at the time because, well, it didn’t exactly get rave reviews, and I’m on the fence about Supreme Commander itself anyway.
For some reason, however, the thought of it entered my head recently. And once I get a thought in my head, there can be only one answer.
Continue reading “Blog 877: Supreme Commander 2”
I can’t remember where I first heard about Dark Sector, but it came up in conversation somewhere fairly recently. People said it was good.
The funny part of this story is that it’s a game by Digital Extremes — who were vital to the creation of the several cast-iron belters in the Unreal franchise, but who were also subsequently responsible for the catastrophic misfire Pariah. Funnily enough, Digital Extremes don’t mention Pariah at all on their website’s games list. They do, however, mention Dark Sector. That’s an encouraging sign.
Continue reading “Blog 876: Dark Sector”
I have to admit that I tend to choose which game to play next based on one critical factor: does it have audio worth listening to, or can I turn it off and sing along to my own CD collection instead? Sometimes the decision is easy; the likes of Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex have spectacular soundtracks and sound design in general. Sometimes my hand is forced, by a game like Command & Conquer just not having subtitles. Finally, though, you have your Skyrims, your massive overwrought RPGs that never have enough music to cover the thousand hours you’re about to put into them (and the music’s probably forgettable orchestral munge anyway).
After a period of enjoying deserving games with their proper audio, my vocal cords start to get nervy. I like to sing. But I also want to play video games. So I need to find a game that can allow me to satisfy both needs at once.
Thus we end up at today’s candidate: Tower of Time. This may be slightly uncharitable of me, but after playing for a quick burst, I was assured that, yes, this is one I can sing along to.
Continue reading “Blog 872: Tower of Time”
I picked up a copy of the Command & Conquer compilation The First Decade mainly because I wanted access to all the good stuff outside of EA’s Origin launcher, where I’d sampled them previously. We only ever had vanilla Tiberian Sun and Red Alert II back in the day, you see, and last time was before I discovered that eBay exists and is actually a fairly reliable place to find games of a… certain age… that are still factory-sealed. The First Decade stops at Generals but, eh, C&C3 and beyond are where things got wobbly anyway.
When I went through the Tiberium franchise last time, I didn’t actually play the original original game, because I figured it would be “too old” even for me! But these days I’m a slightly more adventurous rube, so I decided to go for it.
(Spoiler: it feels very old.)
Continue reading “Blog 869: Command & Conquer”
According to my calculations, Santa brought me a copy of Unreal Tournament (GOTYE) at the end of 2002. It was something of a surprise; up until then, there had been a touch of the “no ultra-violence” about my access to games, and yet there we were, with my parents spontaneously introducing me to one of the most violent games available at the time. (It is a strong possibility that they had no idea what they were actually buying.)
I might play UT2004 every December to mark the festive season, but the big day itself belongs to the original and best.
Continue reading “Blog 866: UT Isn’t Just For Christmas”
Okay, so I had a mixed time with Age of Mythology: it was beautiful and full of fun units, but didn’t quite recapture the highs of a good Age of Empires II match. But as is tradition, there was an expansion pack — The Titans. What secrets will leak out of Tartarus this time, and can they transform the game into something truly special?
Continue reading “Blog 865: The Titans”
Much as I love piping obscure stuff through my Windows XP machine, it’s important to break out a proper big gun every now and again. For whatever reason, despite an abiding love of Age of Empires II, I did not play Age of Mythology at the time (admittedly it’s of an age with Warcraft III, so I was probably… preoccupied). But people have always said it’s good! It’s a hole in my RTS experience!
It is time.
Continue reading “Blog 863: Age of Mythology”
I had played Skyrim several times before, but never as hard and deeply as I did this time. Part of that was simply the novelty of trying to hoover up all the stuff I’d never seen before — the 74 Creation Club packs, Dawnguard — but I think most is owed to the transformative pacing of Survival Mode.
So please indulge me one last blog about Skyrim before I return to playing… literally anything else. Oh god please, let me play anything else. It’s time to let it go.
Continue reading “Blog 862: The Decline”
Rao Dao Zao 