Medieval 2 Total War

After having played Rome 2 and Shogun 2 on Steam, both of which have made me incredibly annoyed with the games and also with Steam because of their lack of ability to read my main graphics card on my laptop, I have come back to the game that got me in to the Total War series.

Medieval 2 felt like it was an amazingly huge game when I first started playing it, that may be because it allows you to play as one of a number of countries during this era of western history from Britain, down past France and Spain to the top of Africa, across to Jerusalem and up to Russia, which constitutes the entire map.

So, when you first start you get to choose from a small subsection of the countries, after having completed a short campaign and finishing the objectives (Or a long campaign if you want to play as a starting nation) you can go through again and choose who you want to play as, almost to the extent where it feels a bit like FIFA where you can play as a 1st division team and try and get in to the premiership.

Ruling your kingdom is relatively streamlined, there are a few bits of micromanagement, for example you need to do taxes and the like, but only if you have a general in the city who can rule as a duke/baron, but if you don't then it will just go to auto tax unless you change it, which is nice because it allows you to just focus on building your empire or building your army, if that's your thing.

Moving on from the army, we can navigate directly to the combat, which actually functions like a real battlefield and army manager and simulator, for example, if the battlefield is covered in snow then your troops will get cold, move slower and the like, if it begins to rain then you will not be able to use archers as effectively and so on, which makes choosing the correct battlefield and correct weather to attack just as important as choosing the right troops.

This means that you can use the environment to your advantage, like positioning your archers on top of a hill whilst your enemies try and climb it whilst your light cavalry attacks from the flanks, which feels incredibly satisfying when done correctly.

Your troops also get tired, for example sending a unit of dismounted feudal knights running and screaming in to close combat like football hooligans on a night out might sound like the best form of attack, but you have to make sure that you haven't left too big a distance between you and the enemy so your men aren't shattered by the time they close the distance and hit like pensioners on sedatives.

Now, I understand that some people might prefer to do a campaign as the Romans, or the Oda clan from Rome or Shogun respectively, but to be fair, those 2 games have annoyed me, and secondly I am a big fan of medieval Europe, massively so, which is why, regardless of how long it has been since I last played it, I can slip back in to Medieval 2 and play as someone like Portugal easily, almost like slipping on a pair of comfortable shoes.

However, to the bad parts.

I hate the religion part of the game....that might just be a personal quibble but it's a pretty big one, but it can develop a major thing for you if you become excommunicated by the Vatican or have a jihad placed upon you, especially if you have a lot of generals who view being pious as a disease that needs to be destroyed. 

The AI from the enemy can be at times a little dim, I.E. sending a unit of horsemen around the flank and hitting the enemy in the rear can be amazing, but only if the AI picks up that it is having it's face torn off and responds accordingly, not standing around picking it's noise as my horsemen smash them in their faces with maces.

But those are the two small niggles that I have for an altogether fantastic title that I have been playing for years and will continue to.

Pros and cons:

Pro's

-Fantastic Battle System

-Great management system for your empire

-Moving around the map without actually doing anything can be a pleasure due to the gorgeous map

-The TBS part where you move around the map has FOW, which is really nice to have.

Con's

-I hate the religion system because I hate religion in general, but that's just me, I want to walk around a kick someone's teeth in without worrying if they have been invited to afternoon tiffin at the Pope's gaffe.

-AI can be thick on occasion.

Doom 3: BFG Edition

Ahhhh Doom, id software's big number from back in the 2.5D era, and one of the big games that everyone still remembers...well if you weren't a spod when everyone else was playing this masterpiece, and now id has brought out the BFG edition to make my trousers tight and my journalistic gonads churn with anticipation.

So then, we step back in to the very comfortable boots of the "Doomguy" to wade through the legions of demons that stand between you and the Cyberdemon....and of course there is doom 2 and 3, so yeah it's pretty good.

Okay, so then, the original Doom, Doom 2 and Doom 3, along with the expansions and also a couple of extra levels for the original 2 games to pad the game out a little...that and get you some interesting stuff for completing those levels (Xbox is what I got it for, so avatar stuff for me!)

Doom 3 now actually handles with common sense, for those amongst us who never played the original Doom 3, I refer to the fact that you couldn't use a gun and a torch at the same time, I like the fact that I can have a torch when I am shooting at a guy....though I would have enjoyed having a rifle sight aswell, but thats just me.

 So then, there isn't much that needs to be said about the original Doom games, you ran, you killed, you got to the end of the level and moved on, getting progressively bigger weapons and going up against progressively badder asses.

Doom 3 wasn't really changed either, you get the flashlight mounting on your body armour, you still can't aim down the barrel of the gun to allow for more accurate fire, but that's just a little nit pick of mine, and to be fair it doesn't really change all that much.

Pros and Cons.

Pros
-It's Doom.
-I missed old fashioned shooting games
-I can carry around more than 2 guns...which is nice

Cons.
-Oh god the pixels....

If you liked this then you might also like
-Quake
-Rage
-Most other FPS games that aren't really realistic.

Preview : Metro: Last Light

Metro 2033 was a fantastic game, and one of the few games I regret trading in for the cavalcade of mediocrity that was Skyrim.



And now they are releasing Metro 2034 and everyone who reads this can colour me excited, now with this trailer that was recently released I find myself wishing more and more that I could pick up my Bastard and head outside into the frozen wastes of Moscow.

I felt that Metro 2033 got a lot of undeserved stick, I found it to be extremly intruiging as a concept and as a storyline, namely due to the fact that I wasn't in America now and the story had more depth than a spoon...Also I didn't run around with people calling me "The Chosen One" or the "Lone Wanderer"....also it was Fucking DIFFICULT!

Now to my friends I am one of the few people who actually enjoys playing Dark Souls, and I love playing games which make me put more effort into them and force me to concentrate...for one thing Metro doesn't actually have a HUD system, and there is no health bar, to find out how you are doing you have to listen to your heartbeat, which adds another dynamic.

Imagine if you will, walking down a set of stairs, you get attacked, you panic unload a clip into whatever is attacking you, but not before it takes off about half of your health, and now you have to go into the bowels of a train stationin the dark, with only your helmet mounted flashlight and your Bastard assault rifle for company...all the while you can hear your own heartbeat telling you that you are injured.

As an action game it was relatively average, but with certain nice little details, though as a horror and a survival game it is right up there near the top in my opinion because it makes you think, makes you worry about yourself and above all, makes you strategise about your surroundings and how to survive by planning, something that I truly love.

I am looking forward to this game so much it's untrue, I would recommend you buy/replay Metro 2033, I am going to pick it up at some stage today or tomorrow.

Resident Evil 6

I liked Leon S Kennedy's campaign in Resident Evil 6.

I absolutely abhore sections of the rest of the game, including the other campaigns and the writing.

So then, after the Leon S. Kennedy review that I published yesterday on this site, I decided that I should continue from there and outline my thoughts on what Resident Evil 6 did badly after the fairly decent campaign that was Leons.

First things first, the story, Leon's was very well written and actually felt like a call back to the old Resident Evil series of games (I.E. like resident evil 1,2 or 3), whereas, in Chris' campaign the story was lackluster, and was more akin to a 3rd person zombie call of duty game with dodgy dialogue and ridiculous bosses that genuinely made me laugh when I looked at them...not that I didn't do that in Leon's campaign because Capcom still cant get around the need to make everything bigger, like the ballet dinosaur.

Jake's story was a bit contrived, it was the general pastiche of "Here is character A, only he can help us to save the world!" which always makes me nauseous because of the lack of creative design that the writers for games have nowadays, that and the main bad guy who was made out to be like Nemesis from Resident Evil 3, wasn't scary in the slightest, he was just annoying, over the top and in dire need of killing off half way through to bring in something else that was hard as nails...maybe his goatee sporting brother perhaps?

Carrying on from the storyline we have characterisation, something that this game tried to do for its characters in these campaigns and failed to do, namely because people, like me, who had played Resident Evil games previous to this, understood the characters, and also what these people did.

Coming in first, Chris Redfield and his life partner Piers, Chris is a former member of the Raccoon police department S.T.A.R.S. team, but is currently working for the B.S.A.A. to put down bioweapons and stop bioterrorism, something that he has apparently forgotten by this 6th installment as he attempts to channel Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, which means that all the characterisation that they put into the man is now gone....at least he looks relatively feasable as a human being now though

Yeah, he looked like a man who had started smuggling melons in his arms.

Piers seemed to me to be a smart and down to earth character, a man who had a slight amount of hero worship over Chris, but wasn't afraid to tell him his opinion which was something that I liked when I was playing through the game and Chris was being an idiot.

Jake is very well characterised, I like him mainly because he feels like an actual human being compared to all of the usual protagonists we get in games who save the world because it's right.
Not for Jake, he has his priorities sorted out, because even if he does save the world, he needs to get paid afterwards, namely because of the fact that you cant buy chinese take out on your reputation....unless you're Wilson Fisk I suppose.

Sherry Birkin was a nice addition to the game because I haven't heard anything about her since Resi 2.

Okay, so I've covered the characters and their storylines, now lets move on to the things that annoyed me, the plot related set pieces, I.E. the point where I was playing as Jake, and the helicopter I was in was getting trashed as was beginning to head towards the ground quicker than a hookers knickers. At which point the guy in the helicopter with me said "Jump to the other chopper!" now then, in a chinook, side by side with another chinook, both of which are level, jumping between one and the other would be DAMN NEAR FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE EVEN IF YOU WERE ON THE FUCKING GROUND AND STATIONARY NOT IN A MOVING HELICOPTER ABOVER A 500 FOOT DROP!

Okay, whilst that is only one example, I remember there being more, but they have obviously been blanked from my mind, thank you for reading this watch for my next review.

In conclusion

Pro's

-The game still had the same gameplay and streamlined controls
-Weapons felt like they did some hefty damage and were actually useful

Cons

-Partners
-Set Pieces
-Certain voice acting segments grate
- Storylines become annoying because of their obviousness

If you liked this you might also like

Resident  Evil 4....because it's better
Half Life 2...It's not even remotely similar but it's far superior to Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil 6 : Leon's Campaign

I remember playing Resident Evil 2 when I was in Primary school one halloween and I vivdly remember not being able to sleep or keep my bowels and urinary tract from staying in a position that wouldn't require that I sit on the toilet for something like 3 days.

 So then, Resident Evil 6, a game where the logo looks like a Giraffe getting a blowjob (Look carefully and you will see it plain as day, and then never be able to unsee it) a game which has a terrific gaming pedigree but will that grandure come out in this game?

In short, sort of.

The long answer is that Leon's campaign is very good in terms of storyline and pacing, going back to the roots of Resident Evil, but the rest of the game (Which will be in my next review) is lackluster, mediocre and slightly annoying.

So then here is the review of Leon and Helena's campaign, the one campaign that actually feels like a survival horror game in a game that is supposed to be a survival horror franchise, I personally feel that Capcom should drop the Resident Evil franchise and start a fresh, namely because I feel that Capcom are flogging a dead horse and should really just start a fresh before their rut gets any deeper.

You play as one of these 2

Leon's campaign feels very smooth and well written (as well as a Capcom game can be written anyway), and plays the tension in the game very well, by doing the same thing that made it great in it's earlier, less convaluted outings into the world of video gaming.

Leon's campaign uses tension very well in this campaign, (Until the graveyard but baby steps here) moving through the game actually feels quite daunting, unlike in Resi 5 where it felt quite easy, and due to the lack of ammo spread around the levels, you actually feel like this is not a 3rd person shooting game, but actually something that you have to SURVIVE.

The usage of zombies however was less expertly handled, not that I am saying that there were too many, but, if they had given me more ammo then it would have been fine, or if they had reduced the amount of zombies to make the game more of a psychological survival horror, then that would have been fine, but leaving you with no ammo, 5 zombies and Leon's slightly chunky 'can-can-kick' was a bowel movement extroadinare.

Now I understand better than most people what the survival horror genre requires of me, it required me to think, conserve ammo, don't get hurt and most importantly, piss myself in a corner if things get too hectic, but not giving us any sign in a boss battle that we aren't meant to try and kill them yet, or we are supposed to do something is not good design work because we spend about 15 minutes trying to hurt the big bastard of the level, only to find out that we were meant to run down an alley instead of wasting all of our ammunition.

I also prefer Helena as a character to Piers, Sheva or Sherry Birkin, namely because of the fact that during my playthroughs of all the numbered resident evil games, and having had a 'friend' along for the ride in those games, Helena was found to be the best companion I have ever had because she NEVER WALKED OUT IN FRONT OF MY FIRING LINE OR GOT IN MY FUCKING WAY.

But I digress, the combat felt very streamlined, the ability to move and shoot at the same time is very nicely handled, as is the ability to do combat roles and sprint, and when you hold the left trigger whilst sprinting you perform a nice slide which you can use to set up your targets in interesting ways.

So, in conclusion, Resident Evil 6: Leon's campaign is an above average shooter but it is let down by some bad design work, not being told what to do or whether a boss fight is an actual boss fight.

In conclusion, Pros and Cons.

Pros

-Good mechanics for shooting, and the movement controls are quite nicely streamlined to make it feel like you are a special agent.
-Weapons handle and feel like real weapons, unlike how weapons have had a tendency to feel when playing other resident evil games

Cons 

-The story isn't exactly stellar, and to be fair I could see the plot twist in Leon's campaign and in terms of Ada from about 25 minutes into the storyline.
-I still maintain that having a partner doesn't exactly help with the whole 'Survival Horror' stuff, because I felt that having a secong person there made all the puzzles (If you could call them that) arbitratry, and the horror element was diminished.

If you liked this game you might also like

-Resident Evil 4
-Splinter Cell Conviction
-Gears of War

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

One of the first games I ever played on the computer (Windows 95 feels like a lifetime ago) was Warcraft 2 Battlenet edition, (something that my parents were slightly pissed off with at the time) Warcraft 2 was a fanastic game, and was probably the reason I got into real time strategy games so much....that and I developed the train of thought to make people do things for me because I know best.

Starcraft 2 is a realtime strategy game in a similar vein to Command and Conquer and Warcraft (Well warcraft is a Blizzard game what do you expect?), which means that your role is that of a general, emperor or angry man with good people skills.

In the story campaign for Wings of Liberity you take the position of Jim Raynor, leader of Raynor's Raiders, a group of freedom fighters who are trying to usurp the leader of the Terran empire, I like to think of them like the Browncoats from Firefly for about 2 minutes, and then I get misty eyed.

So, the controls are fairly simple for any command and conquer or warcraft veteran, you can move the camera using camera using the W.A.S.D. keys, or moving the mouse cursor to the side of the screen, hotkeys take a while to get used to because of the different buildings and soldiers you get and you can zoom in to see the action up close and personal.

Starcraft feels very polished and well developed and all 3 races are well balanced and each has their own unique playing style (see ZERG RUSH!) each with its own personality and little details I.E. the mech drivers who look like metal heads and sound like Arnie.

The Campaign takes place years after the original Starcraft, with the Zerg disappearing into relative obscurity and the Protoss doing their own thing which leaves Raynor to try and overthrow Arcturus Mensk because of their belief that the Dominion is just as bad as the old government that they helped overthrow, pretty much 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.

You play as Jim Raynor.
This hunk of manliness

Kerrigan makes her reappearance as the Queen of Blades for the Zerg during one of the early missions which leades Raynor to try and kill her because of what she has done, and you also get to see into Raynor's personality in terms of how he has reacted to all the things that have happened in the first starcraft and all the resulting occurances.

That is to say: Badly.

There isn't much I can say about the plot that won't contain spoilers, but it is a very worthwhile game and will undoubtedly give RTS fans hours of joy playing, I know I always end up coming back to it when I'm on the train or have some free time.

Although having to make a Battlenet username and password as soon as you install the game and having to tell the game that you want to play on your own without the internet on does get tedious after a while if you're like me and don't really like human beings

Final Statement Reviews

Pros
-Very slick and streamlined control system and interface
-The graphics are very nice even on lower settings.
-Very good characters and above average storyline

Cons
-Battlenet pisses me off
-Levels can get samey, but that can be said of any RTS game
-Some characters can be a little over the top 
-BATTLENET!!!!

If you liked this game you might also like

Command and Conquer, pick one any one, personally I recommend Red Alert 2
Warcraft 3
Sins of a Solar Empire

Sins of a Solar Empire

I have been a huge Real Time Strategy fan since I played Command and Conquer : Red Alert Retaliation on the Playstation 1....which any gaming enthusiast can tell you was far too long ago to remember, since then however I have changed to games like Company of Heroes, the Dawn of War franchise, Medieval 2 total war and Sins of a Solar empire to name just a few.

Sins of a Solar Empire, for those who haven't played it, is a 4X RTS game, it is in the same vein as Civilisation, in that, you are tasked to; EXpand, eXplore, eXploit and eXterminate your enemies, although this particular game is a RTS set in space...which pretty much instantly makes it better in my mind, and also a fair amount quicker.

Unrivalled Scale is quite correct when looking at this game, playing multiplayer against 2 of my friends and a couple of AI players you can have multiple solar systems to travel between and fight over which took a minimum of 5 hours (And this is only because one of my friends and I decided to turn on our other friend and call it a day).

The learning curve for this game is fairly steep, but I found that the small selection of tutorials were more than adequate, and the game let me develop my own tactical thought process for this game instead of trying to do a sort of crash course in strategic theory which would have left most players confused.

Very, VERY steep learning curve in this game.

In most 4X games graphical quality takes a back seat to gameplay, and this is no exception to that general rule, though that doesn't mean that this is by any stretch of the imagination an Ugly game, in fact that is quite far from the truth, as the rendering on the ships and constructs are fantastic, as is the designs of the suns or planets which all have little details that you wouldn't expect from many games.

Due to the expansive nature and extreme size of maps in this game, the use of strategy and tactics is key, I once split my armada in half before sending them to 2 different planets, both of which joined by interspace 'motorway' to a planet I wanted to attack, I chose both fleets and told them to attack as one, allowing me to make a strategic outflanking manoeuvre.

There really isn't much of a story for this game, it feels more like the old Battlefield games, in fact in Sins of a Solar Empire, there isn't actually a story mode, the story can be summed up as 'They all hate each other for arbitrary reasons.'

Final Review

Pros
-Massive Maps
-Allows easy use of tactics
-Great Multiplayer combat

Cons
-No story mode
-Steep Learning Curve
-Give yourself about a day to play a game of this because you will spend shit loads of time on one map without realising

If you enjoy this you may also enjoy- 

-Galactic Civilisation 2
-Dawn of War
-Starcraft 2
-Civilisation 4