Gildargaming

I’ve played a lot of RPGs over the years. Some of them very different from each other. For example. I consider The elder scrolls series quite different from games like Baldur’s Gate or Pillars of eternity. Also, they obviously have different settings, but for the most part it has been sci-fi or a high fantasy setting. This game however, brings something fresh to the table, by trying to focus on a realistic medieval setting. Very few games have tried this over the years. I think Darklands tried in the early 90s. Mount & Blade sort of does (in With Fire and Sword), but none of them really succeeds. This game however manages to capture an atmosphere and immersion that I haven’t experienced in any other game. I can’t put my finger on what it is. Maybe it’s jsut the historical setting combined with the (for the most part) focus on authenticity, or maybe it’s just the fact that they’ve managed to make an interesting RPG without magic. I don’t know. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. Another reason might be that you don’t start out as a super here that’s destined to save the world from all evil. If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m in love with this game. Both as an RPG fan, and a history nerd. From a history perspective, it isn’t perfect if you dig deeper, but it’s the best I’ve seen in both moves and games set in this period. The first problem that comes to mind is the lack of crossbows in the game, because as far as I know. The region where this game is set (early 15th century Bohemia) used a lot of crossbows. There’s other issues, but I won’t go into them here. There’s some good YouTube videos on the subject.

Graphics

The graphics range from great to fantastic. The enviroments are very detailed and has high graphical quality. It probably requires a decent PC for the best experience. I like the graphics in this game, not only for it’s quality, but for the great attention to detail.

Audio

Sound effects are great, and voice overs are for the most part ok.

User interface

The user interface can feel a bit clunky at times. For example the inventory system. Replacing gear, something I do quite often, can be a bit tedius.

Gameplay

This is a first person RPG. If you’ve played games like SKyrim, you’ll feel quite at home, except that the combat system is very different (much better IMHO). You start out as a Blacksmiths’  son, without much combat experience, and it’ll take some time before you learn to fight properly. ALso fighting with different weapons feel quite different. The addition of notrition, the need to sleep and repairs is also nice.  Ranged combat is even more difficult than melee before you get used to it. I also usually go to an archery range whenever I switch to a new bow to try a few shots.

Conclusion

Well, if you haven’t noticed already, I’m totally in love with this game. This might turn out to be my favorite RPG of all time. If you want a historical RPG, or just something fresh. Get this game right now!

This is another game I’ve been wanting to play for quite some time. I remember drooling over the original Wastelands when it came out in 1989, but never had the money to get the 6 5’25 disk game (at least it was 6 if I remember correctly). I was going to kickstart this game, but ended up not doing it (thought I had more time). I didn’t buy on release cause I had other games to play and never got around to it until recently. I’m really happy to see games in this old school RPG genre coming out. The game feels a bit unpolished at time, and I would love more voice overs, but overall, this is a great game.

Graphics

The graphics are good enough, they are far from tripple A quality, but works well for this game.

Audio

Sound effects are ok, but nothing special.

User interface

The user interface can be a bit clunky at times, at least till you get used to it. Maybe there’s some settings I can tweak, I haven’t looked into it.

Gameplay

If you like old style RPGs. get this game! If you like the combat style of the original XCOM series, you’ll like this as well. You don’t get much of a tutorial. Just some popups the first time you run into something, like wounds, death etc. This is nice, but if you create your own squad for the first playthrough, you’re pretty much left in the dark. A personal tip from me is to make sure you have someone with the perception skill in your party. ALso make sure to scout out the first area and talk to everyone before you leave. You can get a companion that really helps.

Conclusion

This game will end up of my top list of RPGs. There isn’t as much interaction between party members as in the infinity games, but overall, this is a great game.

This is a game I’ve been wanting to play since it came out a few years but never picked up. I was a huge fan of Baldur’s gate back in the 90s and also own the BG remake, ubt haven’t had time to play it that much either.

If you’ve played Baldur’s gate, or other Infinity Engine games you’ll feel quite at home. It’s easy to see this game was inspired by those games, but at the same time, it’s quite different. The system is inspired by D&D II think, but it feels fresh and I like the way stats work so far. It feels like there’s a enough to do to keep your busy for quite some time, and the game should also have some replayability. There’s a lot of side quests, and the game feels unforgiving at times. This isn’t a problem since you can tweak a lot of difficulty settings, but don’t expect the difficulty to be increased linearly If you go in the wrong direction you can easily hit a wall, and you’ll have to leave and come back later. I like it this way, so for me this isn’t a problem at all, rather the opposite.

I expect the spend a lot of time with this game, and should probably have picked it up earlier.

Graphics

The graphics isn’t super impressive by today’s standard, but I like the art style, and as with everything else in this game, it reminds me of old times.

Audio

Music is nice, sound effects are fine. The only problem I have is that the voice overs seem to be a bit random. You may find an NPC that has voice overs for part of the conversation, but not all of it. Voice overs could have been more consistent, but I guess they didn’t have time. An add on with full voice over is something that I personally would be willing to pay for. The game also has a lot of text and dialogue, so being able to listen to more voice overs would be nice. It’s no big deal, but it’s something I’ve noticed.

User interface

The UI is pretty straight forward for the most part, but some things are a bit unclear. Some UI help features will also be disabled in expert mode.

Gameplay

If you’ve played Infinity engine games like Baldur’s gate you’ll feel at home here. You’ll do a lot of pausing during combat, so the game might take time. THere’s a ton of micro management to do to win some battles. As mentioned, the game has a lot of lore text and dialogue, so be ready to spend a lot of time reading.

Conclusion

I love this game. Probably one of my top RPGs along with Baldur’s gate and Dragon Age Origin. I won’t compare this to the Bethesda titles since they are completely different. If you want a classic RPG, pick this up!

I received this game as part of the humble monthly bundle last month, and after reading a bit about it I just had to test it for nostalgic reasons. If someone remember the Dungeon Keeper series from the 90’s and want something similar, this game is a must have. I loved dungeon keeper, and so far this is the closest I’ve found to the original experience without feeling like a clone, or a remake. I’ve only spent a few hours learning the game and playing the campaign. This game is, for me, what Dungeon Keeper 3 should have been. I read that this game was in a poor state on release, and I’m not sure how much of that is fixed at this point in time. It looks however, like the game has been updated post release.

Graphics

The graphics are nice and clear, but a bit difficult to describe. I haven’t tried the possession (first person mode) yet so can’t say much about that.

Audio

Audio is great, and I’m not sure, but I think they hired the original Dungeon Keeper narrator which is a very nice touch 🙂

User interface

So far, the UI works fine for me. it’s not to complex, but you can find everything in it.

Gameplay

This is like playing Dungeon keeper all over again, so if you liked that, this is for you. It’s a dungeon management game, and there isn’t many of those around

Conclusion

As I’ve said, if you liked Dungeon keeper, or if you want something different from the usual city builder, city management game, this is for you.

I picked up this game a year or so ago, but never really gave it a serious try. I played the tutorial and felt I didn’t have time to really focus on the game at the time and gave up. This game suffers from the same issues as some other Paradox games: it can be overwhelming for new players.

But now, A year later, after playing EU4 I decided to give this a serious look. Now, 50 or so hours later, I really love this game. Now I’m not sure what made this game seem so overwhelming, even though there are some concepts I still not grasp 100%. I guess the main reason is that you approach things differently. Instead of playing a nation, like in other similar games, you play a dynasty. or rather a member of a dynasty. You try to spread your dynasty while at the same time trying to keep enough land to ensure that your heir will be powerful enough to survive against other claiments. This can be tricky at times, since other dynasties, as well as other members of your own dynasty will try to take what they consdier to be theirs. I use the term “land” ligltly here, cause the game is more about titles. You can hold a Kindom without actually holding any land in it (even though you run a huge risk of getting into trouble with revolting powerful vasals).

Each characters has traits that you have to take into account when arranging merriages and deviding land. Traits can be gained and lost throughout a characters lifetime. This brings an interesting RPG element into the game.

The game takes place in medieval europe for the most part, so you don’t have access to the whole world like you do in EU4, however, the most recent expansion adds india to the map. In the original game, you can start in 1066 and play all the christian feodal leaders. Expansions have added the option to play muslim and pagan leaders as well as the option to start in the 9th century. No matter what  start you pick, the game will end in 1453, since this is considered to be the end of the medieval era (The fall of constantinople).

Something that may put people off, is that the game has a lot of DLCs. I’ve picked up most of them by now, but if you are looking to pick this game up, I would start wit hthe original game, and if you like it, pick up the DLCs on sale.

Graphics

THe game uses the same engine as EU4 I think, so if you’ve seen that, you know what to expect. There are a limited number of character faces in the game, but several small DLCs will add more distinct faces for different cultures.

Audio

The sound effects are nothing special, but the music is good for the most part. There are also a lot of music DLCs to add flavour to different cultures.

User interface

As mentioned, the game can be very overwhelming berfore you get used to it. Some things can be pretty difficult to find, unless you know where it is (financial overview comes to mind). It will take you a few hours of clicking around to learn where everything can be found. Some areas could probably have been made more intuitive, but at the same time, once you get used to it, it works quite well.

Gameplay

You start out as a member of a dynasty with one or more “landed titles” and your goal is to make you and your dynasty gain more power, and survive the test of time. A lot of decisions you make will be long term, for example, you marry one of your children, so his or her children will inherit a title. Events will occur throughout a characters lifetime, changing their traits, opinions of other characters and so on, usually involving active decision making.

You’ll also get involved on plots to clain or revoke toties as well as getting rid of certain people. Managing your vasals is another important area that sometimes requires some creativity. You want to keep people happy without making them to powerful. To sum it up, the game is basically a dynasty simulator.

Conclusion

If you can get through the steep learning process, this game is awasome. I would higly recomment this game to anyone who likes strategy games. It also won’t hurt if you are a fan of intrigues such as those found in series like The sage of ice and fire :). Presonally, I really like this game right now, and there isn’t many similar games out there.  For beginners I would recommend picking up just the original game, playing through one game and then picking up all the expansions and DLCs.

Having an affair with your daughter in law can have some inconvenient results

Well, the wrong person inherited all the titles I wanted. This is what happened to the unlucky 1 year old who inherited all my titles.

If you think the Civ series has become dumbed down or just want something deeper, maybe this game is for you. That said, this is not Civ. I would describe it as a historical world simulation. The game starts in 1444 during the decline of the Byzantin empire and close to the end of the 100 year war., and ends in 1821. You can basically pick any country during this time period (even though some of them has a lot more events and country specific decisions then other countries).

I’m writing this after having spent about 50 hours with this game. That’s how long I feel it takes to really get a grasp of the game. I still don’t know everything there is to know about the game, but I feel comfortable playing and know what to do in most situations.

Graphics

Graphically, this game looks quite good for a strategy game, even though graphics are not that important in this genre. The most important thing is that the map is easy to read.

Audio

The sound effect are ok, but the music is really great. THis is a good thing since you’ll have to listen to it for hundreds of hours

User interface

Despite the complexity of the game, the UI is quite easy to get used to. It’s quite intuitive, even though I sometimes spend time looking for something that I know can be found somewhere (A lot of statistical

Gameplay

This is a grand strategy game, so expect to spend a lot of time looking at a map. Well, the concept is easy. You pick a nation, and control it from 1444 (or whenever you like to start) until 1821. Theis is a very interesting time period in most of the world, and the experiance may differ depending on what country you decide to play. For example, as England, you’ll start out in the hundred year war, but later on probably end up cononizing, trading and exploring the rest of the world, pretty much staying away from the european continent. ON the other hand, if you picka country such as Poland, you’ll end up in a lot of the big european conflicts. The game isn’t scripted per say, but some historical events will trigger under certain conditions, such events can turn out to be both good and bad. There are also a lot of other events that will trigger under certain conditions, such as big revolts, trade events and formation of new nations. The game has no real goal, even though there is a score system. it’s more of a simulation then anything else. The game has the usual features of other strategy games such as research, but things are structured in a slightly different way. When you first start out, it feels like you have very little control over your country’s progress, but as you dig deeper, you realized that there’s a lot of things to manage. I would recommend starting as a decent sized country without to many enemies. I started out as spain, and I feel that was a good idea. Your wars early on won’t be that complex and you can experiance some colonizing right off the bat.

Conclusion

Right now, I love the game. It’s the best strategy game I’ve played for years. If you want a game that’s relatively easy to learn, but has a lot of depth, I would pick this up right away. Just be aware that each game will take 50 hours plus, especially before you get used to the game.

This is another of the games I got as part of a bundle with my video card, and as such I didn’t pay full price for it.

Metro last light takes place in  russia (I think), in a dystopic future where people spend most of their time below ground. As the name suggests, a lot of the game takes place in the metro. The Metro universe is based on a series of novels by the Russian author Dimitry Glukhovsky (not sure I spelled that correctly 🙂 ) but I don’t think it follows the story of these novels.

I didn’t play the original MEtro 2033 (a prequal to this game), but even though there are references to events in that game, Last light is definitely playable without having played the previous game. Something I wouldn’t say about a series like Mass effect for instance. The game is a single player FPS with focus on stealth. It’s probably possible to shoot everything, but that doesn’t seem to be the best approach to the game.

Graphics

The graphics on the PC are outstanding for the most part, with a lot of emphasis on detail. I’m not sure how the game will look and perform on lower end system, but on my new 4th gen I7 with GTX 770 it runs really well. I like the amound of detail they’ve put into some items as well as the envireoment.

Audio

I find nothing to complain about wihen it comes to the sound effects, but the English voice acting is a completely different story. I’ve heard the Russian voice acting is much better, but so far I’ve been using the English version and it ranges from average to terrible. The developer’s are Ukrainian and I feel that they didn’t put that much effort into the English voices.

User interface

Not much to say here, it’s an FPS, but you have less information on screen then in most other FPSes these days. Something that adds to the imersion of the game and I don’t mind this at all.

Gameplay

As mentioned this is an FPS, but it’s not Doom, half-life or CoD. On the other hand it’s not an FPS RPG like  Fallout 3 or Fallout NW either. Stealth is pretty much a necessity, especially on higher difficulties. There is also a ranger mode available that’s soposed to force you to be even more stealthy. In the world of Metro, you buy and sell stuff with military grade ammo. This can also be used in the weapons you find in the game, but for the most part you’ll use “dirty” rounds.  You’ll spend most of your time in the metro since you have to wear gas masks when going outside. The gas mask has replacable filters that last about 5 minutes. If you are easily scared, you might have some problem with this game since you’ll spend a lot of time in dark places and the amound of detail put into the game really adds to the overall dystopic feel of the game. So far the game is super linear, but hopefully you’ll be given some more freedom later on. If the linearity is a problem, I think you may want to look at some reviews before purchasing the game, since this is a first impressions article. In terms of gameplay I don’t really know where to place this game. It has a little bit of Deus Ex HR, but since it’s post apocalyptic Fallout 3 also comes to mind.

Conclusion

If you don’t mind the linearity, this game is really really good. For some reason, half-life comes into my head while playing this game. I like the world and a lot of the small details they put into this game. I’m not a huge fan of the genre, even though I’ve played a bunch of FPSs. This game fels different in some way and I expect to play more of it. The graphics and overall imersion in this game makes it more apealing to me then most other FPSs Add the stealth elements to that and you have a game that stands out from the rest of the genre.

Last week I received my new gaming rig. Bundled with my graphics card I got AC3 along with a few other game.

The only game I’ve played in this series is AC2, so I can only compare these 2 games.

My impressions of AC2 was, that it could have been a great game, but I felt the port was terrible. I found it really difficult to get a hang of the controls without using  a controller.

AC3 on the other hand, is much better in this respect. The game seem to follow pretty much the same concept, but the controls feels much more straightforward, and during the tutorial, you are actually told what keys to use instead of having to recognize different symbols, and try to remember what key on your keyboard corresponds to each symbol.

The game, for the most part takes place in 18th century Americas. I’m currently a few hours into the game and it is still very linear, however I expect the game to open up a bit more down the line.

Graphics

I must say, this game looks awasome for the most part. Most of the enviremental graphics, as well as  the characeters looks, and moves nicely. This is pretty much expected from a tripple A title. It’s not just the quality of the graphics. Most of the places I’ve seen so far has a lot of detail that adds to the imersion of the game.

Audio

The sound effects and voice acting is generally good so far. There are games with better voice acting, but this is defenitely good enough.

User interface

Well, I can only compare this to AC2, and as mentioned earlier I think the UI is hugely improved. FOr example. Early on in AC2 I got stuck on a roof (or tower) with an objective to press 2 or 3 keys simultanously, however, since I didn’t have a printout of the control options and couldn’t access it during the scripted sequence, I was pretty much stuck. I guess you get used to the controls, but that pissed me off quite a lot. AC3 on the other hand, teaches you the controls early on in a straightforward way. Stuff like “Press F to aim” is much better then just being presented with symbols from a console controller that you don’t own. This has helped me to get into this game pretty much without frustration I was kind of disapointed that a  game with such great potential as AC2 has was missing such a basic thing. The character movement usually feels pretty fluid and intuitive.

Gameplay

If you’ve played earlier instances of Assassins creed, you pretty much know what to expect. Early on, the game is very scripted without much freedom, but as mentioned I expect this to change.  Expect to spend a lot of time leaping from roof to roof and climbing stuff. Evne though the game has a main story, there are also side missions along the way. I’ve been trying to avoid reading up on the plot, but it seems like the main character (or the one you play when doing the time travelling thing) will take part in the american revolution and war of independence. SO far, I’ve nly seen parts of Boston, but I expect to be able to go to other key historical places of the time, we’ll see. So far I haven’t had to make a single decision on my own in the game whitch is a bit dissappointing. The dialogues and scripted events have been very straightforward. Maybe this will change later on as well? The combat, so far has been very easy. I’ve been shot at with pistols, and attacked with swords and (I think) bayonettes but nothing I couldn’t handle. The combat system overall feels quite simplistic. The blend of history and science fiction in this series has always felt a bit weird to me, but it works for the most part. Sometimes some features feel a little out of place while trying to get imersed into the historical setting.

Conclusion

If you enjoyed the earlier games of the series and wnat more of the same, I expect you’ll get a lot oout of this game. If you expect complete freedom to explore and do whatever you want, or have a lot of choices to make right from the start. Chances are you’ll give up the game fairly quicly, if you don’t find the story compelling enough to continue playing just to see where it’ll take you. After my earlier experiances wit hthe series, I didn’t expect that much out of this game, but so far, I find my self enjoying it enough to want to continue playing. It seems like they’ve done a uch better job with the PC version this time around. It doesn’t hur that I really like 18th century setting either. If you don’t have this yet, and have any interest at all in the series, this is the game I would pick up. Especially if you can do it during a sale.

So, The long awaited latest addition to the Total war frenchise is finally here! One of the game I’ve anticipated the most since it was announced, and even before that. The original Rome: total war is still one of my favorites in the series, even though it’s 10 years old.

SO, how does the latest installment hold up? Well, my feelings about this game are currently mixed. On one hand, this game can, and probably will grow to become the best game in the series. On the other hand, the game still has a lot of problems. Expect an updated comment on this game a few patches down the road.

First of all, I want to say that I really enjoy this game, even at it’s current state. The way the campaign is setup is great, multiplayer seems to work fine and the overall “feel” of the game is great. After writing this, I have to admint that I haven’t had the problems a lot of people seem to be experiancing with the game. It actually runs ok on my 3 year old system even at fairly high  settings. I’ve notices some graphical glitches and some drips in frame rate but that’s to be expected on my current system with these settings. One note though, I haven’t noticed any improvements with the latest patch, that was soposed to adress some of these issues. I’ve also seen complaints about loading times. I have the best loading times I’ve seen in a Total war game, but I’m running the game from an SSD. I did the same with Shogun 2 and had much worse loading times in that game, so not sure where that’s coming from. I’ve also read reports saying that the AI behaves strangely; some people says it’s to aggressive, some says it’s to passive and so on. Overall I would say the battle AI is a bit more prudent than in previous game, and I’ve seen it do a few  weird things, but nothing that really stands out as stupid. I’ve heard similar things from some of the YouTube channels I follow, so I’m not sure if the AI is worse for some people and better for some, or if some people are just lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it. There is however some AI related bugs. I think it should defend it’s cities more on the campaign map and not perform suicide attacks, so in conclusion the campaign AI needs some work. I’ve also heard reports that it doesn’t build siege equipment properly, but I’ve only had my larger scities attacked by rebels (except for some amphibious assaults), so I can’t really tell if this is true or not.

People also have other complaints, but I’ll get to those later. I still like the game, despite it’s current state. Hopefully things will improve during the next few weeks.

Now let’s talk about the game itself, not just the flaws. You start out as one out of a dozen or so playable factions. Unlike Rome 1 where you could play any faction destroyed in a previous game, you’re stuck with a set number of factions like in Shogun 2. I don’t think this is a bad thing, even though I can see one reason for doing this is to be able to make DLCs in the future. Hopefully a bit more work is put into each faction for historical accuracy and campaign goals to make up for this. Each faction has a set of traits and a pretty distinct set of units. Depending on what faction (and for Rome and Cathage, family) you pick, you’ll get slightly different objectives. There also seem to be a lot more missions and “chapters” during the campaign to keep you going forward.

Graphics

The graphics are nice, but not outstanding at the settings I’m currently using. I can’t run at the highest settings, and I’ve heard reports of some people having issues with the textures. I may add some comments on this a few patches down the line. The only real problem I’ve noticed is some flickering when zomed out during battles. If, in the future, I can run this on settings seen in the previews of the game, I expect to rewrite this part entirely.

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Audio

The audio is pretty much what you can expect from a total war game. good music ( I think they are still using the same composer from Rome 1). and sound effects good overall. This time around it’s mostly English speakers doing voices. The pre battle speaches are gone, but if you listen during the early stages of the battle, there are still some short speaches going on.

User interface

Well, here is the part where I can’t make up my mind. The interface is way different from previous games and some will probably call it dumbed down, but I’m not sure about that. The UI on the campaign map feels simplified compared to previous installments, but I feel you still have access to the same information as before, it’s mjust more accessible once you get used to it. I however, wish they would have made some more work on the building and unit cards, to make them easier to distinguish from one another. What was wrong with using images of building instead of the icons they are using now?. This is also true for the battle interface. Some unit cards are difficult to distinguish from one another and could be made more distinct. Overall it feels like the controls are easier though.

Gameplay

ISo, how does the game play compared to earlier titles? To be honest, I’m not quite sure what I think yet. I like a lot about the campaign, and also about the battles, even though the battles feels a bit to fast. I’ve heard that this will be changed in an upcoming patch. The game has 1 year turns like the original Rome, something that some people won’t like. A nice feature in the campaign, that I really like is that you get some historical objectives. I could go on and on about good and bad things about the gameplay, but I won’t since this is a first impressions article.

Conclusion

I can’t conclude this right now. For now, If you have the game and can play it, enjoy. If you don’t have it yet. Wait for a few weeks and see what happens.
 

Well, is this tough to write a first impressions on? For sure it is. First, a little bit about my background in the civ series.

I played and loved the original civ back when it first game out in the early 90s, and I’ve played every game of the series ever since. The CIv games, from Civ 1 to Civ IV in my openion , contained mostly changes for the better. All the games basically took the previous game and improved upon the concepts. This was not the case with Civ V. A lot of things was dumbed down. The only thing that could have been somewhat interesting if implemented preoperly was the new hex system and combat if implemented properly. It wasn’t however and the game as a while was kind of disapointing for an old time civ fan. With the first expansion, things changed for the better. The game got back at least some depth, with more choices and more ways to manage your civilization. Same goes for this expansion. Most people will probably argue that Civ IV is still a better game in many ways, but at least with this expansion. Civ is getting back some more of it’s depth. The AI was improved with the last expansion and seem to have improved slightly with this expansion as well. It’s difficult to tell how it behaves in combat since I didn’t have much of that in the games I’ve played since I picked up the expansion. This brings me to another point. The AI seem to be a lot less aggressive overall, I’ve had no random declarations of war yet, something that occurred frequently in the original civ 5. With the addition  of more advanced and detailed trade, ideologies and new civilizations to play, this expansion brings new life to the game.

Is it worth getting the expansion then? Well, since I’ve allready seen it on sale, I would say yes. If you have the slightest interest in Civ V I would buy this expansion, especially if you can pick it up on sale.