REINVENTING THE WHEEL: Lords of the Realm of Sucky Games

7 thoughts on “REINVENTING THE WHEEL: Lords of the Realm of Sucky Games”

1. Games Games Games

   The thing I’m having to get through my head these days is that I just don’t enjoy games as much as I used to. I don’t know whether to call it burnout, shifting priorities, or that games aren’t as “good”. Well, OK, I doubt the last one. There are some great games out there, but what seems to be happening is that, like movies, games settle into a particular, well-known “genre”, and deviate little from the formula, making them predictable. Many of them have their moments — akin to great one-liners in an otherwise drearily predictable buddy film — but those by themselves aren’t enough to set the game apart.

   Games I loved:

   • Total Annihilation: You’ll have trouble finding this in stores now, I think. The expansion was “more of the same”, but by limiting the resources you collected to only metal and energy, and having limitless supplies of the same, it focussed attention on the core of the game: managing input and output of resources while mainly orienting on how to orchestrate extremely complex, extremely large battles. And with today’s insanely (comparatively) fast clock speeds, with the latest patches you can really blow the doors off with hundreds of little robots fighting for you…
     

     The sequel, “Total Annihilation: Kingdoms”, blew chunks, was a totally different game, and, IMHO, led to the demise of Cavedog, the studio that created it.

   • Neverwinter Nights: This is a role-playing game, but if you’ve ever played Diablo, you’ll find it’s a game based on the Dungeons & Dragons rules with the edgy fighting of Diablo, along with progressive storylines that keep you engaged. The “Gold” edition includes the first expansion pack, too, and there are literally thousands of modules to download online that tell different stories. I think you remember Stefan Gagne, don’t you Justin? He’s one of the leading module developers on the planet. He’s a short guy with a big attitude, and his modules kick butt.
     

     The only criticism is that NWN is following a reverse progression with sequels: the original module was kind of lame. The first expansion was better, and I thought that, as a single-player game, the second expansion was totally engaging. There’s also the whole online thing which can be both good and bad, and I belong to a group of friends who run a persistent server that’s sometimes fun to dink around on.

   • Unreal Tournament/2003/2004: For pure blood, guts, and adrenaline-surging action, it’s hard to beat this franchise. I don’t own Unreal Tournament 2004 yet, but if it’s similar to the previous installments, but with different weapons and new gameplay modes, I’ll be happy. Seriously, you can pick up the original UT or UT2K3 for $10 a lot of places, and it’s really fun.
   • Diablo II: A pretty fun franchise. Long on action, a bit short on story, playable on low-end machines. The sequel was better than the original. And you can still pick up the ancient game at Wal-Mart, a testament to its popularity.
   • Starcraft: A real-time strategy game beloved and popular for many, many years. I never really got into it, because when it was new I had too many other games demanding my attention. I’m more of an action fan than a strategy fan though, of course, I enjoy them both.
   • Masters of Orion 3: I could never get past the klunky interface to really get into the game. Too many options, too much stuff happens where you go “huh, what just happened?”. From what I understand, the precursors to this bloated beast were better, but I never bought them, so I don’t know.
   • Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: The thinking-man’s first-person shooter. I cranked the difficulty up as high as it would go, and tried to get through all the missions. It was dang tough, as a good game should be, frustrated me endlessly, but had a very satisfying crunch at the end. It’s fairly fun in multiplayer too, with a medium-sized (8-12) LAN-party-ish crowd.
   • Operation Flashpoint (and sequels): My brother Jay is an avid gamer, and though I haven’t gotten into this (instead preferring Battlefield 1942 and MOHAA), I’ll accept his recommendation that it rocks. It’s one of those on my “buy it when it hits ten bucks” list.

   Well, hope that helped!

   —
   Matthew P. Barnson

2. Games that rule

   This is Jay – Matt’s brother.

   I’m not as hardcore as I once was, but here’s some real winners in my book – aside from the ones Matt mentions (Battlefield: Vietnam and Unreal Tournament 2004 are both great action titles, and if you get into multiplayer play, the Neverwinter Nights game & expansions rock the house in the RPG front).

   All of the Civilization games (except for the multiplayer versions) are pretty excellent. I haven’t played Civ3, but I hear it follows up on the tradition quite well. The first two sucked weeks out of my life — usually in the form of nights where I never got around to sleeping (the first Master of Orion game managed to do this to me, too, as did MOO2. MOO3 didn’t suck time out of me… it just sucked.)

   Age Of Empires II: Age of Kings (and it’s expansion, the Conquerers): Getting a little long in the tooth, but as far as pure RTS goodness goes, this one is the reigning champ in my book. It’s set in the medieval through renaissance eras, and has some of the best-balanced gameplay I have ever seen.

   Freedom Force – there’s a sequel to this one due out soon, but if you can find the original (it’s about 2.5 years old now)… this game rules. It’s setting is a world set in the “Silver Age” (I think) of superhero comic books… The Comic Book Code is in full force, the good guys are ultra-patriots (in fact, the leader is named The Patriot), and your superheroes take the fight against all kinds of vile , godless, and often communist villains. It’s kinda-sorta a real-time strategy game, but you are only controlling a small team of about 1-4 heroes at a time. But it is unbelievably fun, and you can tell the developers really loved their subject matter. It’s one part parody to three parts tribute to their subject matter. Even the “tool tips” that appear when you hover parts of the terrain are full of silver-age wacky hyperbole. I can’t recommend it highly enough if you have even a slight appreciation for superheroes / comics (or a really good, non-standard Real-Time Strategy game). Oh – and they also have lots of fan sites and a “built your own superhero” mode – add your own powers and skins to create copies of your favorites (which the game company couldn’t add out of fear of lawsuits or huge license fees).

   Rise of Nations – an expansion is out *NOW* which I intend to get once I have time to actually play it. This is sort of the real-time version of the Civilization games. Start in the stone age, and bring your civilization up to the information / space age… or until you conquer all your neighbors. While the “quick game” follows the usual RTS formula, there’s also a “Conquer the World” scenario that’s lots of fun, where you play on a map of the entire world, gradually taking over country by country in a semi-Risk fashion, gradually progressing through the ages as you do.

   Some games I have *HEARD* are really wonderful but I haven’t played yet: Tron 2.0 (sort of a digital sequel to the movie), Knights of the Old Republic (I’m told it’s not only the best Star Wars game ever, but also the best Computer RPG ever), Beyond Good and Evil (the return of the Adventure Game), and Galactic Civilizations (What MOO3 should have been though it doesn’t have multiplayer).

   For a real change of pace, there are some independent gaming titles that are really very cool, including:

   Orbz 2: http://www.garagegames.com/pg/product/view.php?id=5 Marble Blast: http://www.garagegames.com/pg/product/view.php?id=15 Gish: http://www.chroniclogic.com/ Samurai: http://www.klear.com/samurai/index.php Ricochette: Lost Worlds (One of the ultimate Breakout-inspired games): http://www.reflexive.net/index.htm

   The indie games let you try before you buy, and you don’t have to make a trip to the store to get ’em, so it’s not much effort to check them out. In particular, I’ve found Orbz 2 and Ricochette: Lost Worlds to be WAY more entertaining than I really expected them to be. They are really simple, straightforward games (the way they used to be, dagnabbit!) with fun factor in spades.

   1. Thanks!

      Okay.. so its CIV vs. Age of Empires.. Which to choose, which to choose?

3. Party like its 1999…

   You were in college in 1999? I had 3 kids and one on the way by then. I’m going to go take my Geritol now.

4. You’re Wrong

   Lords III kicks ass. I cede that it is nothing like Lords II. So what? Lords III is fun and challenging. You still get to fight battles. Yeah, the company thing is different, but its different, not bad. The game is harder and more fun. Beat the Ireland campaign and then see what you think.

   1. Uninstalled

      I took it off the computer and now spend my (very very few) gaming hours on my PS2 playing Kingdom Hearts

5. Lord Of the Realm 3

   I bought the pirated game while in Kuwait and it sucked. I was very excited installing it, as I loved lords of the realm 2 also. Such a disappointment. I loved the music in that game too.

   Here is a link to a remix MP3 if you want: http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR01279

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