Review: Codename: S.T.E.A.M. (3DS)

If you like Valkyria Chronicles, you are going to like this game. Maybe Fire Emblem or Advance Wars are more your thing? Codename: S.T.E.A.M. might be a good fit. Even if you have never played or heard of those games, keep reading because it still might be the kind of game you like.

S.T.E.A.M. stands for Strike Team to Eliminate the Alien Menace. That pretty much sums up what you need to do.

Instead of a top down view of a map in many traditional turn-based strategy games, Codename S.T.E.A.M. lets you view the game world from on the ground which is unique and refreshing.

The single player campaign in this game is great and balanced (much like the rest of the game). There are all kinds of missions and new aliens are doled out to you at a reasonable rate.

Review: Total War: Attila (PC)

It's an ancient concept, but names have power. When you mention a certain name, depending on reputation, certain feelings are evoked.  Even today, the name of Attila the Hun conjures up images of rampaging marauders and ravaged lands, of burning cities and blood-soaked battlefields where proud and foolish armies dared to challenge the nomadic king known to the dying Roman Empire as “The Scourge of God.”  Now, The Creative Assembly brings the last days of Rome and the rise of the barbarians to life with Total War: Attila.

Hands-On Preview: Sorcerer King (PC)

For a long time after falling under the thrall of Disciples II: Dark Prophecy (way back in 2002) then shaking it off (finally), I thought I would never fall victim to another turn-based fantasy game. Like chicken pox. You get it once and the resulting immunity means you'll never get it again, right? Sometimes the pox returns but they call it the less-than-appetizing "shingles." Well, that's what Sorcerer King is shaping up to be; shingles. In a good way, honest.

Review: Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director's Cut (PC)

Can you really have too much of a good thing?  Well, yeah, if it makes you sick of the thing you're consuming.  Too much sugar leads to diabetes.  Too much delicious fried chicken can cause heart attacks.  Too much good beer will kill your liver stone dead.  But too much cyberpunk RPG goodness?  That's just crazy talk.  Little pale skin, maybe, but plenty of adrenaline to keep the heart pumping and plenty of well crafted storyline to keep the brain firing.  Which is strange, since the “Director's Cut” of Shadowrun: Dragonfall seems to have a running theme within its characters and story about people who do have too much of a good (or even bad) thing, and the different ways that it can warp and scar them.

Review: Company of Heroes 2 - Ardennes Assault (PC)

Ardennes Assaults shakes up Company of Heroes. The gameplay was already a deep well of strategy, tactics, and being able to quickly refocus attention elsewhere on the battlefield without completely abandoning anything, unless it served some larger purpose, but Ardennes Assault layers additional strategy and long-term planning on top of that with a Risk-like map of the area between Germany and France as borders ebbed under the push of the Allies against German forces.

Review: Ancient Space (PC)

If an old grognard of a strategy gamer is asked what the best space-themed real-time strategy game ever made was, chances are that it would be a toss-up between StarCraft and Homeworld.

While the former gets points for being one of Blizzard's best loved titles before World of WarCraft, the latter being one of the first RTS games to truly exploit the notion of 3D space and the tactical considerations it brought. It created a gold standard for what space combat should be like, and it's never been properly duplicated, sequel and expansion notwithstanding. Some might be bold and point to Digital Anvil and their only RTS Conquest: Frontier Wars as a cult classic that got overlooked in the noise of Chris Roberts' maladroit exit from the gaming industry so many years ago. Gamers have, for many years, been looking for something which captures the feel of Homeworld while advancing the genre. Sad to say, Ancient Space is not that advancement.

Review: Stronghold Crusader II (PC)

Stronghold Crusader II is the sequel to the popular Stronghold series of games by Firefly Studios, and it’s safe to say that Firefly has delivered plenty of what fans loved about the series.

Stronghold Crusader II focuses specifically on The Crusades-Era, allowing the player to assume the role of King Richard, or Saladin should you so choose. The objective is simple: to overtake your opponents’ stronghold. This won’t be new to veterans of the series, but does the sequel they bring anything different to the table?

Arma Tactics Quick Impressions (PC)

Usually when people think of Arma, people think of really in-depth tactical shooters.  Now the series has a turn-based strategy offshoot, and it's a surprisingly casual affair.  Jeff gives some brief thoughts on the game after futzing around in it for a bit.

Review: Company of Heroes 2 (PC)

Company of Heroes 2 had a huge hurdle to clear: the original Company of Heroes.

Developer Relic Entertainment would have to leap out of the long shadow cast by the critically acclaimed original released back in 2006. As far as problems go, it's actually a good one to have. Players of the original (and the expansions) that have been playing the title since its release were geared up for the sequel. That's good! The other side of the coin, of course, is the danger of wiping out that enthusiasm and anticipation and replacing it with regret and bitterness because there's an expectation that the game will rock the core of the series with a dramatic overhaul of unit and resource management and wrap the whole package in a shiny wrapper.

Review: Wargame: AirLand Battle (PC)

I'll be first in line to toss praise toward developer Eugen Systems for the technical prowess they've coded into Wargame: AirLand Battle. It's the only real-time strategy game that has really nailed the ability to zoom up to the clouds for a view that feels a lot like looking at a map on a table then fly to ground level to follow infantry units running through open fields.

It's all so technically brilliant and complex that I'd compare it to sitting in a cockpit of an F-14 with absolutely no knowledge of how the plane works or, hey, what does this button do? Or possibly more apt, suddenly finding yourself in the cockpit of an F-14 at 50,000 feet. What information you can glean from the cockpit is your sole source of not ploughing into the ground at Mach 2. This one's labelled "eject"; this one "chaff." Okay, no idea what the rest of this stuff does.

Video: StarDrive Impressions (PC)

I'm a sucker for space 4X strategy games, so it was only a matter of time before I took StarDrive for a spin. Find out more about the game, and some of my early thoughts on it in the video above.  ^_^

News: Total War: Rome II Coming in September

People looking forward to the next Total War game need only wait until September 3 to start marching legionnaires around on the path to glory. Sega has confirmed that this will be a global release date, so there'll be no waiting around in one region while another is happily enjoying their game. There will also be a fancy collector's edition which comes as a physical copy of the game with all sorts of physical goods, making for a nice change of pace from so many other recent collector's editions where everything has been digital. Although speaking of digital, there is also day one DLC planned for the game (feel free to ready pitchforks, tar, and feathers at your leisure) that will unlock various Greek factions including Athens, Sparta, and Epirus. People who pre-order the game will get this DLC for free with Rome II.

Review: StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (PC)

 

One thing that StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm does extremely well is present the monstrous Zerg as an undulating blanket of slimy, unspeakable nightmares. During the course of a few of the large scale battles when there were literally a hundred Zerg units crashing into enemy defenses, my skin actually crawled and I felt a flash of fight or flight. Something about the way the units are animated… it’s creepy. And when they’re all lumped together it’s close to terrifying.

Video Review: Crusader Kings II (PC)

Mr. Nash presents a video review of Crusaders Kings II (PC).

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Review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC)

One of the joys and miseries of being an old school gamer like myself is that I have a tendency to look at remakes as “been there, done that, got the T-shirt.”  Too many are shameless cash grabs (The Bard's Tale remake stands out as one particularly noxious example). Few are a genuine improvement or re-imagining of the original title, which makes them all the more precious when they do come out.  For me, one of the series that I both hoped for and against coming back as a remake was X-COM: UFO Defense.

It Came From the Backlog: Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II - Retribution (Part I)

Bunkers are handy for taking a defensive position when lots of enemies
are incoming

I started "It Came From the Backlog" focusing mostly on Geneforge, but I have a tendency to play multiple games together, bouncing back and forth between them, so I'm going to be mixing it up a bit, adding a couple of other games to the fray. Variety is the spice of life and all that, so why not? The best part is that I don't even need to worry about losing track of where I am in a given game because, hey, I've written it all down!

The other game I plan to talk about here for the time being is Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution (sometimes game titles can be so wordy these days). I've had next to no exposure to the Warhammer universe outside of some very limited futzing around in Space Marines. After seeing all sorts of screenshots and discussion for the Dawn of War games over the years, though, I've been really curious about the series. The way it focuses on combat, and does away with much of the resource management of an RTS looked neat. So now I'm finally going to take the time to try out one of these games. I chose to start with Retribution because it is one entry in the series that doesn't have GFWL, something that I'm not at all a fan of.

Preview: Company of Heroes 2 (PC)

A long time coming, Company of Heroes 2 looks to outdo its preprocessor in all respects and claim the throne (again) of real-time tactical strategy games. Careful advancement, and planning are required for success. Looping a swathe of units and throwing them at the enemy will merely kill them all. The original game and it's expansions showcased a much more deliberate and chance-driven strategy game, where the tides could be turned if players were smart enough (and maybe a little lucky) rather than simply having more armour than their opponent.