Posts Tagged ‘review’

Civilization V Review

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Normally I might not link to my work on other sites here, but in this case I think it’s warranted.

Those of you who follow me on twitter or the like are probably aware that I’ve spent the last two weeks with my head so far up Civ V’s arse that I probably wouldn’t have noticed if an asteroid were about to hit us and Morgan Freeman had become the US President.

Unlike a ‘normal’ review we decided that Civ V really needed the fine-toothed-comb treatment. So, the epic (3200 word) in-depth review was done in a rather different format – it’s got a sort of panel-show back-and-forth style between myself and Joab Gilroy as we discuss every aspect of Civ V we can.

The review is up now at GameArena. Check it out!

Oh, and for those who read my article about the cartoony style of strategy games intruding where it’s not wanted? Not an issue with Civ V. Hell, the leaders even talk in their native language, with subtitles down the bottom. Colour me very, very pleased.

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Posted in General News | 12 Comments »

One Small Step

Friday, July 16th, 2010

I was lucky. I really was. As a space nerd, that is. See, I grew up reading space stories – real ones. Underneath the Star Trek and the video games like Lightspeed and Frontier: Elite II I read book after book about space programmes, both manned and robotic. On my wall was a huge poster showing the sun, the orbits of the planets and – most importantly – the paths taken by the space craft which had explored or were still exploring the solar system.

I was lucky for this reason – I’d somehow failed to learn that NASA was putting money into developing a series of free, educational space games until the release of the first game was upon us. Moonbase: Alpha is a rather strange game. Based on the unreal engine, it’s a first/third person action/strategy game where you and up to 5 other players work to repair the life support systems of a semi-permanent base on the moon, based on the original plans to do so by NASA under George W Bush.

Things have been shaken up a bit now – Obama’s government has increased NASA’s budget and changed their goals, meaning the NASA games will likely remain the only glimpse at this particular moon base. But still, this game remains as a fun, interesting, semi-hard-scifi game which shows what that base might have been like, at least from the outside.

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Posted in Review | 1 Comment »

You Have Been Disconnected

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

So, late last night I was prowling columns of interesting writers, and stumbled upon a review for an indie game I hadn’t heard of in the months since its release. The game was Digital: A Love Story, and the concept alone (never mind the praise by Emily Short, the columnist I was reading) was enough to make want to give it a go.

So I did, and then my morning vanished. While I had originally wanted to avoid writing ‘reviews’ here on RRQ, so many good indie games that have cropped up recently that I am unable to review for other sites have made me decide to start doing some individual game coverage here at RRQ – but only for off-beat, unique games that you might otherwise miss if you stick to mainstream sites for your gaming news & reviews.

(Note: There are no spoilers in this review)

Digital: A Love Story has a concept that, in some ways, might seem familiar if you’ve played games like Uplink or the forgettable Hacker games by Activision, at least on the surface. But there’s a major difference – while Digital may involve hacking, that’s just a pretense to tell quite an immersive, fascinating story about… well, a relationship, I suppose. Where Uplink is really just a strategy game, Digital is a story that happens to be in game form – and it’s infinitely more immersive and engrossing in this medium than it would be as a novel or a film.

The game is a sort of sci-fi / hacking story set ‘five minutes in the future’ of 1988. You load the game and promptly find yourself confronted with “Amie Workbench”, which looks suspiciously like the old Amiga Workbench – complete with many of the same quirks. Having been given this shiny, brand-new computer, you are encouraged by the good Mr Wong to dial this fascinating new service called a Bulletin Board System.

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Posted in Review | 3 Comments »