This Weeks Gaming - Getting Up To Speed With Shogun 2 & Shift 2

Things winding down a little in the beginning of April. The big releases in March are done and April has perhaps one of the biggest game release this year. But for this week, I’ll be playing through my Shogun 2 campaign and most of the games I said in last weeks gaming  write up.




Shogun 2
Now having had a bit more hours into Shogun 2, I have to say, I like it. What really surprised me is how addictive the multiplayer is. Creative Assembly has introduced a new persistent element to the game and all players get their own avatar that they are able to rank up, gain new bonuses and personalise their armies(yes with bonuses the better you do). There’s this campaign map that you just move your army around and get connected to someone else looking for a multiplayer match. If you win, you gain that region with whatever bonus the region gives you. Rather cool addition. Although there is certainly an issue with balance as playing against generals of higher skills might be tricky(match making solves this issue some what as you get match with someone of a similar rank) if they have more skilled professional armies against a lowly peasant army of an unranked general.





Shift 2 Unleashed
Having played this for a couple of days, I think this is a good racing game and an improvement from the first game. It’s not a major change from Shift but some improvements in certain places make this better. It also has a rather good soundtrack. My review of Shift 2 will be out this week.





Pride of Nations
Supposed to have played this last week, but was rather busy. I promise I’ll complete the tutorial this week and play a proper game of this. Not sure if I can have a write up this week, but we’ll see. Grand strategy games are always a lot of work.





Cities in Motion
Been meaning to play this again. They’ve released a couple of patches and it should be a lot more balanced and better now. Might do a video review supplement for my already existing review of this game.




Dreamlords Resurrection
The free to play MMORTS game from a small dev(published by Paradox) has been out for a few weeks. I tried it a little and found a lot going on in the strategic game(of leveling up your dude and armies). The RTS portions themselves seem pretty simple and straight forward. Will have to dive in more into this.