LOTRO Game Diary 1 - In the Beginning

Lord of The Rings Online recently went free to play. You can download it here. I thought it would be a fun little experiment to get into LOTRO and do a game diary. I’ve never been into mmo’s as I’ve found grinding for leveling up to be tedious and not very fun. I’ve also always found the mmo game worlds to be a bit ‘unlively’. So with that, I jump head first into LOTRO, downloaded the client(a slow and annoying process as it uses a p2p client), and made my first character.

Civilization V Review

The Civilization series has been a staple for PC gaming for two decades. At it's fifth iteration, Civilization V aims to continue the addictive, deep strategic gameplay that has captured the hearts and minds(as well as the time) of countless civilization fanatics. Civilization V announced just February of this year(nice change of pace to have a game released under a year the game was announced), introduces some big changes that makes it more of a reboot rather than just a graphical update. Lots of Civilization fans will be torn simply because of the fact that it completely reworks things they've become familiar with in Civ IV. Sometimes change is good.

Civilization V Notes - Golden Slumber

Civ 5 ups the importance of gold in a Civilization game. In, my current game playing as Bismarck of Germany, the empire is bankrupt and hurting for more gold. I've had to take some drastic measures of disbanding a few military units, and customise citizen allocation on tiles(to tiles that generate more gold) in cities. All this makes the game feel measured in its pace and strategy.

Civilization V Notes - Happiness Is A Warm Gun

Happiness in Civ 5 has had a major rework. It's no longer city specific and is an empire wide value. This doesn't mean your individual cities no longer take a penalty for over population, they do. But no one city will be crippled because of unhappiness.

Civilization V Notes - All Hexed Up

In the run up to my review, I'll be writing short impressions on very specific things I observed in Civilization V. Today, let me draw your attention to the new hex based tile system. Now many people have written that the hexes are probably the most minor change in this Civilization entry, but taken as a whole, it changes how units move around the map quite a bit.

Civilization V Preview Round Up

I’ve seen plenty of Civilization V previews today(since the embargo for the preview ended). Now I’m not going to go through every single one of them, but here my summary of what I found from these previews.

Shogun 2: Total War Cinematic Gameplay Trailer

Creative Assembly released the first ever cinematic gameplay trailer for the upcoming Shogun 2: Total War. The trailer uses the in game battle engine with cinematic camera and scenes and doesn’t show off any user interface. More importantly, it still doesn’t answer the pertinent question of what will they do to the campaign map. Trailer after the jump.

My General Distaste For Profiteering Triple A Publishers

Well StarCraft II is upon us, and soon everyone will be giving this game glowing reviews. I wont be doing this because I wont be buying StarCraft II(probably not, as it stands now). This is mainly because StarCraft II turns out to be the most expensive PC game ever to be sold in Malaysia. At RM248, the South East Asian region version looks to be the most expensive version. Which frankly doesn’t make much sense. The Americans are paying USD60 and we have to pay equivalent to USD$77.

Civilization V E3 2010 Trailer

 

Now I know I missed much of E3, but really there was nothing noteworthy in my humble opinion. This is a little late but here’s the Civ 5 trailer from E3. It shows some gameplay footage. Video below with some thoughts:

 

 

I personally am stoked they are ‘enriching’ the combat system, but I do wonder how this will change the formula of the overall game. A little bit worried they are over complicating Civilization and making the game more bloated with more features. However, I can’t immediately come to that judgment as the rest of the system remains in question. This could be a completely new Civ game built from the ground up with the combat changes.

Elemental: War of Magic Developer Walkthrough

I’ve always liked Stardock for their enthusiasm for sharing what they are working on with their fans. Very transparent and makes you feel appreciated as a customer. Brad Wardell(CEO of Stardock) runs through the basic gameplay of Elemental: War of Magic, the Master of Magic spiritual successor and updates us on what's been added and going to be added into the game. Videos below:

Shogun 2: Total War Announced

It’s been confirmed! Creative Assembly are developing Shogun 2: Total War. IGN today featured the first ‘first look’ article which marked the end of the embargo on the story. Keep an eye out on the next PC Gamer magazine too. Details below:

Games That Made Us – Most Influental Strategy Games

I’ve written an article over at Kakigamers site(a new Malaysian gaming community site), on the most influential strategy games to me. The list includes nine of my favourites such as Red Alert, Rollercoaster Tycoon and surprise surprise, Shogun: Total War. Missed a few big ones, but this was what I played. It’s a good mix of different type of strategy games that are mostly from the 90’s.

UPDATE: The article is now available on my blog here