reviews – Page 2 – My Game Reviews

Battlefield 6: Vehicular combat is a return to form for the series.

Battlefield 6 CV-90 on the Siege of Cairo Map

Battlefield 6’s Open Beta is in full swing, and people are coming into play. Battlefield 6 has already gotten over 500,000 peak players on steam charts. On console, it is probably even higher. I have been very impressed with the performance that the game is giving me on my computer.

In terms of the Vehicular combat, I have to say that this game series is one of the best and there no one that comes close to competing with it. Vehicular combat is a genre of video games that used to be more popular in the past and Battlefield holds up that tradition in spades here and with greater fidelity than before.

As of right now, Liberation Peak is the best map for vehicular combat. Considering how snipers are so prevalent on Liberation Peak that it is better to be inside a vehicle.

The map has a variety of vehicles available for use. There are jeeps that spawn at the various bases. Such vehicles are useful for attacking objective points on the map.

The infantry fighting vehicles are also there. It useful in being able to transport many soldiers. The CV-90 seen in these screenshots, can be used to transport 6 soldiers at a time. This means that the vehicle, piloted by someone with lots of skill can takeover objectives quickly on the map. It has multiple weapons and countermeasures, making it tough vehicle.

There are also Main Battle Tanks on this map also. In the beta, the main one available is the M1A2 Abrams. It is a very powerful vehicle capable of taking out vehicles as well as infantry. There is also a copilot position in here also which adds more firepower to the tanks.

Aircraft are also make their presence known on Liberation Peak. Such maps have their detractors in the form of some more purist FPS players but the aircraft opens up Battlefield to more players; I’ll be honest, they make the game more interesting than just having guys running around shooting at one another. The interplay between infantry and vehicle in Battlefield is what distinguishes it from other games.

The CV 90 on the Liberation Peak map in Conquest. A M1A2 Abrams can be seen on the road here.

The CV-90 is an example of what I like seeing in this series. Unlike some of the fanbase that only wants to play on the same urban maps, these vehicles allow for greater squad play than any other approach. One of the things that these vehicles allow is for players to hitch rides and capture objectives. The usage of vehicles in these games helps to build a sense of teamwork and give people something to strive for over just running and gunning opponents in games.

Battlefield always had a variety of maps and we should appreciate that. However, we cannot just have Urban repeats all the time. I like the bigger maps as they force players to think more about how to organize themselves and win the game.

Battlefield is all about the holistic integration of combined arms not just running and gunning on a small urban map. Battlefield 6 shows why the series is not just a clone of other FPS games but its own subgenre that is still highly popular amongst gamers.

Civilization 7 Review: The Worst Game in the Series.

Civilization 7 is the worst game in the series. There are some who want to say that it has new ideas and not recycled ideas. I am guessing these are casual gamers or people who are easily swayed by marketing because this is basically SimCity Societies from 2007 in a Civ Game.

The issue is that the players who played the older games before Civ V have been seeing the changes and that it is becoming very much like Angry Birds and other forgotten mobile games, just a brand to put on mediocre gameplay and hide it with marketing.

The UI is terrible and when compared to Civ 1, it shows the generational changes and the malaise we are currently in this culture.

The Civ switching was a concern of mine earlier on and I see that Fraxis was lazy and put in a bunch of leaders who are not leaders but Great People.

The game does not have England in the game but hides behind a DLC and puts in a person, Ada Lovelace, who was not a political leader, phlisophical, or spiritual leader in any sense. The leader of England should be a King or Prime Minister. I would recommend King Charles II of the Restoration Era.

The Shawnee were put in the game for politics and yet Confucius can rule them. Do not use the CIV has never been about history. It has a tech tree which contains many of the most important technologies in human history. This is not a very good argument to using here.

The crisis system is lazy and does not provide context for what is happening. Having every Civ move into the same age is silly and makes the game too easy. There needs to be consequences to not being able to catch up in tech or economics. Having a reset does not make the game challenging. The Civ Switching doesn’t even stop the snowballing that they say they wanted to not have.

It is clear that the game has increasingly become attached to politics in America more and not just a game about history.

The map generation is terrible and worse than 20 year old games.

The positive reviews are people who generally enjoy simpler, easier games. While Microsoft is no saint of a company, they have made AOE 4 into a game that appeals to casuals and power users. They even encourage people to improve their tactics while also being a great platform for teaching history about multiple cultures, without being myopic about it.

Civilization 7 is the worst in the series. Civilization V was a strange experiment on launch but they did not railroad the player into 3 mini games.

Modern RTS games have no equivalent: The Cardassian Interface in Star Trek – Armada II

The Cardassian race in the Star Trek series made its appearance on the overly idealistic Star Trek: The Next Generation and represented a new foe for the Federation. They were a mix of Klingon and Romulan and they were militaristic but also had an artistic side to them which made unique. Unlike most of the Science-Fiction stories made now, Star Trek was good at making races that were not too alien but alien enough to create a futuristic version of real-life politics. The Cardassians would reach their peak of influence on the franchise in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The series would show them as the tragic villains being manipulated by the Dominion and cause the fall of the great civilization due to the arrogance and corruption of the military classes.

Much like Star Wars, the Cardassians would have distinct style and feel to their ships. Just as the Neimoidian in the Phantom Menace would hide in their ships with mighty droid armies marching on Naboo, the Cardassians had their own approach to how they built their ships and the interfaces on them.

Star Trek – Armada II incorporates Cardassian lore into the game with such stylistic beauty that you could hardly believe that this game is over 20 years of age. Once you think about it, you become nostalgic and wonder how the Video Game industry has become stuck in the mud. It cares more about past glories and not building anything new or even respecting its past without covering it over with a facade which is inferior to the original product that gamers enjoyed in those previous generations.

Cardassian Legate Class firing artillery at a Klingon base.

The Cardassians were introduced in Star Trek – Armada II and they are quite a joy to play.

However, the main I want to emphasize here is the sound design of the interface.

In video games, the interface can make a break even a good game.

The sound design within the clicking of the keys and hovering over the interface is integral to a building a wonderful experience for the player to get immersed in.

The interface sounds of the Cardassians is very oppressive sounding, as if the Obsidian Order is watching your shoulders.

In 2001, only a couple years separated Star Trek – Armada II and the release of Dune II, the first true RTS game. Star Trek Armada II in many ways was released at the pinnacle of the RTS genre. Empire Earth was released in the same month as Star Trek Armada II. Warcraft III, was released earlier in that year, giving Blizzard the confidence to then unleash World of Warcraft onto the MMO genre and then seize it like ancient conqueror. These are only three of the any RTS games released in that year.

What is even more remarkable is that Star Trek – Armada II was released a year after Star Trek – Armada in 2000. The sounds on the interface in the OG Armada were more basic. Within a year, they managed to have unique sounds and art style for each race; they did not just copy the original game, they made something new while respecting the OG Armada.

Such an accomplishment goes beyond the brand of this science-fiction franchise but shows what the video game industry needs to reclaim so that people can enjoy video games with passion once again.