Tag: Game Reviews

Oblivion’s AI is still remarkable and still influences games today.

In the Imperial City Arena District, you can see an Argonian male and a Redguard Female fighting each other. They are not in combat but in a script where has them train each other in hand to hand combat at specific times of day. Watching them for a bit gives you +5 boost to your hand-to-hand combat skills; such attention to details and interaction with the world is rare in video games.

When people talk about video games outside gaming, it still seems to be in a time warp of the 1980s. Most of the media newsmongers have no understanding of video games or even seem want to care about it. There is so much potential in the medium, yet it seems to be ignored, which I think it is sign of how video games have retained their renegade status. While men in suits attempt to continue monetizing it, video games are similar in a sense to Gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome. In comparison with chariot racing, Gladiatorial games were not as popular but had more of a cultural impact that the elites did not want to admit. Video Games linger in the shadows of the more acceptable entertainment of Television and Movies. However, it’s in video games where we see the future of storytelling going towards, beyond the linear and static movies of the past. While movies have a place, the medium is so stagnant that there is little in feature films which can change. It is in video games where you see real change.

The change is in the graphics and more recently in the AI.

With all the hype surrounding AI or Large Language Models (LLMs), gamers saw the first salvo in the spreading of AI throughout our societies.

The Radiant AI in Oblivion and Skyrim were quite competent here. They are still in the early stages of showing us what is possible in video games. The cities and villages have more life than anything you see in Cyberpunk 2077, which for me was a big step down from we saw with the Witcher Games.

You can see the influence of Radiant AI in GTA VI’s ambitions.

Seeing the Argonian and the Redguard train in the arena was just the preview of how AI can transform games as much graphics were able to do so in the 1990s. We will have more than just games but living simulations.

How much will Battlefield 6 sell when it released to gamers?

Battlefield 6 is proving to be an already huge hit with gamers. According to what I have seen, the game has some 1.7 million preorders. It is predicted to sell 5 million copies in its opening days.

This game is already a great success for EA and the studios worked on the game. However, how much more can it sell?

In my opinion, the Battlefield franchise has always been a big money maker for EA. There hasn’t really been a time when the games were obscure. Any dark horse games such as Battlefield Vietnam or Battlefield Hardline were still successes in the sense of having enough players to justify continuing the series. Some of this I can place to the general popularity of team-based FPS games. A single player FPS game such as Metal Eden, is rare now and multiplayer games often rely more on the player base to create their own stories not the people making the game.

Battlefield 6 is a hybrid game. It has a single player campaign, focusing on the battle between NATO and Pax Armata. However, this isn’t the main focus of the game.

The series for many years did not single player campaigns. Such campaigns are now becoming standard in the series. This gives EA more avenues to monetize the game and also move the series towards the cinematic style which really began with Battlefield Bad Company and then really started going with Battlefield 3.

The previous Battlefield games before Bad Company were more about sandbox gameplay with exception of Battlefield 2142. It is with that game that Battlefield began moving away from Sandbox with Conquest to a cinematic style with Titan Mode. The Titan Mode, the first truly objective oriented game style in Battlefield, moved Battlefield away from taking territory to a narrative about attacking huge floating ships in the skies. Such an objective mode was actually hinting at some order being put into those games.

Battlefield 6 shows the maturity of the franchise especially in comparison with Call of Duty which seems to be moving away from realism towards more abstractions. The newest game, Black Ops 7, is leading heavily into simulation in a futuristic setting here. Battlefield 6 is going back into modern warfare and players seem to be responding quite positively here. What this shows that Battlefield 6 will probably be better received than Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 this year.

I believe Battlefield 6 will probably sell more than what analysts are predicting. Once the game is released, people are going to remember why they love playing video games. Enjoyment is the goal of all video games, monetization comes later and that is what Battlefield 6 is showing here.

Empire Earth: The Art of Conquest and the journey into Space War

In the year 2002, Empire Earth got its only expansion pack, the Art of Conquest. The main addition to the maps in the game was the inclusion of space maps. The main issue with the maps is that it just didn’t fit with the engine of the game. Trying to graph a space geography onto what was a game ostensibly set on Earth throughout human history, was just going to be a satisfying product in my opinion. However, the developers made an effort, which is more than can be said for most games made in the current era.

In many ways, the Empire Earth engine also for a unique depiction of space combat here. There is no other game similar to this in the industry. Had Empire Earth continued as franchise, we would probably have had a more realistic looking space age. The developers’ efforts for an expansion done just a year after release is impressive. With more time, they could have smoothed out the gameplay even more and the game would have been even better.

There is one important aspect to Art of Conquest. It is an expansion that did not take years to make. The content in this game is comparable to many games now. While not the best quality, it shows that video games should not take a decade to make. I want games to come out more similar to Call of Duty not Grand Theft Auto VI. While GTA VI will be innovative, the amount of time passing to make such games is causing the video game industry to wrap around these titles.

What we see here is an ability to get projects done quickly and competently.

This is what the video game industry should be approaching making their games and maybe it will seem like it is not moving like molasses but having actual change and growth.