Tag: review

What Total War Medieval III really needs to thrive

Total War: Medieval III has been announced and this what it really needs in order to be a great game that will surpass the previous titles in the series.

It needs to be fun and interesting.

That’s it. While I will write posts later on about specifics, this is the main part that is most important. I have defended Starfield on here, but I realize that the game is more of a sandbox waiting for gameplay to fill in the gaps. Such a game could have done well in the past but not now. Players have been used to optimized experiences. Games that want you have to explore systems is something that games in the generation from the SNES to about the PS1 could get away with. When the PS1 came out, standardization became the trend and the video game industry we have today is the product of that. There were some exceptions in between the way but the emphasis has on been on making everything optimized and holistic.

Total War: Medieval III has to be a holistic game that is also fun and interesting to play. They need to make sure not to overload with too many features here. Focus on making the game fun to play at first and then attempt to add more features. Many games focus on features at the beginning of making a game rather than the user experience.

Total War: Medieval III needs to make sure its art style also does not get in the way of the experience. Some games think they are being sophisticated with their art but its more important to have good gameplay than great graphics. Great graphics can come in a passive experience, but we still stay for the story not the experience of graphics alone. It needs to service the experience, not the experience just servicing the graphics. This happens too many times in movies and we are also seeing it in video games.

They also need to stick to history but not too tightly that it affects the game. I see Total War: Medieval III having a similar nature to Crusader Kings III here, but with more focus on battles you can control in here. The focus on changing history should make for interesting emergent gameplay, something that Paradox Interactive has pioneered but I feel needs more refinement. I believe that this game can accomplish that here.

The user’s needs are important. This is not productivity software but a game. A game needs to be fun and then expand our minds. Sometimes games get too complex and simplicity is bliss.

Why Empire Earth is better than most Modern RTS Games

The Intro Screen of the Russian Campaign in Empire Earth

The Russian Campaign in Empire Earth is one of the reasons why I still love playing this game. I have not actually won the campaign even after so many years. However, its the possibilities that the campaign has which still captivates me. The ability to have a science fiction story set on Earth rather than space in an RTS was a great accomplishment. Regardless of the quality of the voice acting or the plausbility of the story, the campaign is known as the hardest in the game. You really get a sense of a futuristic struggle between Russia and America and other nations which you rarely get to see.

Why is that we cannot see that with modern RTS games. The only RTS game recently to accomplish any dynamicism in its design while honoring the past is Age of Empires IV. While Age of Empires III was in a beautiful obscurity, a middle child one could say, Age of Empires IV has regenerated the franchise and RTS games as whole. Starcraft II’s hold on the RTS genre along with other offshoot genres. However, one game cannot do it on its own here. There needs to be more RTS games out there as I see the genre as a virtual chess style game which can help enhance people’s minds here.

Instead of focusing on esports, maybe developers should focus on making their profits sustainable versus a constant stream which eventually tires out and then they have no artistic integrity. Video game companies need to start paying attention to the tension between art and business. Without capital, most art could not start but they should not let business take their soul away from their jobs. Such a compromise ends up damaging many businesses. Somehow, Japan, with its harsher corporate culture has managed to keep the soul of its IPs intact versus the West here.

Empire Earth has a been game that I have played for over twenty years. There is a reason why it stays with me. Nostalgia, a very much misused word in our age, isn’t really for software. It’s more for our physical places and the sense of time passing and a willingness to come back to it. The technical aspect of a video game isn’t what we are sentimental about here, but the atmosphere around playing the game. The game’s technical aspects are solid, not prefect, but better than what you see now, regardless of sentimental aspects surrounding our playing of the game.

Empire Earth has something unique about it. The AI cheats in the game, but it is competent and the battles, even when annoying are also exciting. There is something about the quality of the battles where every unit has a role to play, big and small. Unlike so many RTS games now, I feel the gameplay loop is similar to Skyrim’s. It has a mythic quality while still personable. This is an issue that Starfield had, where its huge nature made the player seem too small and not distinctive enough. This is another issue I have with Stellaris, inspire of its great gameplay. The mythic nature is so huge, that the player just seems to be clicking buttons on a screen.

What we need in video games again is a sense of personal stakes and personality again. Not just moving digital information on the screen.

The reason why Empire Earth is still played by players is really down to its technical brillancce combined with the memories of an industry that wasn’t perfect but knew how to make games over assets for investors in corporations.

Battlefield 6 is the best FPS when it comes to vibes

There are not many games like Battlefield 6 or any of the Battlefield games. The vibes that every battle you are in is remarkable. One of the things that I noticed about Battlefield 6 was that the game had a gameplay flow which distinguished it from its predecessors. The realism of the game and the way how vehicles and infantry were combined together into one holistic way was why the game is outselling Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. The developers, a huge amalgamation of many studios knew what worked and even the campaign, criticized by some for being mediocre, is a starting point for even more single player experiences in this game.

Small additions to the game, such as riding on the back of tanks in the game give a great amount of realism to a rather more arcade-oriented game, even though this game isn’t really friendly to beginners. There are so many unlocks and abilities that one can find themselves having so much choice that one can go into any direction with it and choose what works with their tastes here.

What Call of Duty 7 is lacking is simply listening to the players. Call of Duty began as a serious World War 2 game, competing with the likes of older games such as Medal of Honor. However, once the game went into the modern age, everything became about our age or the Cold War era. While these games were incredibly popular, it was sowing the seeds of problems that would start cropping up with titles beginning in the mid-2010s. Video gamers had been attracted to the yearly releases of Call of Duty, and it worked for probably longer than any other franchise excluding some of the Japanese classics.

However, the Call of Duty franchise has become a tired series.

Having yearly releases has made many gamers to question whether it has been a positive impact on video gaming or whether its just another tool in the hands of shareholders.

Currently, it seems that series is really just being used by shareholders who see only money and an asset to use to manipulate us.

Battlefield as a series has had its ups and downs but it is a game series which is true to its origins.

Battlefield 6 is probably the best Battlefield game i have played since Battlefield 2142 in 2006. While I enjoyed the games after that, Battlefield 6 has a combined arms focus which makes it engaging here.

This is why in spite of the issues, Battlefield 6 will outsell Call of Duty Black Ops 7. It simply remembers what is without compromises.