Battlefield Six: The Siege of Cairo promises Urban Chaos

The Inclusion of Cairo in Battlefield 6 is going to show how the series is starting to use real life locations now.

Unlike in the previous games after Battlefield Vietnam, the series tended to shy away from having any real-life locations in the game. Most were inspired not the actual locations themselves. Strike at Karkland, the famous Battlefield 2 map was based on Arabic or Muslim cities. It was a map filled with people throwing grenades and close quarters combat, unlike most maps in the game. It was one of the top maps and I remember it dominating all the server browsers. The close quarters maps were always more popular in Battlefield games; my preference is towards bigger maps but many players do not like back tracking across huge maps. Smaller maps keeps it concise and not too big that players do not retain their interest.

In Battlefield 6, I have a feeling that the game’s most popular map will be the Siege of Cairo.

There are some questions that still remain about the appearance of Cairo in the game.

One of the main questions we still have is: Will we be able to enter the Pyramids or will they on the map?

The Siege of Cairo in Battlefield 6 game.

In my opinion, the Cairo that we see on the Abbasid map shows how the franchise has changed so much since the beginning of the modern warfare part of the games when it began in 2005. There is so much density to the buildings and to the debris everywhere.

In the videos that I was watching on the Abbasid map, it was clear that the developers wanted to have a game that will be more realistic. Cairo is definitely a great city to place some great close quarter combat. Hopefully, the game will balance the maps so that it isn’t just Cairo that has all the players. Battlefield 2 had many great maps that were slow but more strategic in their gameplay. I hope that they are able to make sure that all the maps get their time in the sun.

Battlefield 6 looks great but one has to be cautious.

Comparing Oblivion Remastered Arena and The Classic Arena

The interior of the Bloodworks in Oblivion Remastered.
The interior of the Bloodworks in Oblivion Remastered .

The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered’s Arena storyline looks better than ever and here are my impressions of this classic storyline.

The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered edition is selling like hot cakes and I have been enjoying it. This is a game of my teenage years and when first got into Role Playing Games. Unlike Skyrim, I consider the Elder Scrolls

I have been taking screenshots of multiple areas of interest in the game just so that I can analyze what the graphics and how Bethesda has been improving the way the game looks.

I think that one of my favorite locations in the game is the Bloodworks located in the Imperial City Arena district area. It is a nice and compact map and there, one can enter the Bloodworks underneath the Arena building.

The Arena plotline is one of my favorite in the game due to its compact nature. I love gladiator style games and Oblivion’s plotline here in the Arena is right for me.

Oblivion Remastered Light Raiment Woman
My Nord Character wearing the Arena Light Raiment. Here you can see how it fits on my female character.

When you compare the graphics of the original game and this remastered version, you get a sense of color that once missing in the clothes in Oblivion’s gamebyro engine. The one thing that bothers me about the game the most is that the color palette of the game is not the same now. The colors that were brighter and more painterly in the original game are currently missing in favor of greater realism in the game.

One can also see that the people in the stands of the arena are not as visible in Oblivion Remastered. They are more in the shadows and the fog rather than standing out like a sore thumb here. There is also a neat addition of some shade for the spectators of the Arena combat. The Arena also looks more intimidating, like in a sense its place of savage entertainments. I think it is going to be one of the standout graphical enhancements to the game.

The entrance to the Arena in Oblivion Remastered edition.

The Arena in Oblivion Remastered is much better than the original Arena. In the original game, the arena did not have this look as you can see above.

The Arena in remastered version of Oblivion Remastered is more reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum. The way how the lighting looks here makes it seem that the Arena is in Hammerfell, land of the Redguards and not the center of Septim Empire.

I think that the Arena in Oblivion is a great showcase of the shadows and lighting of the new version.

Oblivion Classic Imperial City Arena
Oblivion Classic Imperial City Arena

As you can see here, the arena in the original game did not have the same lighting. New graphics technology that is available in Unreal Engine 5 gives a new life to the Imperial City Arena.

Oblivion Classic Arena Orc Warrior
Oblivion Classic Arena Orc Warrior

Here is my Orc Barbarian in the Arena. The costume lacks a certain color variety here and is only in one dark shade of blue and some browns. Oblivion Remastered simply brings out the clothes out more in the clothes in the game. The Orcs also look more realistic in this game also. Some players prefer the older versions of the Orcs and I have mixed feelings about it. However, with the move to Unreal Engine 5, modern graphics were going to change some of the races.

The Classic look of Oblivion's Imperial City.
The Classic look of Oblivion’s Imperial City

As one can see in these images, Oblivion was originally a more a painterly game. The transition towards a higher quality has made the game in the words of one user I saw on YouTube become more like: A Roman Empire style Simulator Game. I can see that comparison makes sense, especially when one looks at the screenshot below with my warrior standing victorious after a match with combatant in her light armor. This game looks gorgeous in my opinion.

My Nord Warrior stands victorious in the Imperial City Arena.
My Nord Warrior stands victorious in the Imperial City Arena.

I played a couple matches and the experience is much better than in the original game. The lighting, effects and the gameplay all match into a cohesive whole.

The Arena hallway in Oblivion Remastered Edition.
The Arena hallway in Oblivion Remastered Edition.

I think that the remaster adds alot of character to the Arena. It was always the most interesting part of the game for me other than the main quest. I just love the gladiatorial combat in the game and I wish that Bethesda would put more of this into Elder Scrolls VI.

As players continue their exploration of Cyrodill, I highly recommend taking a look at the Arena questline in this classic game.

Civilization VII is a game without a soul or passion.

Creating video games is tough. Being a programmer in the modern industry is like walking on knives. You have so many obstacles that are getting in the way and rewards are either great success or a failure which prevents from really enjoying the act of making games. Unlike other programmers, who tend to be rather focused on dry ideas and concepts, programmers are artists not accountants. This means that they have a creative spark in them.

That creative spark in a company is difficult to maintain. Civilization VII represents a series that is increasingly become more casual and not for the original group of fans who kept it going in the 1990s up until the release of Civilization V in 2010.

Civilization V was seen by many to be a downgrade from Civilization IV. Some have said that Civilization VI is a reaction to Civilization V while trying to fuse Civ V and IV in one cohesive whole.

However, it is clear that Civilization VII was a reaction aganist such compromise.

The team on this game seemed to be more interested in change than in continuity.

However, they did not even seem to put enough effort to make the change worthwhile. It is not even competent enough in order to keep the interest of players. Right now, Civilization VI is ahead of Civilization VII.

The early 2010s Civilization V, is still able to garner many players and is not far behind in player counts when comparing Civilization VII.

Creativity without spark is simply being a person on an assembly line who makes competent pieces that fit into a grander whole. This game is not able to convey that to player.

Civilization VII is a game without a soul or passion. It is clear the video game industry is clearly rusting and it is going to take new thinking to get out of this rut it is in.