Tag: xbox

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.

Why I switched from Nvidia GeForce Now to Amazon Luna

Game Streaming is still a work in progress and has struggled to truly take off in the way that video streaming did slowly with RealPlayer and then solidifying with YouTube and Netflix.

The issue with Game Streaming vs Video Streaming

Video streaming is an easier concept to understand for most people. Simply have video delivered by digital information transmissions rather than analog signals. Even with the analog televisions, it is a simple concept. You turn on the television and switch to a channel which receives a signal. In many ways, it is still magical experience. You have a screen which puts people in a box and you hear their voices and see their movements. However, it is a concept which is simple to explain to the ordinary customers, especially in an age where tinkering isn’t a popular in our nation.

Video Games have been on the sidelines for many years, unable to break out its role as the strange cousin of the realizable standbys of television and earlier, radio shows. Another issue is that video games are not movies. They are interactive experiences which separates them from movies and puts them in the same place as the circus or sports. This comparison may make some gamers have an inferiority complex as they want to constantly have video games be taken seriously. Even with all the great stories, video games are still seen as a product of immature people even though many of the people making those statements belong to industries that exploit video games for content to make their movies and shows.

The way to change this is Game Streaming.

However, streaming a video game isn’t the same as streaming a movie. The difference in bandwidth is immense and video games began largely as physical objects, now mostly digital and now there needs to be a reliable to stream a video game from a server without requiring downloads or physical means. While some gamers may prefer physical copies, which I can agree with, most people will be satisfied with having a digital copy. However, the issue of storage is coming back one again. On my computer, I can only fit so many games and these huge games are making it tough to enjoy a variety of games, leaving me to play really old games or a single release. Such a situation leads players to concentrate their attention onto a few games or to not even pay attention to their backlog at all, making it tough for independents to make an impact on the industry when players all play the same game.

Game streaming can help bring gamers of all stripes together. Nvidia’s Geforce Now is a great compromise, allowing for a much larger library of games to be played as you have just add your game library and you can stream tons of games that would otherwise be unplayable on her computer. I have already explained how GeForce Now is a great service. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to play the Remastered version of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

However, I had to switch to Amazon Luna.

Why?

Simply because it’s already bundled with my Prime Subscription. That helps in reducing the cost of the service. With Nvidia GeForce Now, the premium option (the best option) costs $19.99 and it has the best graphics chips in the servers. However, it is not worth the price right now. You have to buy the games separately and this adds to the cost. Some games on GeForce Now are free to play games but other game services have free to play games, so this is not as exclusive or as important as it seems here.

Amazon Luna has less games, but it is already bundled with my prime subscription and that is very important. I do not have to add anymore subscriptions to my account here.

Amazon also provides a Premium subscription with more games which costs more but bundling it with the Prime account is a great move on their part here. They also have other premium subscription choices to link up with other stores. The real star of the show which made me use the service was the inclusion of Skyrim in the service. My steam copy of Skyrim was getting glitchy on my computer and I needed another way to play this classic game.

Skyrim on Amazon Luna plays well and that is all I really needed. My laptop often overheats when playing a game installed on the machine, so I needed a virtual way of passing that issue.

Nvidia GeForce Now is a great service, but I needed to switch as it fits with my budget right now. Battlefield 6 was the main reason why I was paying for the service. As Battlefield 6 has many hackers and issues at the moment, I am going to wait and let the people who work on the game to smooth out any problems so that the gameplay experience is more enjoyable for me and other users.

Amazon Luna is probably the best game streaming service right now if one wants to just play and not have to worry about space on their computers. There is a limitation in games available but that if that really worries you, there are other premium additions that you can add to the service. Many people already have a prime subscription as one can clearly see with all the Amazon vehicles on a daily basis moving around America’s cities and communities. It is worth the money and I recommend that people subscribe to Amazon Luna if they want a way to stream without taking space.

It is also a great way to expose more people to gaming as it can be kind of an elitist space, but game streaming makes more available to those who wish to enter this incredible cyberspace of play and entertainment. The video game industry has great potential, and we need to be able to expand the culture of gaming beyond what we have seen before here. Being able to just pick up and play will bring in new people and maybe ideas so that gaming can start to innovate once again and bring some much-needed creativity into America and the gaming community.