The Great Tournament

The great tournament is a choice of game set in a low fantasy-medieval setting.

The writing, which is the most essential part of the game can be considered somewhat solid. The story has no real twist or any other kind of element that would stand out. The choices given to the player are medium in quantity and mostly do not posses the quality to make the decision a moral challenge for the player. I only relay had to think about what to do in 2 or 3 situations. The problem is that the players gets the feeling that no matter what choice he makes the story does generally continue on the same path. Many times it is also possible to play down all choices and see what happen which further increases the feeling that the choices are only partly influencal. Best example for this is the training before the tournament when you can train on all 4 fields instead of choosing only one or two.

Lords of the Realm 3: the game that should have been the addon to Lords of the realm 2

Lords of the realm 3 is mainly regarded as a unworthy successor of the 2 installment in the series. But I think a lot of this believe feeds from the situation that LOR 3 did not fulfill the high expectations set in it after the good work of the 2 title. Which does not mean that LOR3 is a bad game. This situation of unfulfilled expectations making it difficult to judge the game by its real value. A problem not present for this evaluation as I played LOR 3 before the 2 part.

Age of war 2

Age of war 2 works the same as the first part of the game as Age of war 2 fully transports the good working age change system from age of wars. With fully new 7 stages the game has definitely evolved. Factions like the Egypt, Spartans and fantasy elements in the medieval stage are added. Which all together give the game a good, improved, new look.

Sadly the good balancing of the first part did not make it into the second part. All different difficulties can be won in about 4-5 ages. And it is not the point of balancing to give the computer players more resources and XP points. Better would have been to teach the computer players the key mechanics of the game like the upgrading system, the tank/anti-tank situation and the evolving mechanic.

Age of War

Age of war is the oldest browser game I could remember playing and it was awesome. But now a decade later I played it again to review it and I have to admit it is still awesome. But mainly due to the fact that the nostalgia feeling is to xxxx high. Still while playing it i found out that it is one of the best balanced strategy browser games of its kind.

But to start from the bottom Age of war is 2D, base strategy browser game where the aim is to recruit enough soldiers to destroy the enemy base on the other side of the map. To do this the player can chose between melee fighters, range units and tank type units. Throughout the game the ages change and while the player is fighting on dinosaurs and knights in the first part of the game in the later ages tanks and supersonic warrior take control over the battlefield. To give the player at least something to do apart from clicking the solider buttons, also special abilities are present which again change over time from an erupting volcano to an airstrike.

Tropico 3

The first few hours into Tropico 3 were difficult for me as a Tropico 2 veteran. Because in Tropico 2 the for this game tailor made pirate scenario was a great purpose giving and (building up economy) motivating part as ships need to be prepared and raids need to be organized. I felt a bit lost after the start into the new Tropico universe as I did not know what goal to go for and in what direction to develop my island.

A bit into the game I realized that this game has a good branching system according to different development opportunities on different island. Like farming and farm good development on big fertile islands, mining in the resource full islands, fishing and oil industry on island with a long shoreline. Moreover a good interconnection between different game mechanic like military, education and foreign relation is present.

The 3rd part of the series is still faithful to the Tropico charm where all your citizens have different names, backgrounds, needs, views and wishes. That makes the new electing system that more fun and makes it a good diplomatic addition to the game. Moreover the citizen happiness needs are again solved very well but I have to say that I feel the micro balancing was done better in Tropico 2.

Awesome Seaquest

Awesome Seaquest is a real time strategy and upgrade browser game where you have to fight you battels on the sea and upgrade your "Arch" to unlock new units, get money, get research points and dock your unused ships.
Especially the late game phase gets boring because of a balancing problem. That occurs If you have 20 ships up to level 8 and one or two repair bots (which you will have after about half the battels). Then you are nearly invincible and the game gets useless. But prior to that bad ending phase the upgrading, leveling, money and research points gathering system works quit well as it is motivating to see everything come together.

A better battel system would help the game a great deal as the battels either requires no user interaction at all or just the clicking of one button in the right time. Other than that the 90 seconds "battel-pause" system is well thought out and something new as I have not come across other games that use this system. Unfortunately also here no real brainpower is needed (which is but acceptable as it is only the technical money collecting part of the game). But all together that leads to a game with no tactical depth what so ever and the easiest straight forward tactic will win the game for you.

Knights of Honor

Before I start reviewing this game I think it is important to state that I did not play this game when it first came out in 2004, just recently while I was looking through steam I found it was on sale and thought it was worth a shot. So there are no nostalgic feelings attached to the game which concludes that the review is not clouded by overpowered childhood memories. To my own astonishment I was positively surprised that its quiet a good game and still playable even if it is already more than 10 years old.

I think it is also important to state some other games published in this years to be able to make better comparisons and really look at games place in gaming history. Other 2004 releases are: Lords of the Realm 3, Settlers: the Heritages of Kings, Rise of Nations and Rome Total War (of course I only listed other strategy games). Moreover I think it is good to also state some milestone games in the strategy genre and their date of publish: Europa Universalis 3 2007, Crusader Kings 2 2012, Hearts of Iron 2009, anno 1701 2006 (in my opinion some of the most important strategy games for the genres development)

The step back sequels of warlords

The King was lying on his bed his once black hair was grey like ash and also his face did not hold many similarities with the beautiful face of the once young prince. The face looked like a carving wood as so many deep wounds were covering the lines of the face. İt was clear that the king did not have long to live. And it was in question how long the empire would survive without him. After his father had lost so badly against the undead army it was the former prince who succeeded in driving back the enemies.  After many years of hard war the greatest enemy was defeated.

During the long war many human kingdoms joined the union of the west as they saw the greatness of the King. Also some orcish factions were more than willing to join the human alliance. But their Chief forbid it. That was reason enough for the young hotheaded king to make what he would claim was the biggest mistake of his life, to attack the orcs. The monsters stood no chance against this perfected warmachine and after a short time all the land was gathered in the hands of the young king and the empire was build.

Warlords Call to Arms

The prince was standing on the balcony of the place. The guards of "The West Men King" were practicing in the courtyard below him. On the left side was the long sword guard. The man hat huge swords about 2 meters long and this sword were heavy. The prince new that because as a child he once tried to lift one but the sword was so heavy it fell on him and he could not move under the weight of it till a solider of his father’s guard rescued him. That was one of the most embarrassing moments in the life of the young prince. He still did not like to use the long swords. But he loved to watch the skilled men while they used them. And as his trainer often said "watching someone use the sword is as vital for training as swinging it yourself". So the prince watched the heavy blades looking like long feathers in the hands of the guards and he was astonished how precisely they could hit. Of course he could make it better with a short sword but that was not the point, the young prince knew. With a long sword it was possible to kill a man without him even getting in the ranch to strike, even without being on hundred percent precise with the placement of the blade.

Stronghold Legends

In Stronghold Legends with the good, the ice and the bad faction a whole of 3 new factions are introduced.

The good faction is rather boring, flatted out and pretty straight forward as only about 5 heroes with special abilities and better fighting powers are added. Even the connection of the heroes to the King Arthur saga cannot save these new additions from feeling very unnatural to the game. And it is clear that this faction was not enough to fill a whole campaign as the story is progressing very slowly, thinning out quit fast and concluding in boring economy and badly scripted fighting (and special ability using) missions.

Stronghold 2

"Sire, you look different today"
"Realy! I also feel different. Its like the whole world has changed."
"Thats the exact thing my wife said in the morning Sire! We live in a new world."
"Yes looks like the grapich has changed. You know I am an 3D lord now. But let me walk in and out of the keep as i have done it in the 2 stronghold games before"
"If you wish Sire! I have nothing to do than siting here around the fire. But if the green bar here turns red I am going to be the first one to run away"

Stronghold Crusader

"Infidels are attacking oh Caliph! And they are led by the famous Christian Crusader. Richard Lionheart!"

"Nooo!" the cup of the kalif flew through the dark room and the content of it spilled on the floor. The ice water formed a growing small lake but steam rose quickly as the water evaporated in the unforgiving summer sun.

"General what shall we do?"

"Oh great Caliph! It would give the troop great courage if you were to show up on the battlements. All other preparations are made. The archer are already taking position on the towers and the flam throwers are also ready"

It took a time to convince the Caliph but after some time he agreed to at least go on the top of the keep and let himself bee seen by the archers. But as the general and his master got out into the open air it was already to late. Thick black smoke was covering the whole castle and the tops of the huge towers could not bee seen through the smoke. And the noise was unbearable the fire was ever growing and it made a sizzling noise and the screams of the castle inhabitants filed the courtyard. One of the flame throwers must have lost control over his pots and the content which was bound to hit the for coming enemies now destroyed the castle from the inside.

Stronghold

After hard work the lord could finally take a walk on the newly constructed palisade. And it was a joy, because behind the palisade were strange beasts. Many woodcutters did not return from their quick routes into the wood to collect the needed wood for the palisade.  About half a dozen bowman were trained in the last days and one of them was running towards the Lord. As he stopped to sentences left his mouth.  "Sire the wolfs are lazily laying behind our palisade! Finally we are safe sire!"

The rather easy start in the stronghold universe is one of the swiftest starts in any gaming series. The player starts by setting up a basic camp and afterwards fighting of wild wolfs (which most of the time lay around and do nothing). And this half an hour of the campaign of stronghold perfectly sums up the funny, sometimes ironic general concept of the game. But it gets more complicated than that. After about 8-10 missions most of the game-assets are introduced and the player is fully capable of using all of them. And now each time a new missions starts the player has more stuff to do and more things to look out for as he builds up his economy, sets up his main defenses, trains troops and waits for the first wave of attackers.