A feast of historical strategy games

[Kautilya]

Has anyone noticed the incredibly large number of grand strategy games based on history which will be released in the next couple of years?

There are three from Paradox (makers of Europa Universalis) a Crusades game, a Rome game and, most exciting of all, a WW2 grand strategy game.

Then there are four games from antik games, www.antikgames.com, Rome,Middle Ages,Napoleon and 19th century


and then two more games from Matrix games (www.matrixgames.com) :a Napoleon game and a WW2 Pacific theatre game.

Altogether 9 games spanning huge range of history. If even half of them turn out be decent we are in for a treat.

[Grumbold]

Yup. Its good news that even though (or perhaps because) the big boys have not caught on to this arena, the little developers with big ideas seem to be making some money out of the niche and therefore producing more. Once money gets involved the inovation is likely to be replaced by replication. Fingers crossed they live up to our expectations.

[da_jaymz]

yea, and don't forget for the WW2 RTS fans Sudden Strike 2(www.suddenstrike.com) and GiCombat(www.gicombat.com) by makers of Close Combat are coming out....realism is what we need...

[tniem]

Originally posted by da_jaymz
realism is what we need...

I disagree. Games should be fun. If realism helps to make the game fun, then I am all for it. But if realism bogs the game down into a boring game with tons of micromanagement then it is not what it should be. It should be fun first!

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by tniem


Games should be fun. If realism helps to make the game fun, then I am all for it. But if realism bogs the game down into a boring game with tons of micromanagement then it is not what it should be. It should be fun first!

I agree.

A World War II game? Can you play as the Nazis and rewrite the outcome?

[General Ludd]

Why do you compare Realism and 'fun'? I don't see how they are related at all.

[da_jaymz]

Well, lets say that I like games that makes sense in its own way, and when you play a game that plays pretty much the same as in real life it can get really exciting and fun to play.
Try downloading Close Combat or Jagged Alliance 2(semi-realistic) demo to see what I'm talking about...
I think you can them on fileplanet.com.

[Mr. President]

I tend to think that the early games were better, before people had an obsession with "realism". Compare a game like Super Mario World with a game like Resident Evil. Super Mario World is like an interactive cartoon, with simple but cute sprites, objectively low-quality but nice sound effects, and fun gameplay. A game like Resident Evil has much higher quality of graphics and sound, but they go towards making the bullet wounds realistic and programming scary sounds. Amazingly, it's not as much fun.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Mr. President
I tend to think that the early games were better, before people had an obsession with "realism". Compare a game like Super Mario World with a game like Resident Evil. Super Mario World is like an interactive cartoon, with simple but cute sprites, objectively low-quality but nice sound effects, and fun gameplay. A game like Resident Evil has much higher quality of graphics and sound, but they go towards making the bullet wounds realistic and programming scary sounds. Amazingly, it's not as much fun.

If Resident Evil is your idea of a realistic game...

[Mr. President]

Not the monsters, but the gore, the bullet wounds, and the death-screams. Add in the fact that I used to get nauseous after shooting fifty people in Perfect Dark, which is cartoonish, and I tend to stare very hard in a different direction whenever I see screenshots of it in magazines or websites.

[General Ludd]

So what, exactly, do you want?



Do you want games to be more 'cartoonish', and less gorey? (If that's the case I can't imagine what you are doing playing Resident Evil or a FPS)


Or do you just want to go back to the days of 8-bit glory and stomp on goombas?

[Cookie Monster]

Maybe it's better that the big boys don't do these types of games. They are usually looking for a big and fast profit and usually botch games like this. They create the hype and collect as much cash as possible until the general public discovers what crap they put out.


Now the small houses tend to put love and care in crafting wargames. It's too bad that sometimes they get bought out by a big company looking for an entrance into the genre just to collect the cabbage. Talonsoft is a victim of this.......................

[tniem]

Originally posted by Osweld
If Resident Evil is your idea of a realistic game...

I too, thought that Resident Evil, complete with all the blood and gore, was realistic. Then, something happened. I entered college. I quickly learned that blood only comes from people puking.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Mr. President
Not the monsters, but the gore, the bullet wounds, and the death-screams. Add in the fact that I used to get nauseous after shooting fifty people in Perfect Dark, which is cartoonish, and I tend to stare very hard in a different direction whenever I see screenshots of it in magazines or websites.

I got my character up to Perfekt ranking. This involved setting up round after round of 10 minute one-hit kill games in the smallest level with all-CMP 150s. I was able to kill the AI players at the reate of ~25/minute.

[KrazyHorse]

I also had to leave the machine running nights with an elastic band on the joystick...