[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375” caption=“Super Potato in Akihabara”] [/caption] As is typical of me, I played a ton of video games this year. Here’s a listing of what I played along with a few short (or long) words on each game. For the most part, this list is restricted to games released in 2010 unless I did not play them until this year. It’s also mostly in chronological order, with some skips here and there. ...
This piece was conceived of as yet another Mesa Brothers Experiment (TM) through which we might examine the differing views and approaches we have/take on the same subject. See his take here. Is it just me getting old and grumpy or does everything seem to be getting dumbed down lately? Apple is trying to tell the world they can’t handle the software on their own devices, subtlety is all but gone in television and movies, and the most popular books in America are coming out of the Young Adult genre. There’s a whole political movement proudly proclaiming anti-intellectualism and pro-ignorance while the other side does its best to maintain power by stooping to the same lows because all of a sudden smart became the new evil in this country. ...
Ryan and Vinny take a look at the recent history of the Civilization series and show a little bit of Civ V as well.
There haven’t been too many turns played recently thanks to Eric moving to a new office, so I don’t have all that much to say. Ethiopia [caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Those Phrygians won’t even know what hit them!”][/caption] France continues to survive while I finish researching Construction and gathering my forces. His research has been slow and I’ve been trying to monitor his forces to ensure that they don’t stray too far or found too many new cities, but I know at least one has been founded outside of Paris. ...
Ethiopia My war against France has not been going well. Rather than continue the pointless war of attrition thanks to my absurdly long supply lines, I’m working on discovering Mathematics, building catapults, and then capturing France. [caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“1024” caption=“I’ll get you yet, my pretties.”][/caption] Khmer Empire With the sacking of Thessalonica, the Holy Roman Empire is no more. I learned from Eric that Justinian even made an impassioned plea to him to try and save his empire by going to war against me. He wisely wanted nothing to do with my army of horse archers and chariots and Justinian met his end. It wasn’t fair, but life isn’t fair. ...
Despite relatively good reviews from most outlets, Heavy Rain is something of a negative topic among bloggers. I’ve seen most come down on it’s mechanics being anti-immersive and some just outright hate the game and the way it is played. I haven’t finished the thing myself yet, but I’m not quite in the hate camp yet. I played Quantic Dream’s last offering, Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophesy in the States), so I knew precisely what I was getting and I’m enjoying that so far. It’s not perfect, but what game is? ...
Contrary to what might be expected, I actually don’t pay much attention to news when I’m stuck in the house all week thanks to a snowstorm so this week’s update will just be about my Civ games. Ethiopia Perhaps my strongest civilization position comes with my first game as the Ethiopians. Thanks to lucky placement of resources, I’ve got access to copper in this civ, so I spent the last week producing Axemen to try and conquer Charles De Gaulle’s France to the Southwest of Ethiopia. After pumping out and moving four Axemen into French territory, it was finally time to attack Orleans. ...
It should be no surprise to devoted readers of IBNttT that I love Civ IV. Over my gaming lifespan, I’d wager a guess that (WoW aside), I’ve probably sunk more hours into the Civ franchise than any other. The series is that good. I can’t quite remember what sparked the most recent return by my brother to the game, but he started playing it again, sparking my interest yet again. If I didn’t already have Mass Effect 2 to sink time into, I’d be playing Civ IV like mad right now, I’ll tell you that. As a compromise I decided to start some Play By E-Mail (PBEM) games with him instead. Three games, to be exact. I plan to make weekly reports on these games and our status, hopefully without giving too much away to my enemies (I’m looking at you Eric). This can either be a terrible idea or a great one, depending on how well I do, so I’m pretty excited about it. Since we’re still at the once city stage with all three games, I won’t go into any detail today, but I might take some screenshots for tomorrow or next week and put some up. ...
Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. Due to some poor life decisions, I find myself stranded for five weeks without any video games. What’s a guy to do, right? Well, rather than just giving you some of the headlines from the week’s video game news in lieu of what I was planning to be gameplay impressions, reviews, and the like, I’ve instead started a five week “All-Stars” feature. Each week we’re going to look at a video game era and spotlight my top three games from that era. Each of these games will also receive a place setting at the prestigious “Table of Honor” feature that I’m working on. Here’s the weekly plan: ...