Tag Opinion

Victoria 3 (late) review

Carr Nyuli Leave a comment

Since Victoria 3 has been out for over half a year now, gone through three major updates, and gotten a DLC, I think it’s about time I finally did a review. We’ve also recently passed Victoria Day here in Canada, which isn’t really relevant to the review, but kind made me get my butt in order. Before we start I’ll say that this will be a short review, and more a simple game explanation, because the game came out October 25, and there are a lot of better reviews out there, especially since this is the first time I’ve played the series and am fumbling around with it a bit. I’ll also be reviewing the game as it was in version 1.2 (when I last played), even though 1.3 was recently released. So, some things may not be of full relevance.

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An old strategy world, a new direction for 4X

Carr Nyuli Leave a comment

Old World first came out a year ago, exactly a year ago if you’re reading this on the date of publication (July 1). I’d heard of it when it was in development, but pretty quickly forgot about it, as did I think a lot of people (at least amongst the YouTubers I follow), since I didn’t see much of it after that. However, after a while only being on the Epic Games store, it was released on Steam, and I re-learned of it through Unstable Voltage, a YouTuber who plays mostly strategy games, especially Civilization (you can watch his “learning playthrough” here). And man, am I sorry I took so long to start it.

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(Watching) multiplayer strategy is more fun than I thought

Carr Nyuli Leave a comment

I’ve been a fan of strategy games for a long time now, but I’ve never played them multiplayer. It’s just not my thing. When I’m playing strategy games, I want to do it on my own time–even the “real time” ones I play can be paused or run at different speeds. With multiplayer, you can’t really do that. Yes, you can still (usually) pause or play slower in multiplayer, but if you’re running at a slow speed and constantly slapping the pause button with other people in the game…you’re kind of an ass. Multiplayer Europa Universalis IV, the game in question for this article, does seem to allow pausing at any time according to the wiki, but I’d imagine it’s pretty frowned upon by players.

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Thanks devs, for hanging around

Carr Nyuli Leave a comment

It wasn’t all that long ago, that when you got a new video game, you got the game as it was, and as it was going to be. If the game was on a disc or especially on a cartridge, you weren’t going to get anything different. If there was a really big problem, a re-release of the game might happen, but patches weren’t a thing. Even as video games started to move into the realm of the internet, updates (which not all that long ago could still be purchacsed on disc) didn’t really do anything. You might get a few more maps for multiplayer, or an expansion, but the base game was still basically the same. But in the past few years, all that’s changed.

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I’m a difficulty dweeb, and I’m okay with that

Carr Nyuli Leave a comment

Back in the spring, I was planning to do an article documenting my attempt at a more challenging game of Europa Universalis IV. It came about after I got the feeling that all of my EU4 achievements were ones considered either “easy” or “very easy” by the community. And so I thought, “why not try to get a medium level achievement?” An easy medium, of course, because going all-out on my first attempt at a higher level would be, well, hard. And so I picked one I thought I could do: “A Tale of Two Families” Continue reading “I’m a difficulty dweeb, and I’m okay with that” →

Gamers Outraged Over Pricy Microtransaction Scheme /s

Mark Barry 1 Comment

For years, gamers have dealt with microtransactions in their favorite games – from MMOs to mobile, and more recently in triple-A titles, we’ve seen additional in-game content made to generate long term profit. Some studios and publishers have made sure not to break the first rule of selling content and have limited their offerings to cosmetics and rewards that don’t grant power to players. As such, this is normally not an issue since these purchases are entirely optional and don’t provide advantages in online play, or roadblocks to story progression.

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AI friends are really hard to abandon

Carr Nyuli 2 Comments

I’ve been playing RimWorld since Alpha 15, almost two years before the full game came out. In that time, I’ve seen a lot of things change. I’ve seen a lot of things added, and I’ve seen a lot of things taken away. For example, I have a nostalgic desire to start using the survival rifle again. It still technically exists with a slight accuracy nerf, it’s just call a bolt-action rifle now. Same with deathfall traps. They still exist with a bigger nerf (they were kind of OP before, so I won’t complain about that) under the name “spike traps”. They’re still super useful, I just really want that name back. It’s a cool name.

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Civ VI: Gathering Storm Quick Review

Carr Nyuli Leave a comment

‘Member when I said I was going to try getting my review for Civilization VI: Gathering Storm out within a week or two of launch? Yeah, that…obviously didn’t happen. Going back to the “I can play Civ VI for three or four games and then I get turned off it for a while” thing I’ve mentioned before, my latest turn off partway through my first Gathering Storm game. I haven’t played in over two months, and as such, I don’t feel super confident in doing a full-fledged review. I do want to (finally) get it out and get on to new business though, so I’m going to play a little bit and get out a quicker review than I’d normally do. Continue reading “Civ VI: Gathering Storm Quick Review” →

Losing Should be an Option

Mark Barry Leave a comment

As long as games have existed there has been the looming potential for loss. Whether it’s letting one too many pixels slip by, tripping on a wayward koopa shell, playing against a button spamming Raiden, or taking a few too many bullets to the sponge – you die, you fail, you lose, game over. Most games don’t really address losing or dying – you simply reset, respawn, and move on; this I feel is a missed opportunity and designers could find ways to embrace loss in their games. Continue reading “Losing Should be an Option” →