CDV's American Conquest series has been one of those hit-or-miss franchises. The original title did pretty well, and built a strong following among hardcore RTS fans who loved recreating history. Through the years, several expansions made their way onto shelves, and a few related titles using the same engine appeared - probably the most memorable of these (in terms of sheer awfulness) was American Conquest: Fight Back. The game was just plain bad, but thankfully (for those dedicated fans) they've decided to give the … [Read more...]
Videogames' Future: Used vs. New, Low vs. High?
With Best Buy announcing last year it was entering the used-game market, Internet forums burst with conversations about the End Times, not to mention the development-profit Armageddon being nigh. But hold the phone. Just how much do used game sales prop-up the sale of new games? No matter what figures the NPD Group may be able to pull from its magic hat, I don't think we'll ever know exactly, and I'm not going to guess for the purposes of this column. Still, it's more a question of "how much" they contribute to new-game … [Read more...]
UFO: Aftershock
There's nothing worse than a game that's difficult for difficulty's sake, and with UFO: Aftershock, that's exactly what you're getting - a game that's too hard for its own good. What starts out as an enjoyable (yet unofficial) extension of the X-Com tactical squad games quickly turns into a repetitive and sluggish foray into complexity. One minute, you're popping rounds into rubberygray aliens bent on dominating mankind, the next, you're staring down a user interface that looks like you could launch a space shuttle with … [Read more...]
True Crime: New York City
The genre of games known as sandbox titles, where players have the illusion of free-reign over anything and everything in the game, really hit a high point with the release of GTA3 and its subsequent sequels. Trying to capitalize on that free-form aspect forced a lot of games into obscurity as they tried to mimic the series while separating themselves from the pack. Activision's first take at one of these "me too" games, True Crime: Streets of LA, included the twist of placing the protagonist on the right side of the … [Read more...]
World Championship Poker 2
Poker was first widely played in New Orleans in the early 1800s and quickly spread throughout the Western frontier. Back in those days, poker was mostly popular on riverboats and in saloons. Nowadays poker is everywhere. There are pocket-sized poker video games; online real-time poker tournaments, and who would have thought we would now be able to turn on our TVs and watch other people play poker? Of course, there are also full-featured poker videogames for PC and home consoles, the latest of which is Crave … [Read more...]
FIFA 06
Creating titles to launch on a new console must be a tricky thing to do, given the track record of a certain developer of sports titles. EA, which created a new game engine rather than rehash a prior one for Madden NFL 06 on the Xbox 360 (review), continues the trend with FIFA 06. Sadly, this next-gen soccer game also follows the trend that Madden NFL 06 started: incorporating fewer features to focus on the all-new engine and enhanced graphics. Unfortunately only a few modes of play are included in FIFA 06, but … [Read more...]
007: From Russia With Love
I've insisted for years that as capable as Pierce Brosnan was, Sean Connery was the true James Bond. You just couldn't escape Connery's debonair, his grace, his ability to be believable both as a world-saving super spy and a dream-dashing womanizer. Connery was Bond, plain and simple. So when the latest 007 game was announced, and Sean Connery was providing both his voice and his Bond-era likeness to the game, let's just say I was a tad more excited than I was about the previous 007 games. From Russia With Love takes … [Read more...]
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Say what you will about movie-based videogames, but Electronic Arts scored big when it snagged the licenses to the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter games. Even if the games weren't successful critically, the simple tie-ins to those movie franchises were sure to drum up sales. The Lord of the Rings games have had a consistent theme, not to mention a steady demographic, which has led the development team to make some notable improvements from game to game. The Harry Potter games, meanwhile, have also largely targeted … [Read more...]
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
It seems like an eternity since Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was shown at E3, and it almost seemed like the game would never ship. The game promised to mix the popular (and incredibly creepy) fiction of H.P. Lovecraft with action and adventure gameplay elements. Now that the game is on shelves, it's obvious the game was an ambitious effort, which may have caused the delays, but in the end, it all worked out pretty well. In this game, you take on the role of Jack Walters, a guy who's not what most people … [Read more...]
Peter Jackson's King Kong
With the current-gen consoles (PS2, Xbox, GameCube), many game publishers make a base version of their game and "port" it so it works on the other consoles. When the Xbox 360 launched, only two companies tried their hand at releasing next-gen versions of their games at the same time as their current-gen counterparts. The first of those companies, Activision, released Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (review) and Gun (review), both of which were only marginally better than their current-gen counterparts. The second … [Read more...]