Often my friends and I will lament the modern Settlers games which have strayed very far indeed from the original "classics". Such reflection will often result in us going back to The Settlers II, the game which we and the vast majority of fans consider to be the height of the series. It isn't long before a sad realisation hits us... The Settlers was never that good. In The Settlers II you must develop an empire and doing this requires that you harvest natural resources such as stone, wood and gold and make sure that every trade within your borders has the resources it needs to function. The emphasis in The Settlers II is on the efficiency of your roads and therefore your transport system. Goods not getting to their destination in a timely fashion can result in a disasterous chain reaction throughout your realm. For example, if your pig farmer doesn't get grain to feed the pigs with then he can't take them to the slaughterhouse, that means no meat for your miners, gold or otherwise and if there's no gold then the mints can't make coins and you can't promote your soldiers meaning you'll likely be outclassed by the AI. Your basic settlement will consist of a woodcutters, sawmill, forester, stonecutter and of course a storehouse or townhall to house the goods. When the time is right you then expand with an iron smelter, metalworks and armoury. The trouble is that if you've done this once you've done it a million times and if you intend to conquer the largest maps the game has to offer that's exactly what you'll be doing. I still maintain that anyone who finishes the continental maps contained within the Mission Pack must have a superhuman tolerance for boredom. You see a great deal of your time playing The Settlers II will be spent waiting. Waiting for goods to arrive at their destination or waiting for something to be built. This is why if there is a particularly long talk or radio show I want to listen to I will often play The Settlers II while doing so. It's kind of like the gaming equivalent of absent-mindedly clicking on random web pages except in The Settlers II you will eventually get something done. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that slow games are bad. In fact I'd say that most of my favourite games were "slow games". However those games are also tense and exciting, The Settlers II rarely is. The climax of any map is when you encounter an enemy nation and your little soldiers are battling it out to decide the fate of that lovely little farming community you spent the last half an hour developing. When I was a kid The Settlers II was one of my favourite games. I think it was because it was fairly complicated to me at the time and was like some mystery I had to figure out. Now though, I have to face the truth, it just isn't that great. Yeah it's cute in a way that the modern Settlers games aren't but so what? Just because your guys occasionally skip and blow bubble gum doesn't mean the game is good. I think the best thing about The Settlers II is the music. Track number nine, The Dead Field of Battle, specifically. I don't know who is responcible for it but that is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard in any game ever. Check it out on YouTube or something. Perhaps this review sounds overly negative. The Settlers II isn't a bad game, it's actually a good game, just not THAT good. It's certainly the highlight in a series which overall is pretty mediocre.
I often compare Blood to the Scream films. Why? Because both are parodying the horror genre while still being brilliant horror experiences themselves. In Blood you play as Caleb, my favourite videogame character of all time. Like the most interesting characters of fiction, Caleb is somewhat misanthropic but not in a whiny, annoying way and lets face it, he does have a good reason what with having been betrayed and murdered by his dark master Tchernobog. His quest is therefore one of vengeance and along the way he'll go up against everything the Cabal has to offer and discover the fate of his fellow Chosen who were condemned alongside him. If there is a more atmospheric game than Blood then I've never heard of it. Cultists will shriek horrifically as you dispatch them in one bloody way after another. I don't think anyone who has played this game ever forgets the awesomeness of watching and hearing a cultist run around in flames. The CD music is also absolutely incredible and contains some truly haunting pieces. You have a formidable arsenal at your disposal to deal with the Cabal but whether you're using the standard sawn-off shotgun or a really interesting weapon like the voodoo doll, they all just feel RIGHT. There isn't a single weapon in Blood that is a waste of time and serves no purpose. Whether it's the aerosol can, the flaregun, the tesla cannon, the dynamite... they all have their place and can be used to devastating effect in the right situation. As with most games of this type the first episode is the best because it was released and shareware and obviously the developers wanted to sell the game at its strongest. However the level design throughout Blood is excellent and even the Plasma Pak and Cryptic Passage episodes deliver. In fact I'd say that the Cryptic Passage episode is second best behind The Way of All Flesh or perhaps even better. Like all of the best games, Blood is often overlooked. Everyone knows of Duke Nukem 3D but it's nothing compared to Blood and it's frankly a crime that more people aren't aware of the game. It's not just the best FPS made using the Build Engine, it's the best FPS ever made full stop. I've been playing Blood frequently for thirteen years no and I'm nowhere close to getting sick of it. If you're a fan of good games then you owe it to yourself to get this now.
As a life long fan of real-time and turn-based strategy games I can honestly say hand on heart that this is the best I've ever played and that I'm seriously angry at myself for not buying it when it was first released. For over a decade I played Warlords III both Reign of Heroes and Darklords Rising, dabbled in Heroes of Might and Magic, played all the Total War games avidly, enjoyed hours on end of Galactic Civilizations 2 and just generally looked everywhere for the next great turn-based strategy. Only last Friday did I discover it when I bought Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. As a turn-based strategy fan there are certain elements that are essentials for me such as a good random map generator to lend a game incredible replay value, hotseat mode so you can play with your friends huddled around a single PC and a host of options that allow you to tailor your gameplay experience. Shadow Magic delivers all of these in such a spectacular fashion that it absolutely shames the games I previously considered the cream of the crop. The game offers you a campaign, scenarios, multiplayer and as stated, randomly generated maps where you can customise almost every aspect of the game to your liking including how powerful heroes can get, how many neutral units appear and the kind of terrain that is allowed. There are ten distinct factions to play these modes with, some your typical fantasy fare like Elves and Dwarves and others more original like the Tigran and the Syrons. These factions, or races, aren't merely comprised of different units either. Each of them have very unique attributes that demands you altar your style of play accordingly. For example the Nomads have the ability to simply pack up and move their cities being comprised as they are of tents. That is the kind of cool and well throught out feature that Shadow Magic is jam-packed with. You can compete against up to eight opponents in a scenario and there are six difficulty levels that you can set them to individually but be warned, even the weakest AI opponent can trample the unwary. It certainly did me. The map sizes range from small to absolutely massive (to use my own terms) and what's more, can be comprised of up to three layers, surface, underground and Shadowland so if it's an epic conflict you're looking for, then look no further. The gameplay itself consists of acquiring and developing cities, sites and armies on the strategic map and leading your forces in tactical conflict in the battle map when the time comes. Unlike in a lot of games of this type, one does not feel more solid than the other. You never find yourself wishing you were in another battle or back on the strategic map because both are so enjoyable to play. Great warriors, powerful magic, research, development, heroes, magic items, diplomacy, economics... everything you could hope for will play a part in your victory. Finally the game comes with tools that allow you to mod almost every aspect of the game that you could possibly wish to and there is a community still kicking over at Heaven Games with plenty of additional game content both already made and in the making. Not only that but they're damn nice guys over there who have helped me immeasurably in understanding the game since it's infinitely more complex than Warlords and this gog version, rather surprisingly, does not come with the manual in PDF format which is a massive oversight. In summary, Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is truly one of the greatest games I've ever played and I've been gaming now for two decades solid across multiple platforms. My only regret was that I didn't buy it when I witnessed its released back in 2004.
The original Blood is my favourite game of all time but despite that, I just can't pretend that this sequel is anything other than utter dross in every conceivable way. I actually played Blood II and the Nightmare expansion through from start to finish hoping and praying that it would get good at some point. It never did. In this essay (and it is an essay), I will explain why Blood II is so terrible in absolutely every respect. Lets start with the plot. A lot of fans hated the fact that it takes place in a science-fiction type setting as opposed to the gothic horror scene of the original game. I actually think this could have worked really well. You've got Caleb, an undead cowboy essentially, having to deal with the threats of a futuristic world (Blood II is set one hundred years after the original). All kinds of interesting themes could have come from this. The manual sets a serious tone and suggests that all manner of deep issues will be resolved. But no. Blood II is done purely for laughs and at no point attempts to take itself seriously. Oh sure, there were plenty of laughs in the original game and Caleb is famous for his one-liners. But there was also a gravity there; all of the ludicrous action took place against a really dark revenge story. Where the original Blood had wit, Blood II has puerile humour. Caleb is like a caricature of what he was previously and the rest of the Chosen are just cliches. Oh and get this: since the first game, one of them has had a sex change LOL!!!1111oneone. Yeah... that's funny, right? No, it's just stupid and senseless and completely at odds with the tone of the original game. That would be alright if Blood II stood strong on its own, but it doesn't. I still don't understand the events of Blood II, especially towards the end. But who cares about the plot, right? I mean, this is a shooter after all. Well, I for one care, but it doesn't matter because the gameplay is awful too. I'm one of the few people who have ever actually finished this game and the reason is because of its difficulty. Now, challenge is a good thing, in my opinion. The problem is that Blood II's difficulty comes from there being no balance at all in the game. I really find it hard to believe that anyone actually tested this game before releasing it because no-one in their right mind could play through this game and think it worked well. The first boss (well, what I consider the first boss anyway) is this giant... thing sitting in a cathedral and he's the hardest enemy in the entire game by a thousand miles. Beating him is basically down to pure luck: he might kill you in a single hit or he might not. And that's regardless of difficulty. Distribution of ammo and weapons is an absolute joke and was done apparently at random. Actually, this whole game feels like it was made at random and it's painfully obvious that it was rushed towards the end. In terms of level design... actually I can barely remember the levels because they were mostly comprised of generic industrial environments. They're more interesting early on and you get to infiltrate this lab and go on an airship but eventually the designers were like, "ah... just make a few more levels in that apartment and sewer style. That'll do." There are a lot of weapons in Blood II with alternative fire modes but you'll probably only end up using about four of them and even then, only because you lack ammo. Like everything else in the game, they're largely ill thought out and useless. You get a canister of bug spray for example, which is a contender for the most pointless weapon ever seen in a videogame. It's like they thought, "lol, won't it be funny if we put bug spray as a weapon" and did it, with no attempt to make it balanced or useful in any way whatsoever. The enemies are alright I suppose but after a while the game just starts throwing them at you without rhyme or reason. Some of them are weirdly susceptible to certain guns. So much so that I can only conclude that it was some weird mistake in design. The more the game goes on, the less your enemies react when being shot. This leads to situations where you're just standing there firing lead into each other to see who dies first. There can be no thought or strategy to your approach in Blood II because if you can see your enemies, then they can see, and shoot, you. The Lithtech engine here is just horrible. Limbs and debris will routinely float in mid-air and everything just looks like crap. The chances are that Blood II will crash a lot for you for no apparent reason whatsoever but that's no GoG's fault: the game was like that since the day of its release. After killing the final boss (why am I fighting this thing? God knows), the credits begin rolling as The Chosen walk along the wasteland in silence. No resolution to anything that has been brought up, no sign that the world or characters have changed at all... just nothing. If you played through this game just to see what transpires like I did then I feel bad for you, because a hollow silence is all that awaits and I think that sums the whole thing up. So, Blood II is awful, but maybe they got wiser for the expansion? Wrong. It just futher hammers the nail into the coffin of the Blood franchise by having The Chosen go on dumb missions like destroying photos from a prom night. No, I'm not joking. The one good thing about The Nightmare expansion is the fact that we get to see what the original Blood would have been like if it had been made using the Lithtech engine. Which is to say, awful. But at least we get a reminder of better days. The Nightmare expansion also includes some new weapons like this box from which chains shoot to rip enemies to pieces (yeah, it's basically the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser). But why the hell would you even want to use such an unnecessarily complicated weapon when you could just shoot someone? Again, there is no balance, or any sense at all to the weapons and amount of ammo you're given. They just shoved every element of the game in there without a moments thought. And once again, only a bewildering conclusion and silent credit scroll waits as a reward for your troubles. So there, my friends, is how Blood II ensured that there would never be another game in the series. In terms of plot, it is such an incoherent mess that if by some miracle another Blood game was to be made, it would have to be a reboot. I would call this a "Highlander 2" but the difference is I actually think Highlander 2 started off with the best intentions and the Highlander franchise was able to get back on its feet. Blood II, on the other hand, is a rushed and lazy mess, devoid of any merit whatsoever and no way in hell is anyone going to be making a Blood III. Funnily enough though, I remember this game getting decent scores in magazines back in the day. Better scores than the original did. Proof, if it were needed, that the opinion of mainstream publications was never worth anything. Thinking about it now, everything about Blood II is so wrong, that I'm tempted to believe that there was a deliberate effort to kill the series. But no... the sad reality is it was just a rushed attempt to cash in on the name of the excellent original.
