After Troy Goodfellow left GameShark for the rich, late night party lifestyle of gaming PR, it left me in the lurch for another PC strategy writer not named Tom Chick. Troy sent Kevin my way and this is his first write up at the Mothership.
He played the preview build of Sengoku — a game I was going to preview but Kevin did a great job while I tackled sports games.
You are the head of your family, and often have a wife and children of your own, who are generally loving, devoted, and with any luck, inherited your stunning good looks and not your mother-in-law’s harelip or dementia. They only occasionally plot to have you killed, which is helpful, and when they do it’s usually for a pretty good reason, so you can’t really blame them for trying.
Check out the full article at Gameshark.
Pretty good preview overall, though I’d disagree with two statements:
– Uninteresting warfare – sure, warfare in Paradox games isn’t nearly as exciting as it is in a Total War game, but it’s far from uninteresting. Rather, the depth is in how you build and move your troops on a strategic level, rather than a tactical level, and even the simulated tactical combat has some depth to it – namely, where do you attack from, in which season, and so on. It’s not uninteresting – just less interesting than the intrigue and diplomatic management, just like in Crusader Kings.
– Lack of clear intermediate goals – Crusader Kings didn’t have any clear goals at all, and it still was a fantastic game. Granted, the “missions” system introduced in one of the EU3 expansions (In Nomine, I think) was a great way of giving short-term goals to sort of “guide” gameplay, and I believe Sengoku is doing the same thing, but still, it’s a sandbox game, as it should be. In most Paradox games in the EU tradition, the goals you have are those you set for yourself – and though Sengoku has an overall goal (become Shogun), you can still play as a minor vassal and set your personal goal as “survive for X years” (because it may not be feasible at all to become Shogun), in much the same way as people playing as Poland in Hearts of Iron usually set a goal of “surviving until 1943″ or something like that.
Though I disagree on those points, I can still see why he mentioned them, and I still say it’s a great preview. Just one made not from the point of view of someone who is used to the EU-like Paradox games, but from the point of view of a complete newcomer most likely coming from the Total War side of the spectrum. That’s my impression, and I might be wrong, of course.
Kevin is a huge EU guy. And loves Victoria more than I ever will – because he has weird tastes.
I didn’t mean to imply that Kevin is a Total War guy or “not a EU guy”. It’s quite clear, from the preview itself, that he knows the Paradox games well (though I did get the feeling that he is much more into EU and Victoria than Crusader Kings or EU:Rome – while I’m the other way around). What I meant to say is that he wrote that preview under the assumption that the readers would most likely be newcomers to the Paradox games, most likely coming from the Total War series (mostly Shogun 2, which is a fair assumption too). That was my impression, and I may be wrong indeed, but still, that was my impression.
Edit – I reread my previous comment and it reads like I’m saying Kevin is not an EU guy, though that’s not really what I meant when I wrote it. I blame it on English being my second language, and not my native one. Sorry about the confusion. I edited this comment to take that into account.
bad rhamorim ! bad!
Good article, although I think I’ll just wait for CK2.
CK2 will be awesome, but I’m a huge fan of the Sengoku Jidai period, even more than Medieval Europe, so Sengoku is a must-have for me.
Of course, I’ll be all over CK2 when it’s released early next year. I’m sure both games will be amazing. And I hope to see a EU:Rome 2 sometime next year, too.
CK2 is my most anticipated game of next year. At least until I hear about something shinier.
In terms of shininess, CK2 has a a mirror-like polish only slightly dimmed by a couple upcoming GMT releases. ^_^
Yes, Crusader Kings 2 is top in my list of “most wanted games of 2012″, but Darksiders 2, Guild Wars 2, Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3 and ARMA 3 are pretty high on that list as well.
Wow. This game has more depth than it seems. I thought it was just putting numbers on 9 by 9 grids.