Category: Reviews

12/18/13

Review of Eight Minute Empire

Brant takes a look at Eight Minute Empire, a game that plays waaaaaay faster than it takes for him to write the review

Brant Guillory, 18 December 2013

How does a game with 2 types of blocks, a map that could hide in a magazine, and no combat pack a legitimate realm-building adventure into a 10-minute game?

Elegantly.

8-minute-1
The small box includes 5 colors of tokens, punchout coins, a deck of cards, a very short instruction page, and a mounted, two-sided map. The box is pretty solid, too. You could really hurt someone if you hurl it at them.

Eight Minute Empire from Red Raven Games probably takes about ten to twelve minutes to play, but you lose the cute alliteration of the name in doing so.  Still, taking over the map twice in a lunch break at the office, and still having time to talk smack about it, is nothing to sniff at.

First question – “Does it really only take eight minutes to play?”  Yes, if you’ve got a two-player game of guys who know what they’re doing.  But let’s just suppose you double the length of the advertised game.  Are you really going to be unimpressed with a game that let’s you conquer the map in less time than it’ll take you to read this review?

Second question – “Whaddaya mean there’s no combat?  How do I conquer the world?”  The guy with the most armies (cubes) in the space controls it.  Ties go to nobody.  It’s not rocket surgery.

Third question – “Is it just beating each other up?”  Nope.  There are potential cities to found, a treasury to manage, and trade goods to collect.

So here’s how it works. Continue reading →

12/16/13

Spearpoint 1943 with Designer Byron Collins – BONUS

Byron had sent some videos our way.  And in classic GrogHeads “we’re-making-this-up-as-we-go” style, we forgot to include them in this weekend’s post decided to devote a new article just for them, since they’re so outstandingly awesome.

Discuss this article in our forums >>

12/11/13

Avadon 2: The Corruption – PC Game Review

Author: Avery Abernethy

Avadon 2: The Corruption is the latest RPG from Spiderweb Software.  You are a “Hand of Avadon” which translates to trouble-shooter, ambassador, and brute squad for Redbeard, the leader of the Pact.  Avadon 2 is a turn-based party of characters role playing game (RPG) with a top-down perspective.  The setting is mostly swords and sorcery.  This review is based on many weeks of play and I have completed 90% of the game.

In Avadon 2 you select a primary character at the beginning of the game who is accompanied by two other characters.  The primary character must be present during all missions.  The main player can add up to two additional characters to the adventuring party.  All three party members are 100% under the control of the player.  The two accompanying characters can be selected based on the mission you are trying to accomplish.  Every character levels up and gains experience points at the exact same rate if the go on a mission or not.  This game feature removes the worry about getting each member of the group enough battle experience to be useful.  The character classes are roughly equal to fighter, ninja, wizard, shaman (mix of priest & wizard), and a tinker.  Only the ninja, wizard, or tinker can disarm traps or unlock doors and chests.

Avadon 2 Review-Picking a character
Picking a character.

Tinkers are quite unique to the fantasy setting.  The tinker is a relatively good fighter with both melee and missile weapons.  But the primary usefulness of the Tinker is their ability to erect “turrents” which can launch missile attacks, area of effect attacks, operate as snares, operate as blessings/curses or which heal friendly party members.  The turrents act as immobile missile units, immobile healing/cursing priests, or immobile area of effect wizards.  They can be damaged, but are quite hardy.   Better yet turrents are 100% resistant to mind attacks which are challenging to defend against for most character classes.  I’ve never encountered a “tinker” type of character in an RPG.  When employed properly they are very powerful and enable the use of tactical strategies during battle that are unique to the game.

Avadon 2 Review-Battle with Turrent
Battle with a turrent.

Continue reading →

10/23/13

Tropico 4: Apocalypse – PC Game DLC Review

Developer: Haemimont Games

Publisher: Kalypso

Author: Jim Zabek

Sandy beaches, tropical islands, piña coladas, tourists, and perky salsa music. No, I’m not day dreaming like the Zac Brown Band, I’m playing Tropico 4’s latest DLC, Apocalypse. Apocalypse offers a single new mission, How I Learned to Love the Bomb, a new skin for El Presidente, a new trait, Survivalist, and a new building, the Fallout Shelter.

Does this hazmat suit make me look fat?
Does this hazmat suit make me look fat?

I hadn’t played Tropico 4 in over a year but when the new DLC came out I figured I’d drop $5 for it and see how it treated me.

I loved it. The scenario weighs in at 168% of normal difficulty and it took me all weekend to beat the mission. True to its roots I was faced with all the normal challenges of running a banana republic. Elections are held every 10 years (unless I were to take totalitarian steps against them), my people needed to be fed, sheltered, and their economy managed. The happiness of the various political factions was always hanging in the balance and there was never a point where someone wasn’t unhappy with how I was running things.

But in addition to the normal challenges faced in Tropico 4, the Apocalypse DLC placed me in new and dangerous territory: a tip from Agent Sasha informed me that nuclear war was “imminent.” Her definition of imminent and mine might differ slightly (some decades passed before I was able to win the scenario) but, as will all things Tropican, you can’t take things too seriously. Setting the plot, giving me a plausible sense of urgency, and plopping an extra $30,000 into the Tropican Treasury, my first task was to build the new building, a nuclear bomb shelter. Easy enough. With that out of the way the real work began.

Not the typical news you expect when you take office.
Not the typical news you expect when you take office.

At its surface the objective to win the scenario seems easy: recruit four political factions to join you in the shelter. In practice this is more difficult. Creating policies that make you popular with a particular faction don’t help. Instead you have to accomplish a series of what otherwise might appear to be “optional” tasks. None are particularly easy or cheap.

(SPOILER ALERT)

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10/20/13

Total War: Rome II – PC Game Review

Developer: Creative Assembly

Publisher: SEGA

Author: Jim Zabek

Et 2, Roma!

Any time a developer creates a sequel they are faced with a challenge that I call great-more-of-the-same. A sequel presents a major challenge to a successful game. The developer needs to capture the essence of what made the original game great, but needs to offer enough new features and content to make buying the new game worthwhile. Too close of a clone of the original will find gamers sarcastically saying “Great, more of the same :/” On the other hand if a sequel is done well gamers will enthusiastically cry, “Great! More of the same!” Of course, the developer has a third choice, that of making a major departure from the essence of the original game, which case it may not much resemble the original at all.

The Total War series is now venerable. The first game in the series, Shogun, hit store shelves a whopping 13 years ago. Since that time battles have raged across computer landscapes as varied as medieval Europe, ancient Rome, Napoleonic Europe, back to the Sengoku Jidai, and now returning to Rome. That kind of tour-de-force must be respected not only for its breadth but staying power. 13 years is a long haul for any franchise. Given the fickle and demanding expectations of gamers, the ability to consistently and successfully deliver financially successful and critically pleasing titles over that length of time puts Creative Assembly in rarified air.

Diplomacy is better than ever. Here a badly beaten faction offers me a small payment in exchange for peace.
Diplomacy is better than ever. Here a badly beaten faction offers me a small payment in exchange for peace.

Even more worthy of praise is their ability to create titles set in a historical context which does a decent job of capture historical authenticity. No, the Total War games are not historical simulations. But for AAA titles they manage to bring a lot of history to gamers hard drives and please a lot of historical gamers. Perfect they may not be, but sufficient they are.

When the original Rome: Total War was released it was a significant departure from Shogun and Medieval. A different development team worked on it, and it brought the series fully into the mainstream with a high-quality 3D strategic map, top shelf graphics all the way around, and excellent gameplay. I still remember being haunted by the musical score as I played, and fun as Rome II has been for me, I don’t think its current music lives up to the greatness of the original Rome. A minor quibble, but I do notice such details and wanted to put that marker out there.

The graphics in Rome II are better than ever.
The graphics in Rome II are better than ever.

So when Rome II hit store shelves there was an instant cry among many gamers that it wasn’t the same game. Did Rome II step beyond the great-more-of-the-same category into that dangerous land of unrecognizably different gameplay?

Continue reading →