Empire Total War: South of the river you stop and you hold everything, a band is blowing dixie double four time

Remember when you used to sit behind Heather L. in 6th grade History class and each day you took bets on whether the teacher would have sweaty armpit stains or not?  Unless your name was Ryan K. you probably weren't doing exactly that, but I'm guessing that you remember just as much similar nonsense from those days than actual history that was taught to you.  And now you wonder why you can't answer any trivia questions about who Saxony was aligned with during the 18th century.  Care for a refresher on history so you can start winning arguments at your local watering hole?  Better go out and grab the interactive teaching tool called Empire: Total War from Sega.  Ok it's not focused on teaching per-say, the teaching of the 18th century comes as a nice result if you pay attention to the details in this immense game.  

A gigantic turned based strategy game (real time during battles) for the PC, Empire is a great mashed potato mixture of older strategy games such as Risk and Civilization.  If you have sat at home and had a few bed days lazily watching the History Channel, you may recognize the older versions of Total War being utilized to reenact great historical battles of the world. 

As seen by this in-game screenshot, the game in motion is as beautiful as a new bride walking down the aisle minus the flowers and cottony whiteness.  The camera, while in battle, can be angled high in the sky to see formations and flanks shifting to zooming right down to the soldier's point of view to watch them load and blast grape shot at nearby sloops.  Naval battles in particular are quite impressive as ships broadside one another having sails, masts, planks, and sailors become part of the watery wreckage.  

Those eye catching things aside, the game plays out like you would expect any typical turned based strategy.  After picking your favorite allegiance, the primary campaign starts in the year 1700 with the territories your country of choice owned.  From there you begin to amass land and naval troops, pick new buildings for cities and capitals, research military, philosophical, or industrial upgrades, establish trade routes, adjust taxes, send spies on sabotage missions, rearrange heads of state, and conquer opposing faction territories to claim for your own.  After exhausting all possibilities, you end your turn and a 6 month time period passes as all other factions do the same repeating the cycle until you reach the end year of your campaign.  

One thing that's impressive is the AI's ability to do its best in replaying history out to how it truly happened.  The "what if" choices make interesting results as the AI adapts to your decisions while simultaneously keeping as historically close to reality as possible.  A separate campaign mode for the colonization of the US is also included called the Road to Independence for all those wishing to brush up on why Britain had such a hard time keeping tabs on those in the New Land.

The difficulty of the game seems much harder than previous Total War titles as the turtling and steamrolling is an almost non-existent strategy with high upkeep prices for each unit.  A lot of political micromanagement is needed after completing philosophical upgrades and the people clamor for reform.  Alliances and trade routes all come with their respective ex-girlfriend type baggage as the rest of the world is trying to accomplish the same thing as you.  

The learning curve is about 5 - 10 hours depending on your past history with turned based strategies not to be confused with your past history with Stratego.  There are a good amount of tutorials to step you through how to play the game but those things are for losers right?  Once you get a good grasp on how to play the game, there is little that will piss off any player.  Extra difficulty occurs dependent on the faction you chose at the start (large naval presence of northern European countries like Sweden vs almost exclusive land military presence with central Europe like Prussia) and may make for very different starting points and strategies but with one choice there are advantages and disadvantages abound.  

Loading screens can get lengthy at times and Empire relishes in the latest technology by taking time to point out that it is "best played" with the newest i7 chip during initial loading screens.  And it's just like a company to help remind the world how to spend all the disposable income we all have during this economic time.  

Some pathing of your troops can be harrowing.  On the map screen it may seem like only the most direct route can be chosen while the AI controlled troops will show you some type of tricky avoidance pathing.  You will see the AI sidestepping right around forts and cities with troops in them making a sprint for your capital.  Similarly in battles your troops will walk right in front of your artillery and take friendly fire causalities instead of walking behind them.  After losing a general in battle to your own cannons you'll quickly learn what seems like a simple command can turn into a slap in the face and an embarrassment that your kids will never forget. 

Great battles, graphics, sound, historical alignment, depth, and play make Total War: Empire an all-around strategy game into a benchmark of the first decade in the 21st century.  With little to complain about, this game is worth the time it takes to complete just the "short campaign" and worth the extra time to replay it over and over trying out different sections of the world in the 18th century.  I only wish that more people would be able to see games such as this and realize how great history class could of been as well as what most kids were probably daydreaming about in those 6th grade classes.  Yup, you and Heather L., I mean the wars and what they must of been like.

Rating: 8.0 {on a scale of -10 to 10, a 5+ being a must play}

Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing

Hired Guns Jagged Edge: Last night I held Aladdin's lamp, And so I wished that I could stay

The ever vagueness saying "AND MORE" couldn't be a more hopeful statement when it comes to the latest installment of the Jagged Alliance series: Jagged Edge Hired Guns for the PC.  Brought to us by the company GFI (Russian so I wouldn't go screwing with them) HG is a total revamped game in the series which has traveled down the usual path of separation from the originals.  

The series is one of the rarest types of strategies in that it is a small squad turn based strategy.  Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, the Commandos Series, Fallout, and Front Mission are some similar types but if you are looking for modern guerilla warfare strategies, you are even more limited in your choices.  

This time set in Africa, HG takes you through most of the core values of the Jagged Alliance series such as laptop received directives to online purchasing of equipment and mercs to increased usage of action points for better accuracy per shot to the removal of an evil dictator.  Hell, XEP624 is still the code used to start your psych test in the creation of your own character and many of the questions are still the same just reworded.   

The squad screens within and outside the battlefields are very similar to the originals as well as the idea of needing to sap the resources of the land you are fighting on to make necessary expenditures unforgettable.  

And this is where our journey through magical nostalgia land ends.  The first step away is the utilization of three dimensions.  The camera can be shifted every which way to get a good line of sight or to frustrate you to the point of launching your mouse pad across your living room.  In order to not allow the camera to journey through objects (that's the way they set it up) you will find yourself spinning and angling until you give yourself a case of vertigo.  

Most games of today will step you through some sort of tutorial and HG says, "um no" to that idea as they throw your face down in the muck to learn things the hard way.  The learning curve for someone that played the originals multiple times through was still around 4+ hours.  Someone entirely new to this type of game would sadly need 8-16 hours to get a good hold on how to play it.  I am not exaggerating in the least about this as there are many mistakes that can be made and no way to catch them until it's too late.  

For example, in the originals you could take over mining operations to help fund your mercenary needs which were payments for your equipment and guns for hire.  This game however does not prompt you in any way except for small notes in the game manual and load screen tips that your hired assassins need cash more than once and must be paid promptly every day at 00:00.  And where are you to secure means to pay your employees?  Well, by taking over areas that have random amounts of income generation which cannot be known until you take over the area.  You also can again recruit militia to defend your owned areas but in this game the amounts required are so enormous and non-refundable that it's worthless to do so.  

Most of these differences stem from less micromanagement on the map screen.  No more worrying about medkits vs first aid packs, vehicles, SAM sites, mechanical kits, need for leadership increases, landing zones, etc.  Each contract for a specific merc is for one day reoccurring instead of choices of weeks.  There is no way for a quick figure of next day income or contract expenses which again will lead to a mercenary leaving with good equipment to be forever lost if you can't afford their contract.  

The battles are relatively good.  Most show off modern techniques and keep bug issues to a minimum.  You can now lob grenades easily through windows and even using bullets to help change the terrain around you.  You can burn a few rounds into a door, creating a large hole and lay waste to everything behind it in a single turn.  The battles are what make this series good and they are done with that intention.  The available weapons are gigantically numerous and realism is abound.  

But the major gap in the game is the storyline interlaced with environment.  After a few days in the imaginary African nation, I forgot why I was even there.  After a few more days I didn't care, I just wanted to finish the game.  I didn't get the sense that I was raping and plundering the land for any good reason or any guilt for pumping a 40mm grenade right past the faces of African civilians into another group of people that just happened to be shooting back.  You receive emails about your small triumphs over the evil dictator of the land but that's the only part of your progression that reminds you that you've, well, progressed.  There were large improvements over translations from the demo version but still the occasional Englilsh problem would poke it's head out.

Overall, the Jagged Alliance series was one that I was glad to see resurrected, but I do not feel the need to replay this game compared to the old ones.  I doubt anyone new to the series would even bother picking HG up, but for those that took a chance, will play through this feeling like they ate fast food even though a filet minot is what they were craving.  Fills you up but are you satisfied?

Rating: 1.5 {on a -10 to 10 scale, 5+ being a must play}

On a different note while I was purchasing this game I noticed another on the same shelf that caught my eye purely because of its name.  Space Siege made by the same guys (gas powered games) that did Dungeon Siege except this time is set out of the medieval fantasy realm and plunged into the space fantasy one.  Reviews that I later read make it seem like a run of the mill dungeon crawler but I'm guessing someone that enjoyed the others for co-op play will probably enjoy this one too.

Steppenwolf - Magic Carpet Ride

Halo Wars Demo: It was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor and I thought of more and I wanted to get back there

Due out Feb. 20th by Ensemble Studios, aka Microsoft, Halo Wars is another RTS, this time only out for the 360 console (and no they refuse for some reason to release it to the PC for now at least). After sitting down to test out what a few others have been looking forward to playing, this demo helped me back to the path of another memory that I had stored by means of the dewey decimal system when I should of had it on speed dial. That time-tested and true memory is the problem with listening to people that are in love with a franchise. Those star crossed lovers tend to magnetize themselves into hearting things and hopefully an ice pack slaps them in the face to show them what their attraction will bring, good or bad, before it's too late. Works for sex appeal, that new car smell in a pontiac aztek, and in this case a video game.

So it's a little harsh to say those things first, but everyone needs a good old fashioned open palm thwack to get their head aligned before jumping around for joy with that newly purchased bag of magic beans. Halo Wars does some stuff well considering that Ensemble has fallen into the same old "console RTS" bear trap. To beat the old drum of RTS knowledge, the best RTS games require close to, if not an entire keyboard for all the quick functions needed to play well. Tom Clancy's Endwar bypassed this idea by adding in voice commands but Halo Wars is all done entirely with the controller. This causes a removal of the nice complexities that an RTS can carry and you are left with a simplified version of what could of been something challenging.

On the flip side the game is very easy to figure out and play. Almost any fan of the HALO games can pick this up and learn it in under 30 minutes. That also includes the stereotype that most HALO fans barely know what the restrictions on their learners permit are. Graphically it is a quality game especially for an RTS on a console. The graphics match the other HALO games as does the music and sound effects. Units are very similar to their predecessor games with new units necessary for the balance found in RTSs. All of these things will make any HALO fan giggle with glee. Gameplay and strategies are easily figured out as units have a basic strong vs/weak vs setup along with the ability to upgrade units. One main difference from most other RTS games is no resource gathering is required and instead a building at your bases can be created that houses a constant stream of incoming supplies at a given rate. Pushing the limits of a console on the graphical limitations, I found that having a large army of units all involved in battle at the same time did not show the typical graphical lag PC RTS games sometimes suffer from.

The biggest thing that one will notice after starting to play this game is hopefully a glimmer of a reminder stored in the long term attic of the brain. Admittedly if you live in Korea, this might actually be a short term memory, but for most of the world it now lands in the dusty old cardboard box sections. To truly understand you also have to look a bit into the future as well and connect the old with the new. There has been an empty space created with the distance between the release of Starcraft 1 and the eventual release of its sequel. This has made most RTS fans turn to other choices such as Total War, the AOE series, Warhammer 40k, Company of Heroes, etc. These other games are all agruably great if not better RTSers with their similarities and differences to the beast of a benchmark called Starcraft.

And herein, after about five minutes of playtime, is where a couple solid flashbacks should and will take place. Halo Wars is, well, pretty direct in its choices for game style. You have the 'humans' (terrans) vs 'covenant' (protoss) and are missing the 'vs the flood' (zerg) as far as anyone knows for now (unless in the single player campaign you band together to take down the flood and I think I've heard that storyline a couple times before). Ideally, if you worked for a game company, you would want to make an attempt at separating yourself from Starcraft even though it is a highly sought after franchise and small aspects and similarities will naturally be stolen. This game, on the other hand, did not feel like any many attempts were made at separation besides utilizing the HALO universe. It almost seems that those over at Emsemble loved playing Starcraft so much they decided to fill this soul searching time without Starcraft 2 by deploying their "HALO modded edition of Starcraft ".

The looks of some of the units and their abilities were too similar for me to think of anything other than the Starcraft series. Flamethrower marines, now where have I seen that before especially considering I don't remember that at all in HALO? Some of the upgrades for the units even seemed a little too similar for my tastes. Granted both games are supposed to be set in a distant future sci-fi universe, but Warhammer 40k didn't remind me of Starcraft as much as this game does. Maybe it's just me and my wild urge for Starcraft 2. I guess the strong comparison to the Blizzard game is because I did not see anything within the demo that seemed like a new idea or creative piece of gameplay or anything else to really set this game apart. I honestly feel that this game will not even stand the test of time and will be forgotten about after about a year of its release unless the need for another reference presents itself.

Regardless, a line in the sand will have to be drawn whether you can pick up this game and ignore similarities to Starcraft. This could be done for those who are big into FPSers and want to branch off into a known game universe. Maybe someone who does not want a game to be so complex that you are bogged down with a ton of commands and options? Or maybe if you are too young to have ever picked up Starcraft? Maybe being a big fan of the HALO universe would help block out the scars of an old bad Battlenet rank?

The next line in the sand would have to be whether you can actually stand, like most other failures before it, playing a RTS on a console. I found it very annoying trying to do unit selections since most of the success of minor and major battles is based on micromanagement of units playing off their strengths. I also found that due to the difficulties of managing specific units, and the limitations of what you can actually do with just a controller in your hands, this game becomes a game of choosing what units to create and upgrade more than how to use the units that you have created.

As you can see, Halo Wars may teach you that what you may be strongly attracted to at first, may eventually lead you into an internal struggle to torment yourself by attempting to look like you are not tormented.

One other thing to note is that the release of Warhammer 40k Dawn of War II is due out on 2/19 for the PC only and Halo Wars is due out 3/3 for the console only. If I was really itching for a RTS right this minute I would probably go with the former since both will be the same price. If I was looking to try out RTS games for the first time I would go with the latter. And if I was really wanting to not get my panties in a bunch for needing a RTS so quickly, I would probably hold off for the release of Starcraft 2 sometime this year, probably near the November time frame. By then it will be like Blizzard saying revenge is a dish best served with laughter and giggles. Or if you want another RTS that's not a sci-fi oriented one, Empire Total War is due out on 3/3.

Five Years - David Bowie