Nintendo of course wouldn’t be beaten, and with the N64 they added not only an analog joystick, but the option for force feedback. Sony replied just as they did before; their new controller would have two sticks and two rumble motors, without the need for batteries. Thus the Dual Shock was born.

Thanks to its popularity and the ubiquity of the Playstation, the Dual Shock became the closest thing to a controller standard the industry has ever seen. It has been a source of inspiration for other consoles, and has been copied whole hog for generic PC controllers. It frequently tops lists of the best controllers of all time in major gaming publications, while also making it to many lists of the worst controllers. Love it or hate it, the Dual Shock won’t go away, so why not take a look at why we love or hate it, by taking a glance at all three Dual Shock models.

General Dual Shock Observations

Why we like it:
When I first saw the controller, my Sony hating adolescent self thought it looked like like a very unergonomic pad. Say what you will about the N64 controller’s shape, but it always fit comfortably in my hands. The Dual Shock however, looked completely utilitarian. You can easily describe it in shapes; two handles connect to two cylinders, which are connected by a rectangular bridge in the middle. Despite this, I have found that the controller is rarely uncomfortable to hold. The fact that there are four shoulder buttons also makes it easier to play games which require the use of both joysticks. The symmetry and number of inputs make the controller versatile if nothing else.

Why we hate it:
The flaws in the Dual Shock are not immediately apparent, but they very much exist. The one that most gamers may not notice is the D-pad. While once the primary input for movement, the D-pad has been largely phased out, now often used to toggle between weapons and items or other such utilitarian tasks. There are a few genres where it is still used for movement, one of them being fighting games. Fans of the genre will quickly find that the Dual Shock D-pad will kick the shit out of their thumb. Not only that, but its segmented directions are actually quite inaccurate when registering diagonals, at least compared to a circular, Saturn style D-Pad.

Furthermore, despite its general lack of use Sony has yet to take a cue from the Gamecube and Xbox and switch the left stick and the D-pad’s positions on the controller. While the locations of the two sticks is nice and symmetrical, it isn’t the most comfortable position for all hands, at least when your thumb is on it for the entirety of a game. After three console generations, the D-Pad is still getting in the way.

Also, while these days we often discuss controller buttons by their function in each game, there was a time when you had to read codes and fighting game combos as “Square, square, circle, triangle, circle, triangle”, which is about as complicated as you could get.

Dual Shock 1
The original. While Sony made a huge buzz about it during release, only a few games took great advantage of its rumble abilities, namely Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil re-releases. Joystick support was also hit or miss.

Why I like it:
The original Dual Shock is good and weighty. Whether this is due to better build quality or simply heavier parts, the pad feels like isn’t going to fall apart in your hands. Each piece feels strong and sturdy. If you attempt to disassemble one, you will find the Dual Shock 1 is locked down tightly. If you unscrew the bottom half, you will find the circuit board and buttons to be screwed into the top half from inside. The L2 and R2 buttons are also secured. This makes it a pain in the ass to take it apart, but also means that individual pieces aren’t going to move around a lot, and makes putting it back together much easier. Overall, I want to say the Dual Shock has a good build quality, but the right stick on my last one is broken, though this is likely due to dirt and gunk messing it up.

Why I don’t like it:
The analog sticks on this one are the worst Sony has ever made. They have no tension whatsoever, so using the sticks to move anything (such as characters in Final Fantasy VIII) always feels sluggish and awkward, and so I largely ignore them as directional inputs in any PS1 game

Dual Shock 2
The sequel. The ‘Shock 2 is identical in shape to its parent, though there are differences to the inputs. The face buttons are now pressure sensitive, and the analog sticks have an adjusted tension.

Why I like it:
The joysticks work much better now for control purposes. When the pressure sensitivity is used correctly, like in racing games, it becomes a great idea.

Why I don’t like it:
The pressure sensitivity is usually a load of hooey.

In all seriousness though, while I have used the Dual Shock 2 more than any other controller in recent years, I feel it is the shoddiest in the family. I have had two Dual Shock 2’s break on me, which is my current record on any console.

This means I have also had to take it apart, and the while the guts seem largely the same as before, they are put together quite differently from those in the Dual Shock 1. There are no internal screws to secure any of the parts. As soon as the bottom half is off, chances are pieces are going to fall out. The shoulder buttons are also held together by some flimsy plastic framing that I have yet to ever get to without breaking. Putting it all back together when reassembling the pad is a bear of a process. If you place the bottom half onto the top, R2 and L2 will probably fall out, and if you do the opposite, you have to make sure the shoulder buttons and their contacts fit in. The fact that each piece inside the pad is held together by nothing more than pressure is why each button seems to jiggle around a bit in a fully assembled controller, and is probably the cause of my woes.

On a whole, the Dual Shock 2 feels too flimsy and light, which is why I am taking extra care with the ones I have left. I once heard claims that the controller was made differently with the arrival of the PS2 Slim, which is where all of my controllers have come from, though I have been unable to verify this.

Dual Shock 3
Fairly new, the Dual Shock 3 is really the Sixaxis with rumble motors. We almost didn’t get this one, as Sony’s original PS3 pad looked like a batarang.

Why I like it:
The Sixaxis (and thus the DS3) was a much more ambitious change than the DS2 was. It uses Bluetooth Wireless and a rechargeable battery, and adds a new Home button in the center for use in navigating back to the PS3 main menu. The L2 and R2 buttons have no plastic casing around them, and now operate like analog triggers rather than normal buttons. Finally, the analog sticks have been tinkered with yet again. They are less stiff than before, but aren’t quite as bad as the DS1.

Why I don’t like it:
So far I don’t have any gripes about the Dual Shock 3, aside from the aforementioned D-pad issues that plague all models. All these years of evolution have payed off, as the controller has the most balanced overall feel. Both the stick sensitivity and controller weight have found a middle ground between the last two models, the new shoulder buttons are nice, and it is convenient to be able to recharge it via any USB port (it is also nice that the battery is replaceable. In a perfect world we should expect this kind of finesse, but in the console manufacturing world there can never be too many revisions.

Conclusion
This long post at selectbutton.net details some criticisms of the right analog stick and how controllers have become unnecessarily complex, a trend started in part by the Dual Shock. It is a point I can get behind. As much as a Dual Shock may make sense to my eyes, the amount of buttons and directional inputs, as well as their positions on different faces of the controller, could be boggling to many. When Sony continued to add more buttons on top of old Nintendo designs, it seemed natural and useful. But that also added complexity. As a reply in that SB thread states, GTA IV has separate controls for being on foot, in the car and to manage your cell phone. We have buttons that need two words rather than a letter to describe them, and yet we still cannot fit a game’s entire control scheme onto a pad.

And yet perhaps the Dual Shock is really a sign of control. After all, the only extra button added to the scheme isn’t even related to gameplay, meaning the controller has remained the same for ten years. Developers have added layers of context to each and every button, but is that Sony’s (and Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s) fault? Clearly developers and some gamers want more, while companies like Nintendo want less. Something has to give, and it will be interesting to see if the Dual Shock comes back for a fourth round sometimes next decade.

Dolphin sing along!

I remember the first time I played The Sims. There I was, in an apartment full of moldy food, girlfriendless, and soaking in a pool of my own urine, gleefully being much more tidy and put-together in the virtual world than I ever could be in the real one. I didn’t get it. Why was picking up virtual trash actual fun when I hated doing it in the supposedly more interesting 3 dimensional world?

Lost in Blue 3 has a lot of similarities to The Sims - one has to manage status bars by eating food and what-not - but still manages to be quite a bit less fun. But why? I mean, I don’t think picking up trash in the real world is fun, but spear-fishing? That actually seems like a lot of fun, once you get past the frustration and actually become good at it. So it stands to reason that the spear-fishing in LiB should also be quite a bit more fun than picking up trash in The Sims.

And well… actually the spear fishing is kind of fun (was I trying to make a point?). But all the other inappropriately named “mini-games” in LiB are pretty boring. Let’s return to The Sims analogy. The reason (I know I was confused before) that washing dishes is less fun in the real world is that you actually have to scrub all that encrusted ramen out of the bowl with your filthy hands, whereas in the The Sims you just click on the filth, and your hands stay (as) clean (as they were before).

LiB 3, unfortunately, makes you do all these boring tasks yourself, or as close as your DS + stylus can bring you. Boring tasks include: rubbing the ground (with a stylus) over a potato to remove said potato, rubbing the sand over a shell to remove said shell, shaking a tree from left to right, hitting the left and right screen consecutively to start a fire, and some other boring stuff.

The only reason I can think of as to why the designers would leave this stuff in is to make the game as long as possible. It is already too long. Either that, or they like giving reviewers their comeuppance by including the very things that we said made LiB 1 & 2 sub-par.

D20 in hand, I am ready to roll against any enemy.

That said, in general I like the series. Because I am a lazy and unprofessional video game reviewer (either that, or I have a real job and a social life), I haven’t actually played the second installment, but from what I can tell it’s the same as the first: namely, waaaay too much of the same routine day after day - getting water, spearing fish, getting frustrated by puzzles, and going to sleep. The 3rd one is an improvement over the 1st, in that there are fewer (if any) frustrating puzzles, and one doesn’t have to go on the same super-long journey through the same jungle mazes to advance through the game.

Instead, LiB 3 has a reasonably sized map that allows moderate exploration at your own pace. While the discoveries one makes are largely boring and unnecessary, the ability to discover new things at all is what gives the series its uniqueness and “fun,” and so it’s nice Konami was able to find a way to let you explore without having to spend an hour filling your character’s bellies with fish (as in LiB 1). Also, many of the obnoxious tasks (such as building unnecessary improvements to your cave-home) are optional.

Unfortunately, the “plot” element introduced in this installment is lazy and derivative, and largely unnecessary. I would have much rather seen some real improvements in gameplay, such as NPC’s who can figure out how to walk to the river a few yards outside your cave in order to keep themselves hydrated. Really I’d like to see more independence by the NPC’s in general, kinda like in the Sims. In fact, I’d like to see the LiB series incorporate even more Sims elements. Maybe all of them. I think I’d rather just be playing The Sims.

Killzone 2? Knew about it. Resistance 2? Looks great, but we knew about it. Resistance PSP and God of War 3? New, but not exactly shockers. Neither is a new Ratchet and Clank, even if it is a downloadable. Sony’s wares are all last year’s models, and apparently that will not fly. I think it is clear that as companies host their own mini events throughout the year, E3 is becoming less and less important for announcing ground-breaking news.

However, the culture’s mindset is still stuck on the Expo of old. Each year, E3 wanes a little more yet gamers get further steeped in predictions and speculation and hang on to every word of liveblogs. As a result, Sony and Nintendo were looked at as shameful this year by dedicated gamers, which is often more damning to a game’s success than it should be. Dennis Dyack might be nuts but he also shows just how powerful cesspools like NeoGAF are at swaying opinions and causing lost sales. Sony has a chance to do redeem themselves with future events, but that doesn’t help them in the here and now.

E3 also elucidated what gamers seem to truly value, and it isn’t pretty. Sony had a few interesting PSN games to show, but the response has been mild at best. Fat Princess may just be Capture the Flag with a twist, but a mighty twist for this PC world. Flower is a bit too similar to failed indie project Pollen Sonata, but at least it means the concept will be seeing life in some form. And while we all knew about LittleBigPlanet, the new demonstrations show a tremendous amount of potential for user generated content.

The common aspect of these games is that they are downloads, and as I have said before, it seems that the indsutry has a very short attention span when it comes to downloadable games, as if they are only worthy of a fraction of the attention that a fully priced release is granted. I find this troubling, especially when Sony’s first party teams are trying harder than ever to make something interesting and original. I know we all wanted to see a new Fumito Ueda game, but his team shouldn’t be the only one we pay attention to.

There was also the announcement of movie rentals via the Playstation Store, which earned a reception similar to vegetables being thrown at the stage. After all, the 360 has had this for a while, and now has Netflix to boot. I will give MS credit for what they have offered, but I also don’t blame Sony for waiting so long. This isn’t something like the 2.40 firmware, which introduced basic and needed usability features. The downloadable rentals on either console are no cheaper than either a Netflix subscription or a Blu Ray rental at Blockbuster. When there are cheaper and more reliable methods of getting the content, there isn’t much for me to cry over (and with ISP’s toying with bandwidth caps, I care even less). Allowing this non-game announcement to become a highlight and focus of an Expo meant to demonstrate new games is both shocking and somewhat depressing.

Lastly, as unjustified as this lack of interest may or may not be, it isn’t good for Sony no matter how you slice it. They have already lost billions, and while figuring out the finances of such a large entity is often a fool’s game, that isn’t a good sign for a company that previously had a decade plus of unrivaled dominance. Jack Tretton was quoted as saying that they have to rely on creative first party titles because they cannot afford to throw money around for exclusives. While there may be some hyperbole in there, it is still not something you want to hear. I think they are in worse shape than anyone is making them out to be, which is probably the most fucked up observation about the industry.

Nintendo had a few years during the Gamecube era where they made less gold than in the past, posted a tiny bit of loss, and suddenly every armchair analyst claimed their time had come. Meanwhile Sony can bleed cash while everyone assumes that they’ll be around for them to heckle and insult.

That isn’t guaranteed to be the case, and I think we all need to take a more realistic look at the company. That means being more critical of their bad decisions, while also being a little more fair to them when they come up with some good products. Sony has fallen down more than a few pegs in a short time, and after this E3 I have no idea if they can crawl back up. Even if they do make some knockout moves, there is no telling if they will have an effect on whatever opinions the various gaming hiveminds will cobble up.

Conclusion - tl;dr, OMG Sony has no good games.

However, I never thought I’d see what I noticed today. A man, adorned in a marginally ridiculous dark suit & bright orange tee-shirt, reading (actually, more like studying) his printed-out f.a.q / walkthrough on the train. His brow furrowed, he apparently doesn’t waste enough time playing “Metal Gear Solid: 4″ at home, and doesn’t derive enough pleasure from it while crammed into his under-lit and lonely apartment, but must try to induce further happiness by obsessing about it - grad-student-style - while on the train.

This seemed (to me, at least) strange and pathetic enough. However, he had decided to up the ante by binding it into a laminated resume-style glossy dust-jacket thing, as if he were trying to impress… who? Certainly no female would want to spent time with such an obsessive loser: “you’re preg-what? sorry, hon, I think I’m finally working out how I’m gonna defeat the Medusa-robot [or whatever the fuck that thing is called].”

Then it occurred to me that the walkthrough was in a resume-style holder because he very easily could have been applying to some sort of strategy guide publisher, which would explain why he was obsessing about it and everything. Which made me feel like a jerk, and made me realize that I was the real loser, heading out to my decidedly less fun and lower paying job than the one he was maybe applying for. Next stop: frown town.

Having a mom lead off the presentation didn’t exactly start things off with a bang (insert clever mom sex joke here). She has some fancy position like administrative vice principle of managerial accounting executive advertising president of marketing but that she was a mom was important.

Yes, for the first time ever Nintendo announced their goal of branching out to new kinds of gamers at this year’s E3. And how. Olympic Snowboarding Gold Medalist Carrot Top presented the first fun-for-everyone Wii title. Unfortunately Snowboarderz is being developed by Ubisoft so it will face fierce competition from Baby Party 08.

Next Nintendo showed some crappy third party games we already knew about that were somehow supposed to illustrate something, perhaps that the Wii has shitty third party support. Grand Theft Auto for the DS was the highlight of third party support for Nintendo systems yet nothing was shown beyond the logo.

The new Nintendo games were mostly expected. Animal Crossing Wii looks to be an enhanced port of Animal Crossing DS, which was an enhanced port of Animal Crossing GC, which was an enhanced port of Animal Forest on the Japanese N64. Back off innovation, Nintendo has clearly taken the Mario Kart route for this one.

WiiSpeak, a sort of conference call device will be apparently sold separately but be compatible with Animal Crossing. It is sort of a goofy idea but it does fit Nintendo’s focus on local multiplayer - entire rooms of people can speak to other rooms through the unit.

The big shock of the show was that Nintendo chose to “do the easy” by announcing Wii Sports: Resort, a seemingly random assortment of crap. Three games were shown and the first was by far the lamest: Disc Dog, also known as throwing a frisbee to a dog. The other sports were jet ski racing and fencing.

These games are mostly lacking the appeal of the original Wii Sports. Golf, baseball, boxing, bowling and tennis are all well liked and clearly multiplayer. Furthermore, none of those games felt like mini games. Some were shallow but they were far from Raving Rabbid nonsense. One of the three new games, dog frisbee, seems to be both single player focused and a minigame. Fencing looks the most promising of the games but who fences on beaches? The Japanese apparently.

It’s debatable that Nintendo didn’t take the easiest way out with this Wii Sports sequel because it will make use of the new remote attachment that improves accuracy. I was disappointed to hear only one dongle will come with Wii Sports 2 and more will just be sold separately. If developers are going to actually use this thing, Nintendo needs to get them into as many hands as possible, possibly by giving a free one to anyone with a Wii serial number and packing one or two in new Wii console boxes.

The last game shown was Wii Music and I am conflicted. One part of me says: How can anything that Shigeru Miyamoto himself works on intimately be bad? The other part of me (the one that makes more use of my visual and auditory processing) says: How can this game be good?

It is a music game that you cannot lose. You can’t just not lose, you cannot do anything wrong. The music always plays correctly, all you can do is change the tempo and some other little things but you will not receive any sort of score for your performances. Please games, rate me. Evaluate me. I’m ever so smart, judge me! Even Brain Training and Wii Fit pass judgment, and word on the street is they aren’t games.

Overall I am very unimpressed by the show. To rub salt in our wounds, when asked by G4 TV where the core titles were, Reggie said that he gave them to us with Animal Crossing and GTA DS. That is alarming. It’s hard to believe a company as shrewd as Nintendo doesn’t realize Animal Crossing is not particularly hardcore. And despite the dead bodies, GTA is absolutely casual and has legions of mouth breathing college boy fans to prove it.

Beyond my disappointment, it is likely Nintendo showed three of the best selling games in the next year. Animal Crossing, Wii Sports 2 and Wii Music will all sell millions of copies worldwide, so disappointed or not, gamers should acknowledge that what they may see as mediocre titles will drive the market (insert “yeah, into the ground” joke here).

Finally there is the vindicated hardcore gamer saying, “See, I told you Nintendo completely abandoned you.” This guy is an idiot. If you are him, shut up. Keep reading though, I need the hits.

Nintendo has a huge development team composed of many separate arms (or teams, if you prefer, but I already used that word in this sentence so I wanted to go with some sort of near synonym. You’d understand if you were a journalist like I am.) Intelligent Systems, Monolith, EAD, EAD Tokyo, Software Planning and Development, Retro, HAL and so forth are likely making Wii titles.

Disaster, Fatal Frame 4 and Wario Land Shake are coming soon and Kid Icarus, Punch Out and Pikmin 3 have been confirmed by so many sources that Nintendo admitting they exist seems almost unnecessary. This is probably not enough for a lot of gamers and it may not be enough for me, but Nintendo does have a healthy number of regular games coming for the Wii.

Perhaps most importantly, Iwata confirmed that the Mario team and Zelda team are both hard at work. Sequels to Mario and Zelda. Who expected that?

First, they release ANOTHER faulty patch for Civ 4. Fanboys would tell me to shut the fuck up and enjoy this wondrous bounty from Firaxis: after all, with Civ 3 Conquests they promised a patch that never came. But despite this, I can’t help but be angry that they produce another patch that is so bug-ridden it requires a user patch. After their criminal negligence with this title, the least they could do would be apply QA resources to ensure that their name is more synonymous with “quality programming” than “you suckers will buy anything we produce, ha ha ha.”

They then follow up this indignity by revealing that in addition to diverting all of their resources to Civilization Revolution, they are going to be releasing a Colonization remake. Now this sounded fun until I found it uses the Civilization 4 engine. The same engine that leaks memory (still not fixed), and has been neglected by you assholes for over six months.

Great. So not only did you neglect us, you decided to re-use the engine for another brand you own to churn out an easy unit sale from nostalgic suckers who will buy anything (myself included). The real question will be the price point—a fair $30, considering you are re-using your engine, or will you kick us in the nuts for $40, or shit on us for $50? Time will tell.

And to ice the cake, there were reports of graphical bugs in the ship version of Civilization Revolution. Fortunately, the Xbox 360 and PS3 have the ability to be patched, so Firaxis can rely on rapid patches with more bugs, that will be saved by the user community doing their job for them. Oh wait, Xbox 360 and PS3 don’t support user patching. And the DS doesn’t support any patching. Can we all say “class action lawsuit” for DS version owners? That’s gonna hurt the old bottom line.

Because I have so much pent up rage towards Firaxis (mainly because I love their products, and like Obama and McCain’s campaign efforts, I know they can be less scummy and do BETTER) this little rant wasn’t quite enough. I took it upon myself to do a little commentary on a recent “interview” based on user submitted questions with Sid Meier. I put “interview” in quotes because much like Zimbabwe’s “election” it was a travesty that betrays the refusal on the part of gaming industry’s “journalists” to ask hard questions and publish real news.

Enjoy.

You’ve watched the game industry truly evolve over the last 26 years. What excites you as a developer today?

The same things that excited me about being a developer in the early 1980s - I love to design and code games. I come to work every day and look forward to being at my keyboard writing code and iterating on whatever game we’re working on at the time. It is pretty thrilling to see how many people are playing and enjoying games today. Our industry continues to come up with new ways for people to play games – new platforms, game ideas etc. that keep things exciting and interesting…and growing. I hope to be making games forever – it’s the greatest job in the world.

Translation:
I make games and you don’t. Study hard kids, and maybe with a few lucky breaks you could be like me: tremendously successful because my name is in front of a game I haven’t actively participated in coding for fifteen years. At least, until it came time to sell out on consoles—then I got on that gravy train like a fat kid eating pocky.

Why turn your back on the largest installed base on the console landscape today, and not release the “game you always wanted to make” on the Wii? Or are you planning to release the Wii version of Civ Revolution later after all?

We’re still in the process of making decisions on that and will keep you posted. We certainly think the Wii is a fantastic system and have no intentions of turning our backs on it!

Translation:
You guys are really having trouble with the concept of “selling out,” aren’t you? As soon as we saw the average age of a Wii owner was under 16, we decided to scrap the Wii for now—but don’t worry, Civilization Revolution: My Little Pony Wars will be out soon enough. Pussy. Buy a real system.

I’ve read about your interest in possibly working on an MMO. What is your next genre of game going to be? Are you going to be making a new kind of game in the future?

I’m exploring lots of exciting ideas right now. A Civ MMO is a really intriguing idea and we’re spending time thinking about how we could make it the fun addictive experience Civ players expect. Beyond that I have some new ideas that are quite different from games I’ve made in the past – and that’s all I’m able to tell you right now. Stand by for more information in the near future!

Translation:
If you thought taking our games to consoles was a sell out move, wait till we hit MMOs. We’ve been able to thrive and flourish in an environment where our forgiving fan base lets us put out versions that are horribly bug ridden, hell, Solver and Bhruic patch them for us—so clearly MMOs are meant for us. Wait, we can’t have user patches for MMOs? Let me call up Nokia, I think the N-gage might be our next “platform play.”

What are the odds of an Alpha Centauri sequel? Who owns the license these days, and would you make it if you got the chance, or is it more Brian Reynolds’ brainchild? (And do you know if *he* would be interested in making a sequel?)

Electronic Arts owns the rights to Alpha Centauri, and we do get lots of requests from fans to make a new version. I don’t know what EA plans to do with it, but we would certainly love to make a new Alpha Centauri for today’s gamers.

Translation:
We’d happily milk this title for as much money as possible, probably using the Civilization 4 engine, a la Colonization, but EA owns the rights and failed to buy Take Two. Go complain to EA, I hear they’re a big evil company that drowns puppies and makes franchise games.

What is the most interesting ’story’ you have heard from a school that is using Civ to teach students about history?

It is pretty amazing how many teachers around the world are using Civ in the classroom to teach everything from history to communications to economics. We were hearing from so many of them that we decided to create a section on Firaxis.com called the Educator’s Exchange which provides a place for teachers to share stories and ideas about using Civ in the classroom.

I’ve heard lots of great stories, but one of my favorites came from a young teacher who I met recently at the ComicCon show in New York City. I was signing autographs and she came up to the booth and said that Civilization had saved her teaching career. She was a recent college graduate who had gotten her first job teaching freshman History at a pretty large public school. Her classes had about 30 students in each and she was really struggling with keeping them engaged and holding their attention. It was extremely frustrating and had her questioning her chosen career. She read on a forum that teachers were using Civ in the classroom to teach the topics she needed to cover and it was working really well. She happened to be a Civ player and was thrilled with the idea, but skeptical that she could make it work with her rowdy group. She decided to integrate Civ into her curriculum the following year and it worked…so well in fact, that after two years of seeing the grades of her students increase, the administration asked the other History teachers to try it too. They’re now a Civ department!

Translation:
Here’s a touching story of how a teacher in the embattled NYC Public School System weakened her curriculum by introducing video games and lax grading in the face of a horribly corrupt and abusive setup. She’s also an alcoholic. Protip: Instead of video games, China uses discipline and pain to encourage their kids to study. Children who don’t make it into a university end up in factory jobs with a life expectancy of 30. How’s that for motivation? You’ll note that their economy is growing rather well these days while we are mired in recession.

You’ve confirmed that there will be a Civilization 5 for the PC. Considering how well the development of Civ Revolution for consoles is going, do you think Civ 5 might also be released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3? Is there any reason why we can’t have epic 12 hour games on a console as well? Also, in what direction do you think Civ games will go in the future - so far it’s been about improving graphics and adding more options - where can you go from here?

That’s news to me! I’m not sure where you would have heard that, but the truth is that we haven’t confirmed that there will be a Civ V. We’ve just finished Civ Revolution and are making decisions now on what’s next for the Firaxis teams. We’ll get back to you with more information in the near future.

As for where Civ could go in the future…as I mentioned above, a Civ MMO is definitely an interesting idea and could take the game in exciting new directions. We’re still exploring those ideas.

Translation:
Seriously. Guys. You’re lucky this is a text interview because the PR person writing the answers on my behalf can’t help but smirk at your idiocy. We’d love to keep making incremental PC games, but we figured out we can bilk you assholes for a lot more money on consoles, and goddamn, if we were taking a subscription fee from you I could have my rims redone in platinum instead of gold. Based on forum research, we’ve determined 40% of you would pay us monthly no matter what, while a solid 20% of you hate us for our neglect of Civilization BTS so much you won’t buy any more of our boxed games. You do the math, or hire a Chinese kid to do it for you.

Do you agree with the phrase “Gaming is a new media, not just games” and how will gaming evolve vis-à-vis the other entertainment sources in its broadest sense (i.e. films, TV, etc.)?

That may be a bit too esoteric for me. To me, games are fun entertainment. Some designers may view it differently, but our goal when making games is to deliver a fun experience to players, so it’s not so much about the presentation of the game as it is about how a person feels when they’re playing. We keep the focus on the player and let them drive the experience. The games industry is growing exponentially and continues to capture a larger share of the consumer entertainment market. I think games will remain a permanent part of mainstream entertainment and will reside right up there with TV and movies.

Translation:
Woah there cowboy, our PR intern writing the answers hasn’t even completed college yet, and her degree is in communications, not French. Hell, she had to use thesaurus.com just to throw the word “esoteric” in so I don’t sound stupid.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make sure that the price point for Colonization is $50, even though it uses the faulty Civ 4 engine and took us all of three months to make.

Say what you will about Aerosmith, but the band fits the above description, and have been a huge influence on the rock world for better or worse. Finally, I get to say that while I like Neversoft more than a lot of gamers, there are a few kinks they need to address if they wish to continue making these themed games. GH Aerosmith is better than I expected, featuring more care and new content than I anticipated. The game is in a strange middle ground, more substantial than the miserable GH 80’s, but priced like a full fledged sequel.

If you guessed that this game would be Guitar Hero 3 with scary 3d Aerosmith models, you’re partly right. Aside from songs, all the old content is here, including characters, clothing and instruments. In addition, there are new costume colors and bonus guitars, as well as totally new venues and a new rhythm guitarist to make the band into a five piece group. There are some slight graphical improvements, and Neversoft has decided it would be nice to credit the people behind the cover tracks at the start of the song, rather than deep in the game credits. I hope that all future music games follow this lead, as it is a nice nod to the people working hard to make the music.

Interestingly enough, the issue of product placement has done a 180. Instruments aside, the only brands that are advertised are Aerosmith themselves and some real world locations like Max’s Kansas City and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which only add to the setting and context. Is this “franchise milking?” Maybe, but at least there aren’t cans of Vault soda and Axe spray littering the stage.

Of course the boys from Boston are the main feature here. The inclusion of Aerosmith means new artwork, new secret characters and some of the band’s favorite real life guitars. A series of videos about the band’s history can be unlocked. All necessary inclusions in a tribute game, but after GH 80’s you never can be too sure. All of the old modes are back, except Career co-op, but the only one with serious changes is the Career mode. It is the same rags to riches setup as you move through sets, only this time it chronicles some of the actual venues and moments of Aerosmith’s career, from their first gig at a high school all the way up to their Super Bowl performance.

Instead of the old setup of four songs and an encore, the setlists have a deliberate organization to them. Each one starts off with two songs from other bands, played by the old GH band. After finishing you get to play three with Aerosmith. It is a cute way to simulate the opening band/main act setup of real concerts, and Aerosmith will even change outfits and instruments. Aerosmith also has their own suite of animations, and while the guitarist will mostly stand in place, Steven Tyler is one of the most energetic and wild onscreen singers in the genre, and Joe Perry will occasionally bust out some moves. While touches like these have nothing to do with the music being played, they are appreciated, and at the very least show that Neversoft isn’t quite as lazy as some would believe. Also note that Guitar Battle mode is back, but only shows up once in Career.

As for the songs themselves, it goes without saying that this game is worthless if you don’t like Aerosmith. They dominate the tracklist, and offer a mix between their biggest hits and some of their lesser known works. There are some nice surprises like “Uncle Salty” and “Livin’ on the Edge,” and quite a few tunes that never get radio play. A tribute game like this begs the question of whether to cover the band’s entire catalog, to just go with the hits, or find the songs that are most enjoyable to play. Neversoft seems to have opted for the first choice, and so some of the songs feel long and mundane. On the other hand, if you do like the band, playing “Rag Doll” or “Sweet Emotion” is a blast, and evoke at least some of the old joy of playing GH for the first time. You will also find that some of the tracks have been redone, and have a longer, live concert feel to them.

The rest of the tracklist is surprisingly solid, featuring groups that Aerosmith has toured and played with. Only about four songs total are covers, and there are some real treats, including “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Sex Type Thing,” and “King of Rock,” complete with DMC to rap along with you. On the other hand, more obscure songs by Joan Jett, The Clash and Cheap Trick might not tickle everyone’s fancy.

The difficulty in Guitar Hero 3 is infamous, catering more to the Score Hero crowd than the casual market (though that didn’t stop it from being a bestseller on the Wii for months after release). That challenge has been toned down, mostly due to the nature of Aerosmith’s music. Joe Perry is much more reliant on solid riffs than ridiculous solos, and so most songs can be beaten on the first go and perfected soon after (I never failed anything on Expert). Of course, being too easy runs the risk of making the songs less interesting to play. Again, most of this comes down to how much you like the band.

As the first sample of these tribute games, one important lesson is learned The focus is so narrow with this concept that you have to make sure that fans of the band are satisfied. To do that they are simply going to have to offer more content. While this Aerosmith disc is more akin to GH 80’s it is priced like GH3 and Rock Band. While some of that price can be justified by all of the new art assets, there still should be more songs. As it stands, GH3 at the same price has almost double the songs, and is bolstered by downloads.

It isn’t that the game feels half-assed or incomplete. Quite the opposite actually. The problem seems to stem from the fact that there’s only so much you can do when focusing on one band, save going for broke and featuring, say, an entire album of songs to play. It might lessen the mainstream appeal, but you have already started down that path with this kind of game. Digging even deeper into the band is the obvious course of action. A discography or timeline, or even textual profiles of each band member would be wise features to include in future installments.

To play Devil’s Advocate, a Rock Band fan would tell you that if Harmonix was in charge of this, things would be very different, and perhaps better. The pricing of GH Aerosmith is roughly the same as three big Rock Band song packs, but it is likely that this would be made as two Aerosmith only packs, which would save money and include more instruments to play. It would also mean compatibility with both Rock Band games. This approach wouldn’t be as much of a tribute to the band, but it isn’t like Activision has been able to convince most people that GH Aerosmith is anything but a pathetic attempt at franchise milking, so that might not be a bad thing. If Neversoft were to follow the Harmonix way, future tributes would be downloadable expansions to GH4 which include the new songs and character models.

I feel it is impossible to convince anyone that this game is worthwhile, but those uninterested in franchise pissing matches will find that Guitar Hero Aerosmith is a fine rental. It seems perfect for getting some friends over on the weekend and blasting through, and if Activision somehow finds it prudent to give Neversoft a long leash with this franchise, there is hope yet.

The crux of his argument (though I recommend anyone interested listen to the entire podcast, because there are several layers of smoke and mirrors before he really gets to his point), is that the anonymity of online discussion leads to a lack of accountability, and that, coupled with the attention that such boards get from journalists and marketing organizations, is bad for the industry in general and society as a whole. It should be noted that Mr. Dyack also seems to think that message boards are “not for profit organizations,” when in reality they are simply giant internet water coolers where word of mouth propagates.

Denis made some good points about the subject, citing journalists who gave nigh-review level previews of his company’s Too Human based on unfinished code, a practice that is, to put it very mildly, irresponsible. Next he began railing against Metacritic, comparing the practice of score aggregation to IQ testing and then saying that both are arbitrary and useless (tearing down this argument is well beyond the scope of this article). The next stop was a recent post he made at NeoGAF (and the subsequent backlash). This is where he got to the heart of his rant, and where he started to go far off the reservation.

To give a little background, recently Denis called out the members of NeoGAF to “stand and be counted,” and give their absolute positions on his upcoming game Too Human. Of course the thread reached epic proportions, with everyone and their mother giving their two cents on the predicted success or failure of the upcoming title.

In the podcast, he went off on a tirade claiming that he wrote that post purely as a “social experiment,” then accusing forum goers of judging his game without having any basis for doing so. He additionally implied that no one should post their opinions of a game that they have not yet played. In this, I don’t think he could possibly have been more wrong. When you put information out there about your game- screenshots, footage, etc- you’re doing it in the hopes that it will generate positive buzz. Denis’s tirade, once you strip away the babble about anonymity and accountability, has very little merit at all. Particularly when you consider that he baited these reactions by asking for people to state how they felt about his game and then complaining that they shouldn’t be able to speculate without having played it.

He argues that people should play the game before they are allowed to express an opinion of it. This works out great for Denis, since this scenario features thousands of people buying his game in order to have the right to discuss it. Unfortunately for Denis and Silicon Knights, the average consumer doesn’t have the time or money to buy and play every last game that comes out just to have the pleasure of satisfying Dyack’s conditions for entering the conversation.

If he wants to complain about journalists acting improperly or marketing companies being lazy about their research and scouring forums for data, then those are the parties he should be consulting. Instead he’s flailing wildly, trying to prevent word of mouth from spreading.

One has to wonder if Mr. Dyack would feel quite as strongly if the forums were generating positive hype, the way he had intended.

But those details can wait for the full review. What I want to talk about is the law system. For those of you who haven’t yet played a portable Tactics, the law system is a mechanic that assigns a “law” to every battle. The laws aren’t your usual “no killing your neighbor” or “no raping your neighbor’s dog.” Instead they’re more Ivalice-relevant “no use of fire spells” or “no magic restoration items.” If you obey the law, you get bonus items at the end of the fight. In some cases, if you break the law, you fail specific quests.

This wouldn’t bother me but for two instances, one of which was annoying but possibly excusable, but a second that proves Squenix employs either sadists (possible, the Japanese have weird fetishes) or lazy programmers. The first was when the law was “no knockbacks.” That’s all well and good, at this point my party has no knockback abilities… unless we accidentally critical hit, in which case a knockback occurs. Of course, my white mage, that bastion of melee prowess, decides to critical, and of course I break the law. Since it was just a matter of bonus items, I resisted the urge to reset the game, even though the situation was ridiculous.

The second instance was inexcusable. I was in the midst of a special “clan challenge” and I had to win the battle without breaking the law. The law in this case was no targeting units that are two squares away. So I am merrily bludgeoning the enemies to death when my green mage (another bastion of melee prowess) critical hits and knocks an enemy back. And apparently, because it was knocked back a square, and thus was two squares away, I broke the law and failed the quest.

The only explanation I can imagine, beyond that Squenix is full of assholes, is that the “distance” check occurred after the knockback, and I found an obscure bug that should have been caught and fixed. Given that I’ve played the game for only three hours and already found the law system poorly implemented and negatively impacting my fun, I worry that this otherwise enjoyable game may end up under the wheels of an oncoming car as opposed in my DS being played. Or more likely, I’ll get so tired of saving before every battle and praying for critical hits to NOT happen, FF Tactics A2 will end up in a drawer collecting dust.

Four years is way, way too long a development cycle for a video game. A game takes that long only when there are serious problems afoot, and it’s been my experience that when the game is finally released those problems are still there. Sadly, Dark Sector is no exception.

I am still very keen on the premise of Dark Sector. Imagine, if you will, the fictional Eastern bloc nation of Lasria. This country is cut off from the rest of the world and left to develop advanced weapons technology and experiment with strange biological compounds. Something with regards to the latter goes wrong, killing or altering most of the poor country’s population. The game begins with the protagonist, a hard-bitten American assassin, infiltrating the country to get to the bottom of things.

Dark Sector makes use of Digital Extreme’s proprietary Evolution Engine and this is the first time we get to see it in play. It does some things rather well (lighting, particle effects, and explosions) while others could be better (enemy movement animations and textures). In a few areas, such as human faces, it’s absolute rubbish.

The main character’s head is weirdly shaped, too small, and from the sides his eyes bulge out awfully. It’s not only impossible to empathize with such a grotesque figure, you actually want to have nothing to do with him. Since this is the engine’s very first time out, these issues can be forgiven.

For reasons I don’t want to explain, the main character quickly comes into possession of a strange weapon: The Glaive. This multi-bladed boomerang actually saves the game because it handles really well, is damn effective, and improves in interesting ways as you go through the story. The glaive is quite the butcher’s tool and the removal of enemy heads and limbs makes for a satisfying bit of shrieking, bloody execution. In this, Digital Extremes did such a good job that the game has been banned in a few countries.

There are other, more conventional weapons such as machine pistols and shotguns. I was pleased to see that these secondary side arms get workouts as well. You can actually wield the Glaive in one hand and a small gun in the other and this dual action is pretty slick. The combat in Dark Sector is by far its best feature.

The game boasts a weapon upgrade system so that your firearms can get tricked out to match the increasingly powerful enemies. If you’ve played Resident Evil 4 or the newer Army of Two then you know that this kind of development can add a lot to a game. However, the Dark Sector developers totally missed the mark. The system feels like an afterthought: it’s too simple, it’s poorly implemented, and it leaves more of an impression with what it doesn’t do rather than what it does.

A game where the main character sneaks through a spooky Soviet-styled city while making contact with black market dealers and other colourful characters has a great setting just brimming with possible stories. It worked wonders for Half-Life 2. Unfortunately Dark Sector’s environments and level design are some of the most boring in memory.

The setting itself is sadly nothing but window dressing for a number of courtyards connected by side streets where you fight and fight and fight. The Lasrian city has no life and there is so little to distinguish one area from the next that you can immediately spot when they are reusing assets. There are many times when you will find yourself walking down a series of winding hallways where nothing happens. Pure speculation: I suspect this is a trick to let the computer buffer the next real encounter in order to facilitate shorter load times. The trouble is this design decision plays hell with the game’s pacing.

The story itself is meager and seems to intentionally leave out a great deal as if all will be explained in a sequel, but that scores this title no points in the here and now. The boss fights are pretty cool and a welcome addition to a genre normally lacking such battles. Some scenes have their moments and are able to convey emotion and intensity. There are graveyard and other ‘haunted’ scenes that really deliver, but for the most part the game is a fairly flat experience. Finally, there is an on-line component to Dark Sector but like so much in this game it’s too light in content to improve one’s opinion of the title.

What disappoints me most about Dark Sector is that you can see a fantastic game lost somewhere in here. If there were more to do in Lasria, if there were more people to meet and some side quests to complete, if the buying, selling, and weapons upgrading component of the game was as good as any of the games it’s trying to ape, then I would have loved this title. In the reviews I’ve read, this game was often compared to Gears of War and Resident Evil but it can not hold a candle to either.

What tipped the scales and made me buy this game at full price was that it came out of London, Ontario and I felt that if I’m going to throw my money away at least let it be to a home grown cause. Supporting Dark Sector does in fact feel something like charity and I hope that Digital Extremes realises that if they are going to make a sequel they need to rebuild almost every aspect of this game from bottom to top. I hope they give it an honest try.

Kojima is like a novel writer who refuses to use an editor, and as a result we have scenes in MGS4 where characters can’t utter an important name without five lines of setup dialogue that could only possibly benefit new players (while making the characters look stupid and veteran players feel bored). In any other medium he wouldn’t be able to get away with this and be considered one of the best in his trade. But when it comes to narrative, gaming is still a wild west, where our best isn’t nearly good enough. There are scenes in MGS4 that are great, and others that could be great if only they were roped in.

We have known for four games that Kojima loves cinema. Telling me again does nothing. Take a look at the countless pages of story analysis on the web, and it isn’t too hard to see that much of the whole MGS story was made up as they went along. Kojima wrote himself into a corner, and since MGS4 had to answer every last question, he had to cobble together even more ridiculous explanations for everything that went down. As a result, the resolutions to several major plot points are ridiculous, and others don’t make sense at all. If you don’t think too hard about it, it still works as a crazy postmodern tale, but attempt to understand every last bit of MGS lore, and you will come to think much less of it and its creator.

Long ago there was an interview with MGS1 translator Jeremy Blaustein, who had some rough words for Kojima and his message. Some were quick to call it sour grapes, but it’s hard now to believe it is all bullshit. Kojima is a bit too much of a control freak, averse to the thought of someone changing his vision, and ballsy enough to put himself in the credits as the “Voice of God.”

There is one excellent piece of criticism that a few reviews have mentioned, and that is that MGS4 is underwhelming from a technical standpoint. Each level is still separated into small, bite sized areas to ease load times. This worked in the past when Snake was sneaking room by room through an enemy compound. We tolerated it in MGS3 because it was a technical marvel on the aging PS2. Here, where Snake is supposed to be roaming across large battlefields, the constant loading not only removes much of the tension, but resets the alarm state (which I had thought we had gotten over). What should be a living, dynamic battlefield once again feels like a string of setpieces, as the battlefield the game wants to paint is held back by technical limitations. MGS4’s visuals are good without being better than the competition - not with lingering low res textures abound, and stiff character animations outside of the cutscenes.

Guns of the Patriots is a beefed up MGS game, and that is enough to keep me occupied, but there’s a sinking feeling that I should expect more from the mighty Cell chip and the Playstation 3. The same feeling goes for the 360. Maybe I fell too much for the hype, but after hearing the promises of just how powerful these consoles can be, I want their games to be more than last generation’s offerings with HD modes. Physics models are still often goofy, AI is still poor, and you can still find all sorts of tricks behind even the best graphics engines. This generation feels entirely too underwhelming, and if even Kojima and crew can’t show us the future, that may be a sign that developers really are struggling to work with these complicated, multi core setups.

Perhaps the problem shouldn’t be blamed on console hardware, but with what we are making with it. Sequels to decades old franchises are becoming the bread and butter of a console’s lineup. If this generation wants to strut its stuff, maybe it has to do so via something that doesn’t end in a 4, 5, or 6. I hesitate to say this however, as history may or may not have my back. After all, haven’t Mario and Link introduced us to new generations in the past? Haven’t they also shown us later (ie Ocarina of Time) what a console can really do?

Then again, some of the most memorable (as well as once memorable) franchises of recent memory began as new ideas on the Playstation. The PS2 was bolstered by the reinvention of GTA. The Xbox benefited from the same affect with Halo. Franchise sequels are a nice way to comfortably introduce us to a new gen, but it seems that the truly new names are the movers and shakers (since relatively few played the original GTAs, we can count 3 as a once new face).

So when the next Metal Gear Solid comes around, let us hope that Kojima takes the best ideas from Guns of the Patriots, and uses them to paint on a clean slate. I am sure there are many fans that would love to see Snake come back with some ridiculous MacGuffin. Then again, Metal Gear Solid 3 was a radical (but not complete) departure from the series’ roots, and it is arguably the best in the series. If pushed even further, I can see Kojima and company impressing us in a way not seen since MGS1. Maybe, just maybe, there is some hope for this generation after all.

It’s rare that a developer makes a platform jump like this, and even more so when they alter an existing franchise successfully. Naturally, Civ Rev is far from perfect, but it seems (at least based on initial reviews) that this jump was successful and it’s a fun game with reasonable single player appeal and a strong multiplayer mode.

What’s fascinating to observe, is that because the game is daring and fun, but flawed reviewers have no problem giving it scores in the 7-8 range. With today’s “score inflation” from the big review houses such as IGN, such a score, particularly from a well known publisher, would be considered a death knell. The truth is, at least in this case, it seems to accurately reflect the game: it’s fun, it’s solid, but it’s not exceptional.

But considering what Firaxis did, it’s a great first pass, and sets the stage for future generational improvements. However, reviewers are giving it reasonable scores BECAUSE it’s a first pass, and BECAUSE it’s daring. Because Firaxis dared to depart the PC for consoles (largely for financial reasons, but that’s a separate article), they get a score of an 8, which serves as a “pat on the back” from the review community for trying something new that would receive a mediocre score had the reviewer gone strictly “by the numbers.”

What infuriates me is that somehow this honesty can’t be found when reviewing mainstream games. GTA4 scores 10s from everyone, when the game is overly ambitious and tries too hard to be too many things and takes too long to get going. Some of the review community has had some buyer’s remorse and expressed that the reviewers may have been generous in handing out 10s. I’m not sure why it took them so long to figure this out—my guess is that they feel after a month of sales it’s OK to go against the big game company because said big game company has already collected the bulk of their sales and might be less inclined to be retaliatory—as long as the initial 10s stand.

The sad fact is that most members of the current gaming journalist community are either idiots or cowards. I can’t fully blame them—there are sufficient anecdotal tales of reviewers who are blacklisted by the industry after writing something negative. It’s bad enough that we attempt to use numbers to describe an experience, and even worse that we consider those numbers objective. But when those numbers are applied honestly only when a developer tries something new—as opposed to a sequel or double sequel or some other re-hash - it’s time for the gaming journalism community to take a long look at themselves—or time for the rest of us to stop reading their reviews.

Many have considered this a major trump card for Sony, claiming that they now offer everything that Microsoft does at no cost to the consumer. This is true only to an extent: features like achievements, custom soundtracks and an in-game system menu are offered to all 360 users. Nothing in 2.4 is reserved to Xbox Live Gold members, and so this is really Sony catching up with some of Microsoft’s basic features.

I recently chalked this up to the fact that Microsoft has spent so much time and money on Live, but if you think about it, most of Live’s features have been a part of PSN for a while now. Why it took Sony so long is beyond me, and while I am glad these changes have come around right when I bought a PS3, I must remind myself that for these were missing for the last two years. Only so many kudos can be granted.

At the very least it will be interesting to see what happens in the future. Xbox Live is looking less and less reasonable as a pay service (or perhaps PSN needs to start charging), and rumors abound that the 360 will soon be blessed with a major interface overhaul. This would make sense, and if the rumor does come true then it will help MS reestablish their dominance as the best online console experience.

I wouldn’t be surprised if future updates also added more features to make Live Gold a more enticing offer. As good as Microsoft’s position is, they are not about to lie down for Sony. Something tells me that this competition is indeed going to bring good things.

Update: Son of a bitch, firmware 2.40 is breaking things good. It looks like the crashes are caused by certain save data on individual consoles becoming corrupted. I know that mine booted up to the main menu just fine this morning, though I barely have anything on the harddrive that could be corrupted. I’ll let you know if things go wrong when I test it again.

It’s not a new game, but it’s hardly well-known. The game is said to be quite popular in its homeland of Germany, but knowing no German nor Germans, I cannot say for sure. I came across it many years ago, and after actually doing research for an article, found that it is nearly 10 years old. An expansion, The Peasants’ Rebellion, came out in English more recently, although non-German resources on it are hard to find. For its age, Knights & Merchants does its job quite well. Depending on who you ask, that job could be creating a living and breathing city, sucking your time away like a sponge, or boring you completely out of your mind.

Knights & Merchants is primarily a resource-based city sim. You build roads and buildings, and each building produces or processes something. For example, a forester’s hut produces tree trunks by chopping down trees (via its mindless slave, the forester). These trunks would then be taken over to the carpenter’s place to be turned into lumber, which is useful for several things. Through production of infrastructure necessary for the various implements of war, you can build military units which you command in a slow-paced RTS fashion.

The bulk of the game lies is in city-building. The campaign missions come in two flavors: those that are over in 5-10 minutes and focus on the battle system, and those that take 3-4 hours and require town-building followed by enemy conquering. City-building itself is quite relaxing; you simply place a building-marker someplace, create a road to it, and watch your laborers and serfs go to work. Once it’s done, train the appropriate inhabitant and he’ll go to the building and do his little production/processing routine. A fully built city, when “running”, looks vaguely like an ant farm. Serfs cart goods back and forth through the streets, laborers scurry around to build your most recently placed roads or buildings, farmers walk out to plant or harvest corn, and so on.

City-building is the best part of the game. There is a great feeling of satisfaction from watching a well-designed city run - especially if you had previously also designed cities poorly. Watching your food supplies slowly dwindle to nothing - your townspeople walking to the inn to find its stores empty, the little skulls appearing over their head telling you they’re near death - makes it clear your main enemy is more often poor planning than hostile soldiers. There’s a need to balance things, and that really appeals to the problem-solver in me. You may not be able to level up your workers, but it’s still pretty fun to try to design a city as efficiently as possible.

Unfortunately, the campaign suffers from the primary flaw of any building-sim. You start off a mission, spend hours building up a bustling city, crush your neighbors and salt their fields, and then… on to the next mission. Your well-designed city is now a thing of the past; time to build a new one from scratch! This game’s main appeal loses its luster when it needs to be done several times - and, in yet another flaw sims share, you can’t scale the entire tech tree until several missions in. By the point you have iron, for example, the first half of the tech tree will be old-hat and boring.

Combat has the potential to be interesting but is more often downright confusing. You command your archers, footmen and cavalry in groups, and they often respond sluggishly to your orders. Footmen can charge for an attack advantage, and cavalry have the mobility to flank, but often a single warrior on the edge of your formation will get sucked into battle and it becomes impossible to command that entire group. Ordering archers to attack an enemy seems to send them running in as often as it starts them shooting. Considering the slow pace, it’s not difficult once you know what you’re doing, but it lacks the strategic depth of an RTS.

I would like to mention that Knights & Merchants is also inaccurately named. Knights require so many resources they’re not really worth it; sword, shield, armor and horse are required, when other units are often just as good and don’t have eleventy bazillion requirements. Merchants, for their part, don’t even exist; your loyal townspeople do their job and expect only to be fed. I suppose “Crossbows & Cornfields” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

All told Knights & Merchants isn’t a bad game. It is a game that exemplifies both the best and the worst of the sim genre. It requires careful planning, and has a relaxed feel, but it is also repetitive in nature and lacks a clear focus. Thankfully the expansion pack offers “time compression” which makes the 2-hour missions actually a tolerable 40-50 minutes long.