DateyourGame’s Blog

In this review, I will be covering Age of Empires 3, and its expansion, the War Chiefs. Like my GalCiv2 review, I will be discussing the overall difficulty of the games, the graphic level, the playability, the differing strategies within the game, re-playability, the system specs, and the flexibility a player has.

Overall difficulty of the game (5/5)- This game is great when it comes to being for everyone. For campaigns, there are the typical easy, medium, and hard. However, when a skirmish is set up, the CPU difficulty can go from sandbox (very easy), easy, moderate, hard, and expert (very hard).

Graphic level (5/5)- The graphics, like the difficulty settings, has something for every system. You don’t need a super special awesome computer to play this game, but if you want the graphics at very high, you better have a good enough system for it. The graphics can get breathtaking in this game, but if you don’t have the system for it, stick to the lower levels.

Playability (4/5)(How well a new player can pick it up and go)

This is where these games lack a bit. There is a very, very short tutorial, and only teaches you the very basics of the game, like how to move, make a settler and attack. Depending on the player, it could take quite a bit to get used to this game.

Differing strategies (4/5)- This game has 3 main strategies. Rushing, Booming, and Turtling. Rushing is where you rush the enemy with whatever military you have very early in the game. It is best countered by a turtle. Booming is where you build a massive economy before you attack, and is best countered by a rush. Turtling is where you build a massive defense, most do not attack when they turtle. Booming is the best way to counter a turtle, as they do not attack you, leaving you wide open to build your economy.

Re-playability (4/5)- This game, although fun, will get old after a while. However, it does have the online feature which keeps it interesting. With the online feature though, if you get good, and your skill level hits 25+, you have to play a game a week to keep your skill there, so you have to keep playing to keep your rank that high, whether you want to or not.

Systems Check (5/5)- This game will run well on most systems made these days, but again there are the few exceptions. The specs are…XP or Vista, 256 MB RAM, 1.4 GHz Processor, 64 MB video card with hardware transformation and lighting capability.

Flexibility (3/5)- This game doesn’t have a great amount of flexibility for the players. With only three main strategies, an arsenal with upgrades that become obsolete very quickly, and 3 possible upgrades for each unit, there isn’t a whole lot to mess around with.

Goldenhero’s overall rating-(4.3/5) Good Game!

By: Goldenhero

Here’s my review of Galactic Civilizations 2:Dread Lords!

Basically, this is a turn based strategy game that closely resembles Civilization 4 in many ways. There is an enormous tech tree and many strategies that can be used in the game. This is a game with four different possibilities to win a game. There is the Military victory, in which you eliminate all those who oppose you. Also Diplomatic victory, which you must ally with all the nations, or ally with some and kill the rest off. Influence victory, in which you need to have 75% of the galactic influence to win. Or a technology victory, which you have to research a very long and expensive tech line, in order to obtain this victory. Along with the similarities to Civ 4, there are a ton of differences.

In GalCiv2, you can choose 9 preset Civilization, or make your own Civilization. If you choose to make your own, the possibilities are ENDLESS. Do you want a Civilization that is very populated and militaristic? Do you want a Civilization that isn’t very populated but very diplomatic? Do you want all three, and have a populated, forcefully diplomatic Civilization? You can in GalCiv2, and you can even choose what techs to start out with. Now with the preset Civilization, there is still a lot of flexibility. You can have even a preset Civilization with different abilities than another players matching Civilization. You can also choose from 5 basic ship designs for each Civilization with about 30-35 different color choices, and 5 editable color spots. But from there the strategies and ships will vary as much as the civilizations will. The shipyard feature of the game is something I have not seen in a game before, where a ship is COMPLETELY customizable by the player.

So how do I rate this game? Well I’ll break it down.
Overall difficulty of the game – (5/5) This game has a difficulty for every level of player. From the total beginner to the seasoned veteran, there is a level that will challenge everyone

Graphic Level- (3/5) This is where I feel the game is lacking. The game has decent graphics, but is not the most realistic that I’ve seen, especially in a land battle. However the graphics could be enough to cause some lag on slower systems.

Playability- (5/5) Since the word playability is very vague, I decided to narrow it down to how well a new player can pick up the game and go. In the game there is a large section of tutorials covering each aspect of the game. After watching the tutorials, a new player would be able to pick up the game very easily.

Differing Strategy- (5/5) Since this is a strategy game, I felt like I should add this rating in. With such an expansive variety of strategy in the game, including Early Game, Mid Game, and Late Game, this is easily a 5. There are so many options in the game and so many things you can do to micro manage and make sure you have an edge, its amazing.

Replayability- (5/5) One could honestly play this game for years and not get bored with it. Since there is so much you can do, and so much the computer civs will throw at you, there is never really a dull moment in the game. You are always doing something, whether it be expanding, or organizing a superior attack force, you are always doing something in the game. As such you could play this for any given amount of time and not get bored with it. There is also an online feature, called metaverse, which is the online galciv2 database. If you log into metaverse and play a game, when you finish you will have the opportunity to submit the game score online, and you can compete with other players with the games that they submit.

Systems Check- (4/5) Most systems will generally run this game very smoothly without any trouble. However, there are systems that would have trouble running this game efficiently. Sometimes when I play at a higher level of difficulty, there is lag because of how many ships there are on the map.

Flexibility- (5/5) This game is very flexible, and completely customizable by the players. From changing the civilization settings and creating your own ships, to even creating your own modification to the game code itself and posting it online for other players to use, this game can do it all.

Goldenhero’s Overall Rating : (4.6/5) Very good game!