The game itself is evolutionary rather than revolutionary.  It is clearly very similar in gameplay to the Take Command games, two games I really enjoyed on release.  The graphics have been noticeably touched up, and new options have been added, but it doesn’t hide the fact that this game is very familiar.  That is no bad thing, as the original gameplay was excellent, but there are still a few things that it would have been nice to see fixed, such as the way regiments look when moving into line.  None of these are issues exactly, but they do damage the immersion to a certain extent.

Graphically, I was actually a little disappointed when I first loaded the game, as  was expecting more.  The colours to me look a little unrealistic some of the trees for example look a little fluorescent for my taste, and it makes the foliage stand out from the rest of the scenery that emphasises the 2D nature of the graphics.  That said, there are areas that are significantly improved.   Playing a multiplayer game at McPherson’s Ridge, with Confederate and Union troops firing at each other in a wheat field, looked extremely evocative, and felt right.  The graphics are moddable, and hopefully a mod will come out to address the colours.  At the end of the day it’s an improvement, but not one that would make you buy the game.

The single player game focuses on different conflicts that occurred during the overall battle, for example Colonel Vincent’s Brigade at Little Round Top.  There are Brigade, Division and Corp level scenarios available.  Sadly, there are no whole army scenarios, as the hardware is not available to handle so many troops at once.  That said, Norbsoft are opening up the option to play with the army orders of battle so it will be possible to start a custom battle with army sized forces, so you can see the slideshow for yourself, should you choose.  The scenarios included cover the major actions, and include a few “what ifs”.  At the moment you need to play the day 1 scenarios to unlock the day 2 and day 3 ones, although I am sure this will be easy to change if you find you are struggling to unlock them.

Gameplay is very similar to the previous games, and very much boils down to holding in some positions while you flank in others.  The feature that makes this game stand out is the way you command troops.  Rather than in most RTS games, where you select where troops go, here you control different leaders and give them positional and stance orders.  Those leaders then relay their own interpretation of your orders to the troops below them.  It is a much more realistic system and there are times that you are left frustrated as an incompetent subordinate totally goes against your orders.

The AI is good, both as an opponent and as a subordinate.  Generally, stupidity from either the enemy or your own troops can be put down to “realism”. Norbsoft were on to a winner when they picked this area to focus on with their game, as there is a fair chance that whatever the computer can do, someone in the actual Civil War did something far worse.  That said, the AI does tend to follow your instructions enough to make you feel in control while giving the element of randomness.  As an opponent it can be testing too, using flanking well and switching the focus of the attack from one area of the line to another.  Obviously, it also depends on what scenario you play as to how hard the challenge is.

Ultimately if you want a real challenge, multiplayer is the way to go, and for the first time it is included.  Players can either fight in teams or take on the AI, and when you get a good group playing it is a good experience.  Here also the new courier system comes into its own, as while it is fun to use in single player, it is essential in multiplayer. Players can send detailed messages asking for support, letting others know their plans etc.  It is a great feature, and again, very immersive.  Norbsoft plan to improve the multiplayer, and the potential is quite clear.

Overall, this is a great game, although not the ground breaking one it once was.  That said, even given the time that has passed since Bull Run was released, this engine is still one of the best around for wargames .  Not only that, but the maps are well designed and have a real sense of place – you can tell it’s Gettysburg, and that alone is worth the entrance fee in my book.  If you’ve never played the series, I would start with Take Command: 2nd Manassas, as it will give you a good idea of what to expect here, but it has been recently on sale for less than £5.  Given the older game’s price, it is no brainer.  That said, if you have already played and enjoyed that game, I think this one is a safe recommendation.  It’s the same, but different in enough ways to make it fresh.   In short, this is a game that will be staying on my hard drive for a long time.

The original game was a real surprise for me, having never played the board game, and I will certainly be looking forwsrd to the late 2010 release date. That said, there were a number of areas most people would agree could be improved, and it is not yet clear how much the gameplay will be effected.  I hope they take the chance to refine the game rather than not just adding new content.  If they do, they could have a real success on their hands.

The other game to be updated, this time through a new expansion pack, is Field of Glory.  A turn based strategy game, released by Slitherine, Field of Glory was critically acclaimed when released, and has received one expansion already.  Another game based on a board game, there are plans to release several further expansions down the line, and this time it is the turn of “Storm of Arrows”, focusing on armies from Western Europe from 1300 -1500 AD.    It will be interesting to see how the new content mixes with the existing content, which focuses largely on Roman era armies.  For more information look here: http://www.slitherine.com/games/stormofarrows_pc  – release is the 21/4/10 and there is a 20% discount for preorders.

You see, as I implied in my post about The Sims, there is a certain beauty in games that don’t necessarily give you specific things to do.   For me, FSX is the best game I have found so far for scratching the itch.  The Flight Simulator series is one I have watched from afar for a long time.  I have always been impressed with the whole model the world thing; the idea that in one £40 game you could fit so much, and yet somehow when I tried it I just didn’t feel immersed.  The graphics were ok, but didn’t feel quite right.  And then I saw the screenshots for FSX.

When it first came out, FSX was hugely criticised for its performance.  It ran like a three-legged tortoise, and I when I first bought it I spent ages trying to balance getting nice looking graphics with performance that didn’t rate at frames per minute.  Despite that , there were moments when I saw the potential.  But like the performance junkie I am I couldn’t feel satisfied with it not being able to get decent performance everywhere.  In other words, I spent ages tweaking the game, and even upgraded my computer.  I gained about 3 FPS.  Frustrated, I sold the game and my joystick; the game took too long to set up and play, and with my limited gaming time I couldn’t play it.

Fast forward about a year.  I’m getting the itch.  Worse still, I go on some of the forums  to look at some of the FSX screenshots.  I can’t help it, and so  I buy the game again, as well as several addons.  I also pick up another joystick. Several months later I sell it again along with the joystick.  I am an idiot.

Just recently I have purchased the game again, this time with a cheaper joystick, but one that actually works really nicely (Speedlink Black Widow), a Trackir system,  Ground Environment X and Orbx’s Pacific Northwest.  I also have picked up down the line the Orbx Australia scenery and the Tongass Fjords scenery, Real Environment X and Flight Environment X.  I have bought and sold the Switzerland X scenery, as well as a couple of planes, and a number of miscellaneous products that”improve” FSX in one way or another.

I’ve got to say that the products I have bought are mostly great, although I haven’t explored Pacifc Northwest or Ground Environment X loads yet, the graphics are outstanding.  FSX is also now reasonably playable on my rig, although it is still a bit choppy around Seattle.  Over the years I think I must have spent several hundred pounds on items for FSX, some of which I have recouped, as well as other costs, such as upgrading the computer, which have certainly been influenced by the desire to reach FPS perfection.

The irony?  I’m not actually very good at the game, and I am not a very keen flyer.  So why do I spend all of this money on this game?  Easy answer:  the experience.   I recently loaded up FSX and set up a Free Flight starting at Sitka, Alaska, one of the airports in the Tongass Fjords scenery.  The weather was overcast, but the scenery stunning.  Sitka itself is surrounded by mountains, and taking off from the airport, which is basically at sea level, is a great experience.  To the front and to the right there are mountains, behind are mountains, and to the left is open sea.  Sitka itself looks like its dangling over the edge of the world, clinging on to the small spit of land it occupies like grim death.

Once airborne, I decided I would fly some circuits, something I had never tried before.   Circuits are basically the plane equivalent of learning how to parallel park.  You take off, turn 180 degrees and fly parallel to the runway until you are far enough past it to turn 180 degrees again and land.  It is harder than it sounds if you can’t fly.   At first my landings were poor, and I was bouncing the plane a lot.  That is a bad thing and doesn’t go down well with passengers apparently.

Anyway, despite feeling like a failure I persevered.  I began to get my distances right, to turn without changing altitude, and gradually my landing got better.  It was a real “gaming moment”.  Possibly because it was taking five minutes at a time to do a circuit, and therefore the result meant more, and possibly because the location was so beautiful and relaxing to fly in, and possibly because I was seeing so much progress from putting in the practice, I had a moment where I realised I was enjoying myself more than I had done playing computer games for a long time.

FSX gives you the ultimate freedom.  You can fly to anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world. The graphics are evocative, and it is just fun to load up a game and fly around, exploring and finding new sights.  I still intend to go through the lessons one day, so that I know how to navigate properly, and what I should be saying to the flight control people.   This time I will be keeping FSX.  I have realised that even though it is not a game you can pick up for a quick play, there is no other game that gives me that sense of fulfillment and enjoyment and relaxation all at the same time, and I guess that’s why I’ve spent so much on it over the years

Anyway, for those who haven’t spotted it, which is probably most people, the first AAR of my start in Football Manager Live is available here: http://deathofpcgaming.wordpress.com/after-action-reports/football-manager-live-the-beginning/ .

Anyone who can offer technical advice as to how to get this working properly, please respond below.  Thanks.

The success of  The Sims prove how right I am; millions have bought the game, its expansions, the”stuff” packs, and yet there is no real challenger on the PC, unless you count the Singles games.  Which I don’t.  People play The Sims because the game gives them an environment where they can play with people’s lives to their heart’s content.  The game appeals to the inner voyeur in people (not me)- some enjoy creating mayhem, others like to build a family and tell a story. The sandbox nature of the game allows all sorts of scenarios, but ultimately to me the game has always felt limited, due to the small numbers of actions you can actually perform.

Take for instance romance.  You meet someone, and start talking about various things.  All the time you are watching the numbers to tell you whether she is a friend or not yet.  Once she’s a friend you can try a few new actions, until she starts to really like you.  Then you can start kissing etc.  Maybe I got lucky, but whenever I have played the Sims, relationships didn’t feel like a challenge, apart from finding  the correct sequence of prompts to get the person to like you.  Even if you do something awful, it is usually just a question of returning to doing nice things to win the person over.  I am possibly being unfair to The Sims, as even it’s biggest critics would credit it with creating a brand new genre, but it feels at times like there is no real challenge, you just decide what you want to happen and it generally does.

So what would I do to improve this?  It may sound like regression, but I’d include lots and lots of text.  In my opinion speech limits games;  the files take more space, and it generally costs more to get someone to speak lines, and so scripts become shorter to save money, time and storage.  Now if instead of doing this they spent the time writing as many lines of conversation etc as possible, the end result would be a game with a whole lot more depth and personality to it.  Imagine Oblivion without speech but with the money instead invested on giving them a variety of comments and conversations they can have with you and each other.  It would make the game a whole lot more immersive, and the characters would become easier to relate to and to care for.  Unfortunately for some reason companies are scared to lose to speech maybe because they are afraid that their key demographic can’t read?

Ultimately, Animal Crossing was a success because it had so much to it, despite the fact it was contained in such a small area.  Different things happened all the time, and different characters had lots of different comments to make, resulting in a feeling of relationships being formed.  Over time, you grew attached to certain characters, and it was sad if they decided to move away.  The variety of personalities and comments made by the characters in Animal Crossing puts Oblivion, and many other games to shame, and this works better than The Sims because you know what they’re saying.

The world added to that feeling by changing, based on the internal clock of whatever Nintendo machine you were using.  It gave variety and a feeling of progression that The Sims has never had in the same way – the Seasons expansion pack tried but it still felt like a weather machine.  Even so, I believe it was one of the more popular expansions, showing that people were keen to see the progression of seasons in game.  I hope when weather is added to The Sims 3 that the open world nature makes the addition feel more relevant.

So I guess really what I’d like to see is for someone to really improve on those aspects of Animal Crossing – the variety of actions, conversations and events, and mix in the real world setting of The Sims.  If someone got that right, I think it would sell by the barrel.   Even better, put it in a village location in rural England, and allow the player to run their own farm / village shop, while in their spare time chatting over the fence to their neighbours about how Mrs Jones from number 46 has been getting friendly with the new doctor.  Now that would be a game I’d pay to play.

It sounds quite daunting, and it will be interesting to see how the game works in practice.   Will, for example, players struggle to complete all they want to in their allotted time?  Will other players be able to come up with storylines good enough to keep each other engaged?  The simple graphics will make it easier for artistically challenged people to still create useable content, and as a by-product it will also force players to use their imaginations to fill in the details in the environments themselves.  Early previews are very positive, talking about the emotional connection of playing the game.

If the game sounds interesting, have a look at the Sleep is Death website http://sleepisdeath.net/ for a detailed explanation of the gameplay mechanics and an example of it in action.  The game is available at a $5 reduction if  you preorder – making it $9.

It is not Rohrer’s first game – he has a list of other titles, all free to download and play. One of the most well known is Passage, a game about growing old, although to sum the game up that simply does not do it justice.  If you’re not into games as art, you probably won’t be missing anything by not clicking the link.  That said, if you like games that give you something to think about, it may be worth a look.  http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/ is the link to Jason Rohrer’s earlier games.

I will be watching Sleep is Death with interest.  If it gets a good community behind it, it could be genuinely groundbreaking.

But I did.  I got an e-mail asking me to join their relaunch, and it got me interested.  At £5 per month the price suddenly looked much better, and they were trying to balance the game so that people couldn’t take advantage of the game.  Back then, people who knew a few little tricks got rich quick, and it felt unfair.  Winning wasn’t really about management, it was about knowing a few tricks, and playing 4-5-1.

Despite protestations that 4-5-1 was not a super tactic, most players played with it.  Despite trying it a couple of times, I couldn’t bring myself to play it on a regular basis.  It annoyed me that there was a formation that meant that if I didn’t play it I was disadvantaged.  It annoyed me even more that it allowed other teams to beat me by boring me to tears.  Imagine watching a George Graham Arsenal side EVERY GAME.

Anyway, as I said.  I came back to the game.  I posted on the forum and got one response that the game had improved.  As it was £5 I thought “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” and signed up.  All I can say is, what a difference.   am enjoying playing other managers with my 4-3-3 formation and having reasonable success.  I’m not the best but I’m slowly building a team that can compete against most teams I play.  The tactics I employ make a difference, and I don’t have to earn the right to use them as used to happen.  I am focusing on my strategy, and even thinking about it when I’m not playing, which tells me it’s a good game.  The problems seem to have been dealt with, and I can see myself staying long-term now.

I plan to write a short AAR detailing my re-entry into the game, but if you were in the same boat as me, and gave up, I can wholeheartedly recommend this now- it’s the game I was hoping for all along.

Anyway, I moved on to an Amiga (some great times) and then got a PC when I was 17/18 from a dodgy company that promptly went under, leaving me with a fairly unstable machine.  At the time I was a big Championship Manager fan, along with a couple of mates, and the fact I could play Championship Manager 2 was fantastic.

All along though I have heard the same old comments- PC gaming is dead, that it’s not a viable market anymore, that all the good games are on consoles etc.  And yet, the PC remains.  It is not as popular as an X-Box 360 or PS3 in terms of a gaming machine, but the PC offers something the consoles still haven’t really cracked.  Depth.

I like deep games, strategy games that don’ t involve just drawing a big rectangle around all your troops and pointing them towards the enemy.  I like RPGs where you have choice – as to what you do, who you are and where you go.  I know there are some console games that do this well, but in my opinion the PC does intelligent games better than any other medium out there.

So this blog is about the PC as a gaming machine, with reviews and news articles and comments about the latest in PC gaming.  I aim to focus on not just mainstream games, but also highlight the Indie games that provide so much innovation for PC gamers.

If you find your way here, welcome.  If the idea behind this site sounds interesting stick around and introduce yourself.