I have I confession. I’m a turn based strategy gamer. Going back to The Ancient Art of War (1984) I’ve obsessively played most of the non-grognard computer turn based strategy and tactical games. Warlords, Sword of Aragorn, Master of Magic, Civilization, Master of Orion, you name it. Even more perverse, I spent an inordinate amount of time playing clunky multiplayer turn based strategy games. I used to run an online competitive ladder for Warlords 3 — not the Battlecry RTS nonsense, the real one from back in the late nineties.
Sure, I also played all the big RTS games, but the multiplayer never clicked for me. It all felt too arbitrary and chaotic, I felt hampered by not being able to carefully consider my actions. I knew I was missing something, but it wasn’t until I forced myself to play Starcraft II for a few weeks that it all fell into pace.
After the jump, what I was missing all these years.
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The game I was looking forward to this week is the game I’m not playing. I have no idea whether Shadows of the Damned is any good. Instead, the game I’m playing is one I fully expected would be a chore. But so far, that’s not the case. In fact, I’m about to write something I never thought I’d write:
It looks as if Fear 3 is very good.
I try to be careful with the word “very”. It’s usually verbal filler. But I’m going to leave it in that line up there. I’m five chapters into the campaign, and I’ve just dinked around with the multiplayer options. But it looks like the guys at Day 1 Studios have done a heck of a job tidying up the ways the Fear games have been dopey, focusing the design on the gunplay, and making one fine corridor shooter in the process. I’ve previously been dismissive about Fear 3 because the other Fears were so uneven. And Day 1’s last title, a dirt-based shooter called Fracture published by LucasArts, didn’t inspire much confidence that their next title would be any good. But I couldn’t be happier to eat my words! I’ll have a full review next week, but in the meantime, consider Fear 3 a clear and present danger to your wallet.
Dungeon Siege III, however, poses no such threat. Expect a full review later this week.
