Your overall progress in Victoria II is mostly your prestige. In 1839, as Sweden, I get a nice little prestige bump because of that chick up there. After the jump, the best use of opera in a videogame since Heroes … Continue reading →

The story of Amerikatown is the story of what makes SimCity Societies unique. Amerikatown began as a city hall at a crossroads, staffed by a handful of people from nearby apartments who drove to work every morning, stopped off at … Continue reading →

The above image is what you get when you start SimCity Societies. Basically, a gaping hole through which you can see an abandoned Facebook page that won’t even fit into the hole. The first thing you see every time you … Continue reading →

Behold the humble office building! Not too expensive, not too high an upkeep cost, not too substantial an income, not too big a footprint considering it employs 20 sims. You might think it’s a boring building. In any other game, … Continue reading →

You’d think children would be useless in SimCity Societies given its population model. When you build houses, you add people to your city. Those people visit venues — movie theaters, retail shops, bars, churches — to keep their happiness up … Continue reading →

As you may know, Electronic Arts publishes one of the worst citybuilders you can play, and one of the best. I’ve been heartily enjoying the latter now that I’m no longer playing the former. SimCity: Societies, a 2007 game created … Continue reading →

Sometimes icons pop up in your city. If you click on them, citizens offer you missions. If you accept the missions, they’re listed on the right side of the screen where your quests would go in World of Warcraft. Sometimes … Continue reading →

One of the criticisms I’ve seen of the new Tomb Raider is that the supporting characters aren’t well developed. Which is a good point if you’re comparing it to, say, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, or Mass … Continue reading →

Most videogames are power fantasies. Tomb Raider is no exception. Lara Croft has always been an action heroine, and this latest Tomb Raider is an origin story to get her to that point. However, the template this time is a … Continue reading →

The previous Lara Croft was perfectly expressed by casting Angelina Jolie for the Tomb Raider movies. Larger than life, iconic, aglow with celebrity, handy with pistols, plastically unreal. The new Lara Croft is none of those thing. This Lara Croft … Continue reading →

One of the many ways that Tomb Raider is as good as Rocksteady’s Batman games is that it’s sprinkled with collectibles. And not just haphazardly. It’s not “hey, go get me some feathers!”, a la Assassin’s Creed. Many of these … Continue reading →

There have been a few recent shooters that are supposed to put the main character through some kind of psychological terror. Far Cry 2′s hunt for the world’s most dangerous speed reader (did they only book the recording studio for … Continue reading →

We storm out of the landing craft onto the beach. German pillboxes are slaughtering soldiers left and right. The whole thing looks like something out of Saving Private Ryan. Probably because Saving Private Ryan came out only two years ago. … Continue reading →

On the second island, I finally reach my CIA contact at the US embassy. The embassy is one room in a two story apartment building, a great satirical jab at the decline of American influence in the Caribbean, or just … Continue reading →

When I drive back to the starting village in White Gold, I find a group of villagers having an informal dance party. It’s a great serendipitous moment, one more games should have. Their dance moves wouldn’t make the grinding strippers … Continue reading →