|
|
 |
American Civil War (PC CD)
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
1/5 |
Bored to tears
(August 09, 2008) |
|
The pakaging on this game is so boring and uninspiring i haven't even bothered to take the disc out of its box. Game designers need to remember that they have to attract the customer from the first glance. Images of complicated game play will not do. |
|
|
4/5 |
An interesting niche
(July 05, 2008) |
|
The game in question, American Civil War, is a game that is probably not made for a mainstream audience. For starters, the manual is thick. Very very thick compared to most modern games. It is about 62 pages, all in English, which suggests just how much thought has been put into the mechanics behind this game.
The game spends no time wowing you with brilliant battles nor stunning graphics but does a brilliant job of detailing everything you need to see. The map is clear, colorful, and shows everything clearly, so getting to grips with what you can see is a doddle. The hard part is actually using this stuff. Although there is a tutorial, it is not always as clear as I would hope, and aspects of the gameplay remain a mystery to me, despite several hours unravelling the contents. For some, this may make the game experience last a pleasant few more hours, but for others, including me the game rapidly declines into tedium. I have never got my head around deeply involving strategy titles, and unfortunately this is one of those games of intense strategy.
The rules of the game, technically speaking, are simple. Win. That is all there is to it. But there is just so much to do. There are huge number of units, territories, orders to give, orders to take; not to mention the economy to get to grips with. The UI is also very intuitive, making everything you need easily accesible- helpful, when there is so much to contend with.
One slip, and you could easily lose- something that is immediately daunting to a new player to the genre.
As for the 'story' I guess the experience is for those passionate about the American Civil War. I hoped to learn something, but there isn't actually any content here to teach you or to draw you in. This game is made purely for the people who know the war, and who know it well. For everyone else with a bit of knowledge you may still enjoy it, but for others like me who don't know a thing, may want to give this game a miss.
As a way of learning the ropes of the strategy genre, this game is a definite no. But in terms of playing for enjoyment, I would give this title a try. It may not have the best playability, and the rules are perhaps a chore to learn, but for those who have a lot of time to number crunch you'd probably get something from this. For ACW afficionados, you'd be foolish to not buy it. |
|
|
1/5 |
Make sure you have higher specs than advised
(June 20, 2008) |
|
I was looking forward to this game - I haven't played a good strategy in a long time and the reviews suggested i would enjoy this one.
However I couldn't get it to run for more than few minutes even though my machine exceeds the recommended specifications. (Dell, 2GB RAM windows XP - 12 months old)
Having tried it on several friends machines all of which had the same problem - I wanted to post more a warning than a review to buyers to double-check that you can actually play it before buying it. |
|
|
3/5 |
Not impressed
(May 09, 2008) |
|
Maybe I have been spoiled over the years but I haven't seen a game look this uninspiring for years (I don't think it could have looked less up to date on my old Atari ST!)the game seems to need you to read the instructions to play (and they are quite big and bulky) and then keep referring to them throughout. I only had one go at a campaign and quite frankly I got really really bored, I have played the old school war sims over the years and some were good some were bad, but this looks like its terribly old and after games like C&C or even Total Annihilation this is awful to control and looks even older. Sorry there may be a few people out there who love this kind of game but it really just doesn't cut the mustard. |
|
|
3/5 |
serious gamers only
(April 15, 2008) |
|
This is proper strategy gaming where the thought goes into tactics and not the graphics of little men killing each-other.
For those of us brought up on Starcraft/Warcraft and more recently Company of Heroes, this is different, far more cerebral and far more complex.
Not that this is not fun in its way, but you have to enjoy the thinking more rather then moving an individual unit around a screen to see what happens.. |
|
|
|