In September of last year I made a video review of Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim which you can watch here. Now I don’t want to go over the game mechanics again so if you’re unfamiliar with them then please refer to that video because this review is very much a supplement to it. In my video review I praised Majesty 2 as both a fantastic experience in its own right and a worthy and superior sequel to the original game which was always an overlooked gem in my mind. My only complaint was that it offered very little in the way of replayability and it was the random map generator that kept fans of the original game coming back for more after a decade. Well a little over five months later and we have an expansion pack for Majesty 2. Can it give the game much needed replayability or will it be done and forgotten just as quickly?

Paradox and 1C Company, two of my all time favourite companies, came together to deliver the original Majesty 2 and are also responsible for this expansion. Let me tell you what the deal is straight away. Majesty 2: Kingmaker offers you a new campaign consisting of eight missions and a map editor with which you can design your own. That is all it offers. A lot of people will already know whether they want to buy the game just from the content it delivers but for the rest of you, let me give you a more detailed analysis of this expansion pack.

There's still joy to be had from just watching your heroes do their duty.

The first thing I should get out of the way is that if you have some kind of strange goblin fetish then Majesty 2: Kingmaker is a must for you. As is staying as far away from me as possible. But yes I can’t remember the last time I saw so many goblins in a single game but they are after all your main nemesis in this new campaign which consists of five “Advanced” difficulty missions and three “Expert” ones. The interesting thing about Majesty 2 overall is that because of the nature of its gameplay you can play a scenario once and dismiss it as “impossible” only to return later and overcome it quite easily. This is because success or failure is pretty much decided by the placement of your buildings and how quickly you construct them. With a few adjustments to your city planning you can surpass any mission without too much effort. Oh and don’t be a smartass, you obviously need heroes as well.

In terms of gameplay nothing has changed in Kingmaker but since Majesty 2 was just so damn fun to play I don’t see that as a bad thing necessarily. Majesty 2 actually reminds me of a casual game in the sense that it’s a relatively simple and repetitive affair but so very, very addictive. That also has not changed here but I would argue that the missions are better designed. In the original Majesty 2 campaign the difficulty of most missions came from the fact that there was some boss character with a ludicrous number of hitpoints but in Kingmaker that is only the case in the final mission which is understandable. The new campaign can easily be finished in well under eight hours and I had little trouble at all having to restart a mission only twice during my playtime although again difficulty will change drastically depending on your style of play. There are already topics on the forums complaining about the game being too hard.

The Highlander single-handedly holds off yet another goblin horde. God bless the Hall of Lords.

What disappointed me about Majesty 2: Kingmaker is what I frankly regard as a lack of new content. There are no new units at all with the exception of the Ice Mages who only appear on a single map anyway. The rest of the missions could have been made in the original Majesty 2 but as the title suggests the main focus of this expansion is the fact that you can now craft your own scenarios. I find that a little bit odd since the inclusion of a map editor while essential for the growth of the modding community is hardly going to be a selling point for the majority of people who have neither the time nor the inclination to invest in it. Nonetheless designing a map editor that is both detailed and easy to use is no easy feat and 1C Company have certainly succeeded in doing that.

It might just be my review copy of the game but when Majesty 2: Kingmaker is minimised the tab on the taskbar reads “Majesty 2 Expansion 1” which obviously implies that more are to come and I certainly hope that is the case but they really need to focus on giving the player more gameplay options next time. I’m thinking of maps so gigantic that you’d need to pay heroes a fortune to explore them. I’m thinking of ways that players can customise their kingdom, perhaps I want my realm to be the beating heart of evil within the land with ghostly tax collectors and skeletal guardsmen to keep the downtrodden peasantry terrified in their crumbling shacks. I’m thinking of new hero types and divisions of hero types like mages who belong to opposing circles of magic. I’m thinking of heroes with their own ambitions and goals which will be yet another influence in whether they respond to certain flags or not. I’m thinking of relationships between heroes which perhaps can break down to the extent they will hate each other and refuse to work together. I’m thinking of that girl I fancied in college lying naked in front of me. I’m thinking… I need to get some sleep soon.

The goblins of Majesty 2 love pumpkins and this makes them awesome.

What I’m saying is that diversity is what Majesty 2 needs most of all now. It’s true that you can experiment by recruiting different combinations of hero but the fact is that more often than not this results in failure rather than an interesting new way to achieve victory. In the original Majesty you were given certain choices like building either dwarves, gnomes or elves and not only was this an interesting choice to make but it had real consequences for your kingdom. That is the kind of thing that Majesty 2 needs, far more variety in the units available and real reasons and implications in choosing to create those units.

If you watched my video review of Majesty 2 then you’ll know that I’m a massive fan and supporter of the series and I truly want it to succeed and expand. But as a reviewer who tries not to be influenced by such things, I cannot honestly say that Majesty 2: Kingmaker is a must buy for owners of the original. It is precisely “more of the same” so whether it is worth your cash or not depends entirely on how much you enjoyed the main title. Personally I loved every second of Kingmaker and would have happily forked out for it had I not been sent it for review. All I will say to 1C Company and Paradox is “more please”. In the meantime, no doubt the lads over at ParadoxPlaza have got plenty of Majesty 2 projects brewing.

Final Score – 4/5: As cliched as this statement is, if you enjoyed the original game then you’ll enjoy this.

I’ve never been a man anyone could described as “trendy”. When I’m not walking the streets wearing a purple chimp badge I’m either sitting listening to my Bowie dominated playlist or watching some cult film or other. So when James told me that the game of Murder, She Wrote was on his schedule I leapt for joy and readily agreed to review it myself because you know what? I bloody love Murder, She Wrote and I don’t give a damn who knows it.

Of course this is Murder, She Wrote the game coming twenty-six years after the TV show began so there was every chance that this was some cynical attempt to cash-in on a well known series with a game that just so happens to also be about investigating murders. All you need to make a game and then claim it’s “based” on a film or TV series is a vaguely similar concept, the well known theme from the movie or show and characters that resemble its stars. It’s not a difficult thing to accomplish and we’ve seen countless examples of mediocre games trying to live off the strength of a franchise name and I really hoped this was not one of them.

The presentation of Murder, She Wrote is excellent throughout.

One of the first thing you have to ask yourself about this title is, who exactly is it aimed at? With the exception of oddballs like myself there’s just no way that hardcore gamers are going to rush out to get their hands on a hidden object game based on Murder, She Wrote, a series featuring an elderly female sleuth. No this is the kind of game that a well-intentioned mother goes out and buys for her son having no idea that what he really wants is Command & Conquer 4. This is a casual game aimed squarely at the casual market but we all know how vulnerable even us hardcore gamers can be to the charms of digital cocaine so don’t dismiss Murder, She Wrote out of hand.

It features five separate investigations each of them being unlocked after the completion of its predecessor. All of these consist of Where’s Wally? (Waldo for American readers) style searches in beautifully rendered locations for a variety of objects the majority of which are completely random and have no relevance to the case at hand. The hidden objects are listed down the left hand side of the screen although start with letters missing which you can replace by finding the appropriate typewriter key in the scene. Sometimes you’ll be required to solve puzzles in order to progress and these range from simple spot the difference affairs to more complicated ones where you have to identify the correct item from a series of others by a process of elimination using clues. There are a nice variety of puzzles and all of them are entirely logical within the context of the plot and satisfying to finish.

Every enviroment is gorgeous which is just as well given the time you'll spend staring at them.

Speaking of the plot, Legacy Interactive have done a perfect job of invoking the spirit of Murder, She Wrote with stories that are laid out in the exact format as the episodes of the TV show to the extent that the game even includes the flashbacks of the killer committing the crime as they confess to it. I’d go so far as to say that this is the next best thing to a new season of the show. Important characters like Dr. Seth Hazlitt and incompetent Sheriff Mort Metzger make various appearances although neither they nor Jessica Fletcher herself are voiced by the original cast but the voice acting is decent enough throughout. The story surrounding each investigation is well told, involves multiple individuals and provides twists without making things overly complicated or irrational.

My sole problem with Murder, She Wrote is how easy it is. You can choose to play the game in either “timed” or “relaxed” mode with the former imposing a twenty minute time limit for each scene of investigation. I had hoped that this generous limit would decrease as the game went on but it was not to be and this makes failure almost impossible as I never spent longer than seven minutes in any location and even then I was taking things slowly. If you click too many times on objects that cannot be picked up then your cursor will spin for a few seconds and this is clearly meant to waste precious time but the fact is that time isn’t precious at all, it’s abundant. Occasionally you can also get “hints” which reveal the location of a random object and you can also receive one of these by finding hidden typewriter ribbons. The countdown will also often pause during puzzle segments which can be skipped at will anyway.

A fine example of the kind of puzzle you'll be expected to solve.

Murder, She Wrote may be a casual game destined to be played by people who aren’t looking for a hard time but it wouldn’t have been difficult for Legacy Interactive to implement some options that allow for a more challenging experience. Even something as simple as allowing for a shorter time limit would have been enough to increase the pressure and therefore the tension of the game. Ideally though there should be a whole host of options to disable hints, increase the difficulty of the hidden object scenes, give the puzzle segments their own time limit, make them unskippable etc. I also originally hoped that you might have to deduce who the killer is yourself from everything you’d learned during the investigation but alas, this was not to be.

What we have here then is a simple hidden object game that does a superb job of doing what it does. It just doesn’t do quite enough for my liking. As a Murder, She Wrote game it is excellent and if you’re a fan of the series desperate for more adventures with Jessica Fletcher then this game will definitely not disappoint. It took me under five hours to finish the game which sounds really short but most people won’t play it through in a single sitting like I did and for the asking price of £6.65 ($9.99) from Legacy Interactive’s website there really is nothing to complain about.

Final Score – 4/5: Murder, She Wrote is one of the best examples of the hidden object genre and totally faithful to the TV series. I just hope that a sequel appears to improve on an already great game.

Freedom of expression is possibly one of the greatest things about the internet. The ability to be who you want to be and say what you want to say and to mix with individuals being and saying exactly what they wish is something that should be highly prized and indeed zealously protected. However on the 17^th of March WorldNetDaily brought to us news that Microsoft had disallowed an Xbox LIVE username titled “mpeach obama21” on the grounds that it might cause offense and if that doesn’t sound silly enough then wait until you hear the justification Xbox LIVE gave for this decision.

Now I think that most of us would agree that freedom of speech should carry with it a certain amount of responsibility. Racial slurs and other discriminatory usernames are clearly only chosen with the intent of inflaming and offending, but how would a company explain not allowing an account by the name of “mpeach obama21”? Well if that company were Microsoft they’d apparently explain it in the following way.

“This name is actually, it’s not likeable,” Jordan, a Microsoft Xbox LIVE spokesman said to WorldNetDaily. “If you were Obama, what would you feel if you saw this?”

When I first read the article, I automatically assumed it was some kind of joke, but tragically it isn’t. I shouldn’t have to explain why the Microsoft spokesman’s closing question is ludicrous but since this is the internet, I will. Any public figure has to accept the fact that they are going to be subject to public scrutiny and when we’re talking about political figures it’s essential that they are. The fact that we in the Western World have the freedom to question or even criticise our leaders is what makes our respective democracies so great. Now I could quote any number of founding fathers and countless other historical figures to explain why censoring dissenting voices for the sake of what has become known as “Political Correctness” is a bad and indeed a very dangerous thing but if I actually need to do that then I will truly lose all hope for humanity.

Do you know how devastated the most powerful man in the world would be if he found out a 15 year old wanted him impeached?

Now some might say “well it’s just a gaming account so frankly who cares?” but this attitude misses the point for a couple of reasons. First of all, it implies that certain venues are or should be allowed a wider range of freedoms than others and secondly, the Xbox LIVE Code of Conduct was recently altered to allow tags making reference to a users sexual orientation. My question is, aren’t your political views every bit as much of who you are as your sexual orientation, and if so, is that something that should be censored because other people might disagree with it?

WorldNetDaily asked Jordan whether the Xbox policy prohibits political speech (which it doesn’t) and he replied with, “Well it doesn’t actually say anything about politics, but it could pertain to historical events.”

The Xbox LIVE policy dealing with “historical events” states, “Don’t create a gamertag, profile content, or in-game content that references controversial religious topics, notorious people, organizations, or sensitive current or historical events that may also be considered inappropriate.”

Leaving aside the fact that Jordan himself doesn’t sound too certain of what exactly the justification for banning the gamertag should be, is there a single person out there who believes that the username “mpeach obama21” in any way fits into the above policy description?

The account in question belonged to a 15 year old who wanted it reinstated because “it’s the principle of the thing”. His father, Chad Willis, also has strong views on Microsoft’s decision stating, “This just confirms my resolve in making sure that my family and friends are aware of the collusion, albeit veiled, between Microsoft and the current occupant of the White House.” Microsoft Xbox LIVE have refused to reinstate the name.

Personally, I think that the name “mpeach obama21” being used by a 15 year old on Xbox LIVE is silly and it’s not a sentiment I agree with politically speaking and nor do I have any comment on his father’s implied conspiracy theory because frankly I don’t know enough about what he is referring to. But you know what? None of that matters because like the kid himself said, “it’s the principle of the thing”. How much you or I might disagree with the title of the gamertag is completely irrelevant, the point is that a political statement is being suppressed for the sake of political correctness and no matter how insignificant an Xbox LIVE username might be, if history has taught us anything it’s that censorship of this kind leads us onto a slippery slope. A slope that descends into places we really don’t want to go.

In other words Microsoft… just give the kid his damn gamertag back and stop going along with this suffocating nanny state that has been creeping up on us in the last two decades.

So what do you make of Microsoft’s Decision? Silly censorship or justifiable safeguarding? Comment below.

I made this review about a year ago and thought it could find a home here on Wedotech. So enjoy my review of Highlander A.K.A. the best film ever made.

Napoleon: Total War, another disappointment or a return to form?

Congratulations to the winner and thank you to everyone who paticipated. Keep an eye on Wedotech for more competitions in the very near future and check out the forums for some excellent prizes currently on offer.

Yes that’s right. No, I didn’t know anyone was competing to be the best in the world at Donkey Kong either but it definately makes me feel better about my Golden Axe obsession. Billy Mitchell (probably not the brother of Grant and Phil) previously held the record after achieving a score of 1,050,200 back in 2007 but Hank Chien of New York bested that with a score of 1,061,700 on an arcade cabinet in his home city.

No-one makes a monkey out of Hank Chien.

Chien’s interest became aroused after first seeing the popular documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters which portrayed the struggle between Billy Mitchell and another former record holder Steven Wiebe. “I remember the exact day I knew I could get the world record: September 13, 2009,” Chien said in an interview with record keeping organisation Twin Galaxies. “That was the day I first broke a million on Donkey Kong to reach 1,037, 700. I didn’t even realise how close I was to the world record. I was going on a business trip that day and had a flight to catch, but I had about two hours to kill and figured I had enough time for one game. So I fired up my Donkey Kong machine, and on my first game, boom! Too bad getting 1,000,000 takes about 2 1/2 hours.”

What I love best about this story is the fact that Chien is actually a plastic surgeon which generally means being a very busy and very wealthy individual. I like it that he took time out of his schedule to beat the world record on Donkey Kong. Well fair play, congratulations to Hank Chien! My advice would be to celebrate this achievement and go absolutely ape. Sorry.

The new cutting edge strategy game from UBIsoft is yours to play for free in a matter of hours. R.U.S.E promises to refresh the genre using cutting edge technology and by allowing you to employ all manner of deceptive techniques in order to defeat your opponents. Nevermind the hype though, get yourself to Steam now and prepare to join the free public beta and discover the world of R.U.S.E for yourself, Click Here

My love for hardcore PC strategy and role-playing games does condemn me to obscurity somewhat but when I see the kind of retarded comments left for my colleagues whenever they write a piece regarding the latest console hit it doesn’t bother me as much. In fact I find the implied elitism of my position very appealing, like I’m one of a rare breed who can deal with the kind of hardcore games that are produced by smaller developers with those fanatically loyal fan bases. So when James bemoaned the fact that he just couldn’t get to grips with Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 I chuckled to myself and told him to send it up my way like the mentor figure I am to him. But having now actually played the game all I can say is… someone load up Halo Wars.

Before I begin let me just say that Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 will definitely find fans so if you’re one of them before you smash into my home with a tank please consider that I review games for everybody and not just the hardcore despite how it may seem looking at my work on Wedotech thus far. Theatre of War 2 is nothing if not a title aiming at a niche market, namely people who demand absolute historical accuracy and realism from their war games. I’m certainly not opposed to historical accuracy or realism but the problem with Theatre of War 2 is that it’s just so completely inaccessible to anyone not familiar with the series or whose favourite films aren’t Das Boot and Downfall.

Hellish warzones await if you can endure the learning "bootcamp".

There is a tutorial but it may as well not exist because it doesn’t so much tell you how to play the game as give you very simple objectives that anyone who has played an RTS in their life will be able to achieve. It fails to instruct you in the unique ways of Theatre of War 2, it just tells you to do something without telling you how. Use smoke grenades to conceal my advance? Fine but how do I do that exactly? You might as well just start a campaign immediately and have the lovely, glossy, full-colour manual to hand. Not that newcomers’ troubles will then be over, far from it because whether you elect to play as the United States, Great Britain or Germany you’re still in for a rough learning experience.

I decided to begin playing as the Axis forces and my first mission was to take control of a small settlement which seemed simple enough but the moment I moved my troops forward from their starting position they started getting picked off and I didn’t have a clue what I was meant to do about it. Eventually I reached some Allied trenches having lost a lot of brave men and ordered my remaining soldiers to “storm” them having no idea if this was the best action to take. Everything I did was just plain guesswork and take my word for it, playing blindly like this is not fun and certainly not what should be expected of a player. Maybe 1C Company are only interested in appealing to their niche market and don’t really care about the generally average scores that sites and publications have been pinning on Theatre of War 2 but it’s such a waste. If the game wasn’t so unfriendly and unforgiving on newcomers then I can imagine it reaching a far wider audience.

My ill-fated infantry storm the Allied trenches.

There’s no two ways about it, if you intend to play Theatre of War 2 then you have to buckle down and read the manual. No not the beautiful one provided in the game case but the pdf file that installed with the game. Having done this you will uncover a highly intricate game that has been lavished with incredible detail but the trouble is, some of us have lives and can’t spend the required amount of time studying a game before we play it. Believe me I understand perfectly well when fans of a series complain about it being dumbed down to appeal to a larger audience, I’ve been in this position many times myself. I’m not asking for Theatre of War 2 to be toned down so that stupid people can just pick it up and enjoy it, just that it provide a decent in game tutorial and that’s definitely not an unreasonable request. I know I’m labouring this point but that’s only because it’s undoubtedly the biggest hurdle anyone will have trying to enjoy the game.

There are a wide range of unit types at your disposal and each individual soldier has a name making it all the more tragic when they take a bullet. Every infantryman also has their own inventory and can scavenge the warzone for weaponry and ammunition which makes Theatre of War 2 a somewhat more dynamic experience than your average RTS. Your sniper finished picking off enemy soldiers? Then have him pick up that bazooka and take out the approaching truck. A variety of tanks and other vehicles can be brought to the field or even commandeered from enemy ownership and it goes without saying that each of these has their own strengths and weaknesses. Add artillery into the mix and you pretty much have an armchair general’s dream. Clicking on a unit will bring up their statistics and clearly show any damage or injuries they have incurred. Whenever one of your soldiers dies or machines is destroyed or disabled the game will pause and jump to its location which can be highly annoying when you’re trying to concentrate on another area of the battlefield.

"Don't weep for Marty lads, we'll soon be joining him."

The graphics are quite good and while the sound of gunshots and explosions is satisfying the voice acting is just terrible. Honestly I’ve heard dying men deliver lines with more enthusiasm than your superiors do in this game. A lot of reviewers have complained about the lack of music but actually I like that, it fits in with the whole “ultra realistic and deadly serious” vibe. I really cannot imagine what kind of music could be used in Theatre of War 2 without making it seem Saving Private Ryan cheesy or just completely inappropriate. No this is the kind of game you sit down with a glass of port and cigar to play, pausing every so often to issue orders to your forces and to consider your next tactic. If the Command & Conquer series are skinheads raving and vomiting over each other then the Theatre of War games are gentlemen wearing monocles and top hats, driving by with their noses upturned at the ghastly scene.

Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 offers gamers the chance to participate in yet another World War 2 RTS but this time in an oft overlooked arena and that fact alone will make it an essential purchase for enthusiasts. Unfortunately this is a game that you really have to invest a considerable amount of time getting used to if you’re not already familiar with the series and it’s definitely not something I’d recommend to the average strategy buff hankering for the next challenge. The price of admission is far too high as the game ultimately delivers a very limited experience and while it does offer a multiplayer option there is no custom game feature whatsoever. Theatre of War 2 also makes use of Starforce protection which means that you must register the serial number online to play and can only do so a limited number of times which is actually the best reason you shouldn’t buy it. The people who want to play this game are already well aware of it and have probably already made their purchase, but everyone else can safely pass on this one.

Final Score – 2/5: Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 is like a big dog you want to stroke but which keeps biting you when you try and is really a bit of a mutt anyway.

Here is the link to the review of XIII Century: Blood of Europe: http://wedonetwork.co.uk/wedotech/2010/03/05/xiii-century-blood-of-europe-pc-review/

Here is the place to post your competition entry so what are you waiting for?! http://www.wedonetwork.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=341

Want to be part of a world record breaking attempt? Then grab your Nintendo DS (all DS formats are valid) and head down to the London MCM Expo on the 29^th of May 2010. The goal is to hold the largest handheld game console part in the world, a record currently held by Australia and set back in October of 2007.

The record attempt will be held at noon in the MCM Expo Theatre and there are no forms to sign on the day, all you have to do to take part is show up with your DS. The record will be completed by 12:30 and fantastic random prizes will be handed out during the event.

London MCM Expo is the current holder of the Guinness World Record for the Largest Gathering of People in Costumes form a Video Game. If you’re interested in participating in this new record breaking attempt, then click here to let them know: http://www.londonexpo.com/nintendo_ds_guinness_world_record.html

I had XIII Century: Blood of Europe sitting here neglected for over a week while I attended to other work but I was absolutely dying to play it. For some reason I was really in the mood for medieval warfare on a grand scale and the box promised to sate my desire with a high degree of realism, accurately recreated battlefields and a system of psychology for troops. It seemed like just the ticket but of course any battle simulator released in the modern day is going to be competing with the Total War series so how does XIII Century: Blood of Europe compare and did it satisfy my lust for glorious battle?

This is yet another 1C Company release developed by Unicorn Games so right away you know that it just isn’t going to display the grandeur of the Total War games with the developers working with far more limited means. Luckily for Unicorn Games, all the glitz and glamour in the world cannot distract strategy gamers from the fact that the AI of the Total War games is actually pretty poor and offers armchair generals very little in the way of a continual challenge. I’ve been saying for a long time that Creative Assembly need strong competition to force them to get their act together and while XIII Century: Blood of Europe has no hope of competing with them in terms of sales, it could potentially show budding tacticians that there do exist better alternatives out there and get the ball rolling.

Prepare for epic warfare.

XIII Century: Blood of Europe offers gamers the titular Blood of Europe campaign, five further campaigns as either England, France, Germany, Russia or the Mongolians as well as several bonus battles that must first be unlocked. There is also a custom game option that allows you to tailor the kind of battle you’ll be fighting in good detail, select from a variety of preset battlefields and includes a random map generator, something which should be included in all strategy games by law. So right there Blood of Europe offers almost unlimited replay value and I haven’t even touched upon the multiplayer options. The question is, would you want to replay the game?

If you’re a veteran of the Total War series as I am you’ll certainly get to grips with Blood of Europe quickly enough because the interface is almost identical but don’t fool yourself into thinking that just because you can win a heroic victory every time in Creative Assembly’s offerings that you’re going to have any easy wins here. Make no mistake about it, Blood of Europe is a hard game and not one you can just sit down and plough through half-heartedly. If you intend to emerge victorious you need to sit down, focus and seriously consider your tactics for the coming battle because not one of them will be a walkover. You won’t be playing battle after battle here, they’re demanding and you’ll likely stop for a break after each one to reflect upon all that came to pass.

Unlike in the Total War games, battles here don't always descend into giant scrums.

The Blood of Europe campaign chronicles the great battles of Dovmont, Knyaz of Pskov, the famous Russian ruler. With each success you gain money that you can then use to train new or upgrade existing troops for the next conflict but I have to be honest, the campaign is so hard I never made it past the first battle in which you’re outnumbered ten to one. The battles you play in the other campaigns are essentially the most infamous 13th century engagements of the nation you have chosen and you are this time given a premade army to deploy. Although these campaigns have a far more sane difficulty curve they quickly become hard in the extreme as well. I don’t have a problem with the level of challenge the game presents though, quite the opposite, it only increases the replayablity of the title further and I can see myself returning time and time again to once again attempt to overcome my dastardly foes.

XIII Century: Blood of Europe and the other games in the series have clearly taken more than a few cues from their greatest rival and the battles will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played a Total War game since Rome: Total War was released. At the beginning of each encounter you have a chance to place your troops anywhere behind a certain boundary. Once your army has been deployed the battle plays out in real time although you can thankfully fast-forward gameplay so you won’t be sitting there waiting too long as soldiers march into position. There are a myriad of tactical options available for each unit including actions like close formation, hold position, fire at will and there are also an incredible amount of statistics on hand to clearly display everything you could possibly want to know from how much experience a regiment has, how good their weapons and armour are to what the status of their morale is.

"Could you boys possibly get any closer to your target?"

Fighting follows the traditional rock, paper, scissors dynamic with spear units annihilating cavalry, cavalry decimating archers and so on which is to be expected since that’s how it was in real life too. Unit psychology has also been very nicely modelled with regiments panicking and running for their lives when the odds seem too stacked against them and staying to fight until the bitter end if they’re experienced and heartened enough. One area where XIII Century: Blood of Europe absolutely embarrasses the Total War games is in how big a role terrain plays throughout the course of a battle. Marshes will bog troops down, elevated positions will make archers lethal and woods are a nightmare for cavalry. As a tactical experience, Blood of Europe is far superior to anything Creative Assembly have produced in the last eight years.

Alas the game is also not without its flaws, few and minor as they may be. Using the keyboard to scroll around the map feels stiff and jumping from direction to direction too swiftly will cause the camera to stop dead while it registers the new key press making fluid movement impossible. This can really frustrate in the heat of battle when you really want to be moving around to see to your troops quickly. Of course you can also pause the game to issue orders and configure your units which lessens the seriousness of this issue considerably and pausing is pretty much essential if you hope to have any degree of control over the chaotic carnage. Enemy troops moving far away appear to jump rather than travel smoothly until they get within a certain distance of the camera, this is an extremely minor and superficial quibble but it can be quite distracting. Finally, the graphics are rather ugly on close inspection even with all settings at their highest. I already acknowledged that we were looking at a work of limited resources here but neither the textures nor the models can compete with those of Medieval 2: Total War from four years ago.

Charging horses and poised spears were not known to get along well.

Naturally the one area that Blood of Europe can’t rival with the Total War games is in their unique blend of turn-based strategy and real time battles because it only consists of the latter. However it feels immediately gratifying to have massive armies at your disposal as opposed to having to slowly build your empire to obtain them. Ultimately though it’s a moot point, Blood of Europe isn’t even trying to compete in this area, it simply offers players the opportunity to partake in some well known historical battles not run an empire. I bring it up here only to clarify the situation for any potential buyers and to put to bed an argument that will inevitably be made against Blood of Europe in that particular war.

Unicorn Games have succeeded in developing a game with a huge degree of tactical depth that simply lacks the shine of its peers. XIII Century: Blood of Europe can therefore feel like a rough experience but it’s always a satisfying one. When we compare it with the battles of the Total War series what we basically have is a classic case of brains versus beauty and personally, I’m opting for brains every single time. Yeah so Blood of Europe isn’t the prettiest of games but the conflicts are usually so large scale that very rarely will you be zoomed in far enough to notice. The fact of the matter is that it offers a genuine tactical challenge within the context of painfully recreated historical scenarios and I haven’t had so much fun with a game in a long time. There is actually a Gold edition available that includes additional battles and I’ve already decided to break open my coffers to purchase it and if I’m willing to spend my own coin for more of the same, you can guarantee that the “same” is pretty damn excellent.

Final Score – 4/5: XIII Century: Blood of Europe is a tremendous and challenging game that offers near limitless replayability but just lacks the sparkle and finesse of larger titles. Overall, this one’s a champion.

Dinglepharb Studios today announced that it was bringing the incredibly popular Chinese casual game VVDragon to the rest of the world with Woldtown, a colourful, friendly and free to play social game that will be coming to Facebook in the Spring of 2010.

“We have seen an incredible response to VVDragon thus far in China, and we can’t wait to bring this level of excitement and enthusiasm to Facebook users worldwide,” said Nathan Agulto, CEO of Dinglepharb Studios. “Kids will love Woldtown due to its friendly characters and bright, vibrant colours and older gamers will love the 3D environment, addicting mini-games and outfitting their avatar and home.”

Woldtown is a full virtual world ready for you to explore! Hailing from the beautiful planet Kream at the opposite end of the universe, the Wolds are a race of miniature, magical dragons. They possess the ability to fly, morph into all kinds of different objects, and love to throw pies at each other! But back on Earth, the evil Dr. Boring has been watching the Wolds through his Boriscope and desires the Wolds’ magical power for himself! In an attempt to bring the magic Krystal that gives the Wolds their powers back to Earth, Dr. Boring also accidentally brought back 24 Wolds. Once landing on Earth, the Krystal shattered into 1,000 pieces all over Woldtown – the Wolds must find all these pieces before Dr. Boring and his henchman to save their magic and prevent Earth from falling under Dr. Boring’s rule!

Play as one of 24 Wold avatars, earning WoldCash currency through a series of jobs, quests and exceptional mini-games, which can be used to buy upgrades for both your Wold and your Wold’s home. Explore the over 100 unique and fun locations that Woldtown offers, all in full 3D and all for free. Play online with your Facebook friends, but watch out for flying pies! Use WoldCash to upgrade your pies, throwing abilities, and even buy shields to protect you from your friend’s pies!

Well I know more than a few people who are going to be addicted to this game when it’s released. For further information on Woldtown please visit the Facebook fan page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/DinglePharb-Studios/264707017772

For more information on Dinglepharb Studios please visit their website here: http://www.dinglepharb.com/

Two days ago we brought you news of Ignition Entertainment and Zombie Studio’s new project, the forthcoming downloadable Blacklight: Tango down for the Xbox LIVE Arcade, the Playstation Network and the PC. Today we have some gorgeous screenshots for you and even the very first gameplay trailer. Enjoy!

Exciting time for the industry as gaming culture takes over Tate Britain on March 5th 2010. From low-tech parlour games Charades and Werewolf, to performance and interactive media art with Blast Theory’s Can You See Me Now? Plus talks from presenters of Resonance FM’s One Life Left Ste Curran and Simon Byron, and experimental music from David Toop and Unknown Devices: Laptop Orchestra – it’s all to play for.

Entry is free, and the full programme is as follows:

Video Games

North and South Duveens

18.30 -21.30

Play a selection of video games chosen by presenters of Resonance FM’s One Life Left, Ste Curran and Simon Byron, projected in the Duveen Galleries.

South Duveens terminal:

• Chime
• Rez HD
• Samurai Shodown Sen

North Duveens terminal:

• Flower
• Heavy Rain
• DJ Hero

Can You See Me Now?

Manton Foyer and around the Gallery

18.30 – 21.30

Artists’ company Blast Theory has created a game happening simultaneously online and in the streets surrounding Tate Britain and Chelsea College of Art & Design. Players online and on the Manton Foyer computer terminals are chased by the Blast Theory runners, tracked by satellites on a virtual map.

Parlour Games

Collection galleries

18.30 -21.30

Test your acting, drawing and detective skills, and get involved in some good old-fashioned parlour games in the Collection galleries.

• Room 3 – Speed Charades with Lady Evelyn Ware and Baron Lachimo Lavine
• Room 4 – Win Lose or Draw with Stephanie Jory
• Room 5 – Werewolf with Robin Clyfan

Section of the Collection

Collection galleries

19.00 -21.30

Play a card game with fellow Late at Tate visitors: match your Section of the Collection with other players, take your completed artwork to the bar, and say the title to win a prize! Sections handed out 19.00 – 19.30.

Music

David Toop and Unknown Devices: The Laptop Orchestra

Room 9

19.30 – 20.00 & 20.45 – 21.15

David Toop and Unknown Devices: The Laptop Orchestra explore the dynamics, technical and interpersonal demands of group collaborations, to create an improvisation using an unusual variety of instruments, noisemakers and gaming equipment.

18.30 – 19.30 & 20.00 – 20.45

Dominic Murcott composes for acoustic ensembles and electronics and is Head of Composition at Trinity College of Music. Tonight’s DJ set picks crunchy gems and warped melodies from some unexpected corners of more than four decades of electronica.

Talks

Children’s Games and Songs

Manton Studio

19.00 – 19.30

Andrew Burn talks about his research into Children’s playground games and songs past and present, using the Opie Sound Archive Collection at the British Library, and how project partners the Institute of Education and Nintendo are revisiting the playground to develop a new game for Nintendo Wii.

Video Games: design, narrative, gameplay

Auditorium

19.30 – 20.30

How do game design, narrative and gameplay interact to make a successful video game? Ste Curran, game designer and Creative Director at Zoe Mode chairs a panel including, creator, writer and artist Charles Cecil, game critic Kieron Gillen and co-creator of Watchmen, Dave Gibbons.

Tickets for both talks available from the Clore Information desk at 18.00 on a first come, first served basis

Talkaoke

Room 28

18.30-21.30

Talkaoke is the human sized talk show that you take charge of, a round table and built in broadcast system. The host in the in the middle passes the mic to whoever chooses to sit down. Tonight we discover what people think about British art and The Great British Art Debate:

• Is the idea of British art a British fantasy?
• Should art be good for you?
• Does the art of the past say anything about the world of today?
• Should the public have a say in what goes into museums?
• Is art too popular?

Laure Prouvost It, heat, hit (2010)

Lightbox

6 minutes on a loop

Lightbox presents It, heat, hit (2010), a new work by Laure Prouvost that constructs and propels an inferred story through a fast-moving sequence of written commentary and visual excerpts of everyday incidents and pictures.

General Information

Main pay bar in Octagon 18.30-21.30

Beer bar in Room 9 18.30-21.30

Refreshments available in the Café on Level 1 18.00-21.30

Restaurant Tasting Menu for 19.30 sitting £60 per head

Main Shop Level 2 open until 21.40

Exhibition Shop open until 21.40

Collection displays open 18.00-21.40

Half price entry to Chris Ofili and Henry Moore

Ignition Entertainment, a UTV Media Communication Company, and Zombie Studios have announced that they are developing a near-future first-person shooter titled Blacklight: Tango Down. Release is scheduled for the Summer of 2010 and the game is to be made available via download for the Xbox LIVE Arcade, the Playstation Network and on the PC.

“We’re delighted to be working on a gripping new franchise that will deliver the intense action, thoughtful tactics and in-depth strategies of today’s best multiplayer shooters immersed in an all new universe that gamers will really sink their teeth into,” said Ajay Chadha, Head of Worldwide Publishing, Ignition Entertainment. “Blacklight: Tango Down is set to change the way gamers view the possibilities of downloadable content because it will offer shooter fans the top quality, deep content and exciting experience that they are used to finding in a retail product but in a downloadable package.”

With a logo like this, how can they fail?

“We could not ask for a better partner than Ignition,” said Mark Long of Zombie Studios. “Their digital distribution focus is visionary. It matches the aspirations we have for this franchise which already include a feature film and comic.”

Well you certainly can’t fault them for lack of ambition. Blacklight: Tango Down is set to be a fast-paced FPS based in a new fictional universe called Blacklight and which utilises Unreal Engine 3 which will bring its near-future setting to life. We are promised disturbingly detailed and old-world architecture dripping with modern sci-fi lighting and brightly lit advertisements, an effect that causes each environment to appear both futuristically alien as well as hauntingly familiar.

We are promised some of the most exciting multiplayer gameplay available in the shooter category featuring numerous gameplay styles and functionality including traditional formats such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Control Point with additional modes being announced in the run up to the games launch.

Blacklight: Tango Down will also offer a great degree of customisation with players being able to alter and upgrade their character through experience gained on the battlefield. Weapons can also be customised as the player gains skills and experience points to unlock basic add-ons like sniper scopes as well as more complex enhancements.

If Ignition Entertainment and Zombie Studios manage to deliver everything they have set out to then Blacklight: Tango Down will be a truly great title. Keep an eye out here on Wedotech for further news on the game and its development.

Want to hear a secret? Come closer and I’ll tell you… I actually feel tremendous guilt when I have to give a game a bad score or speak ill of it because I know that the chances are that a lot of good people worked very hard developing it. I’ve always felt this way which is why never once in my “career” have I attacked the people responcible for even the worst games either individually or as a collective. Someone I’ve known online for a considerable time sent me a clip of Stephen Fry talking about critics the other day and he was essentially discussing what a hateful job it must be and the nature of the kind of people who would wilfully pursue such work. I agree completely with his sentiments but I also believe there is a way to be honestly critical without being nasty and I like to think that I achieve this in my reviews.

The reason I bring this up is that today I’m reviewing yet another game published by 1C Company who were also responcible for the excellent Majesty 2 (my review of which can be found on this very website). I’ve developed something of an affection for 1C Company because if there is one thing I have found in common with their games it’s that whether they are good or bad, they’ve been made with heart and that isn’t something to be ignored. They also generously send us these games for review which at the very least shows they are not afraid of honest critique. Given my role here at Wedotech I inevitably end up reviewing them (I have another on my schedule immediately after this one) and I always hope that they will be really good. At the same time though, I am of course here to review them and give my honest opinion.

Another Wedotech staff meeting goes horribly wrong.

A Farewell to Dragons was developed by Arise and KranX Productions and based on a fantasy novel written by Russian authors Sergey Lukyanenko and Nikolay Perumov. Now I have never before read the source material but assuming this game is faithful to it, much seems to have been “inspired” by more popular works most obviously The Chronicles of Narnia. The plot centres around Victor, just a typical guy living in our time who is whisked away to “Middle World” (hmm…) by a young girl named Telle and naturally ends up holding its fate in his hands.

The developers were obviously working with limited resources and so the game is very simplistic technically speaking but for what it is, it runs beautifully and I encountered no issues whatsoever. Graphically the game reminds me very much of Dungeon Siege, the popular action RPG from 2002 so needless to say if it’s state of the art visuals you’re looking for you won’t find them here. You know what though? A Farewell to Dragons is better than Dungeon Siege and its sequel. Besides, the gameplay style is more reminiscent of the likes of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

My GeForce 9800 slept while I played A Farewell to Dragons.

If you’ve ever played a mouse-driven RPG on the PC before in your life then you’ll instantly be at home with this game. The interface is as simple and user-friendly as it gets with the left mouse button selecting things and the right mouse button issuing commands which differ depending on the context. For example you can click and drag to select your entire party and then right click on an enemy to attack him or right click on a friendly character to initiate conversation. It’s a very typical control scheme precisely because it usually works so well and it certainly does here. The one unusual element is the fact that you can use the W, S, A and D keys to scroll around the map and see what is happening in locations you may not have even visited yet but this is clearly a matter of style and not a problem with the game.

A Farewell to Dragons offers a very traditional kind of adventure that involves travelling from location to location, gaining new companions, being assigned quests, earning money, upgrading your equipment and fighting adversaries. The setting of Middle World is as clichéd as it gets with bandits and wolves lurking in the woods and dwarves with a heavily industrialised culture. If the game had voice acting they’d definitely have Glaswegian accents. Everything is so wrapped up in cliché that it actually becomes quite charming at a certain point which came for me when I gave up expecting anything original and just got comfortable with the familiarity of it all.

The Dwarves even operate a railway which sure beats the hell out of British Rail.

The setting may be generic but the amount of weaponry, armour, items, skills and magic available to you is quite astounding and for this reason alone I can imagine plenty of people having lots of fun playing A Farewell to Dragons, one of whom is a close friend of mine that I’m going to send this review to after I’m finished. You can pause the game at any time to swap items between characters and give commands and the game will automatically pause for you in serious circumstances such as when a character’s hitpoints have fallen below 50%. I think anyone who plays this game will be thankful for that because A Farewell to Dragons actually offers quite a tough challenge even on normal difficulty. My advice to any potential players would be to take your time and ensure that you explore thoroughly and equip your team with the best gear around.

Wedotech’s Editor, James, asked me earlier what score I intended to give A Farewell to Dragons and I said “three stars” but now as I come to the end of my review I realise that I cannot in good conscience do that because it really deserves more. Plus he recently gave The Farm three stars and I simply won’t be able to sleep tonight if I give a score which implies that this game is on par with that. I do feel that I need to make certain things absolutely clear for anyone interested in purchasing this title though. A Farewell to Dragons is a solid RPG with which I honestly cannot identify any real problems. Having said that it does employ outdated technology so if you’re one of those people who can’t bear to play anything that doesn’t utilise the latest graphical technology (in other words, if you’re an idiot) then just forget that this game even exists and while you’re at it, stop talking to me.

"Move along folks, nothing to see here..."

A Farewell to Dragons actually feels like a lovingly crafted fan game in the sense that it was obviously designed with enthusiasm but without the technology and manpower that the likes of Bioware have available to them. I mean the game even comes on a CD as opposed to a DVD but strangely this only serves to give it a certain kind of charisma as if the developers are all lovable characters and not the faceless corporate drones from larger companies who churn out the latest soulless bestseller every couple of months.  The writing, sound, artwork and just about every other aspect of this game can be safely described as “good” with nothing being exceptional and nothing being terrible. If you’re looking for a good old fashioned adventure designed in a time honoured fashion then A Farewell to Dragons will provide you with hours on end of potion swigging, sword stabbing, spell casting entertainment.