So, what were you playing in March?

Yeah, I know, March isn't over yet but I like these threads. It lets
me know what games others people enjoy, and what they hate. And it
lets me share my own playlist. It's sort of nice to hear people talk
about actual GAMES rather than gaming-related topics (e.g.,
Steam/Starforce/nvidia/etc.), which seems to be 90% of the traffic in
this newsgroup these days.


But anyway, same "rules" as before: what have you been playing this
March? What games -be they action or strategy or RPG- have you enjoyed
recently and, optionally, share a few thoughts on the titles. As
little or as much as you want to share. I'll start again.



Quick rundown:
-Freedom Fighters (replay)
- Act of War Direct Action
- Matrix - Path of Neo
- Chrome Specforce
- Project Eden (replay)
- Shadow Ops Red Mercury
- Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood (replay)
- Tycoon City New York
- Marathon Trilogy
- others


And if you care, a few thoughts on each game


I started with a little bit of *Freedom Fighters*, a perennial
favorite from Eidos. When I first played this game years back, I did
not care for it much, but I've gone back to it a good number of times
since then. It's really more of a puzzle game than a shooter, and its
quite rewarding when one's strategic manuevering pays off. But it's
the environment that keeps me coming back (despite its underwhelming
end-game); there's just something very appealing to me about fighting
a guerrilla war against the Russians in embattled New York.


Though not a fan of real-time-strategy, I did moderately enjoy *Act of
War*. Although some of the later levels with the futuristic weapons
were a bit overblown, the smaller, more realistic tactical combat was
pretty fun. On the other hand, the story was everything I'd expect of
Dale Brown (and oh, god, the acting!). Some of the level design was
really nice. Plus, I was very impressed by the graphics and the
details placed onto each map (right down to trash cans and litter .



But maybe I'm just a forgiving guy; after all, I also found *The
Matrix - Path of Neo* to be bearable. Not great, but bearable. The
punch-and-kick fighting was neat (especially the Matrix 2 battle
against a hundred Smiths, which just rocked). On the other hand, the
game lost points for its poor controls, the stiff animations, awful
savepoint system, the endless boss battles and the useless guns. Its
aging graphics engine isn't half as bad some people might have you
believe (it even has some impressive moments) but on the whole it
isn't going to win any awards. Plus, the story makes no sense unless
you're already familiar with the movie plots. Overall, an average
effort at best, infuriatingly bad at worst, but good for some
momentary fun.



Still, it wasn't with too much reluctance that I put TM-PoN aside for
what I hoped would be some classic good-time first-person shooting
with *Chrome Specforce*. The original Chrome was impressive for its
graphics and scope, but some annoying missions and a general lack of
polish kept it from rising above average. The sequel managed to do
away with the annoying parts of the original game (specifically,
hugely empty levels and some annoying timed and "sneak" levels) but
unfortunately didn't add anything new or particularly exciting.
Apparently Specforce started out as a mission pack, and it shows; it's
short, lacks innovation, and is very low-budget. Sadly, it's priced to
compete with the big boys. The developers at Techland are obviously
technically skilled, but they really need to hire a decent game
designer to marry to their impressive engine. Specforce made me yawn,
it was so uninspired and boring.



*Project Eden*, like Freedom Force above, is another of those
perennial favorites I like to pull out and replay every so often. At
first glance, it might appear to be a Tomb Raider clone, but it's
really another third-person puzzle game. Also like Freedom Force, it's
far more the environment than the gameplay that keeps me coming back;
roaming through the bowels of an immense future city is just gosh-darn
fun! Good sound design, too. Sadly, some of the puzzles (including a
number of the "find the really tiny button" sort) made me lose some of
the enjoyment for the game.




Next, a game I'd forgotten I'd purchased it until I pulled out the box
from behind my computer: *Shadow Ops Red Mercury*. Better if I'd left
it back there. Very unimpressive graphics, braindead AI, extremely
linear levels, underpowered weapons; this game had a lot of faults.
Heck, even the "Making Of" movies (laughingly called "The Making of a
Blockbuster"... these guys actually thought they had a good game!) was
poorly done, with terrible sound leveling! The only pluses were an
inspired musical score and some decent cinematics (and the latter only
made the rest of the game seem even more lackluster).





Still looking for a GOOD first-person shooter, I decided to replay
*Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood*. (What I really want to replay is
Call of Duty 2, but I want to let some more time pass before I hit
that game again, so for now I'm settling for less). I was never really
that big a fan of the Brothers in Arms games - I don't think the
shooter parts and the strategy parts integrate well- but it does have
its moments. I think the thing I really dislike about the game is how
the developers keep patting themselves on the back about how
"authentic" the game is (usually right before pitting your lone squad
against a full battalion and not allowing you to do the "authentic"
thing of retreating . That, and the overblown pathos and terrible
voice acting. But any game that lets me run around and shoot Nazis
gets points in my book.



The most surprising game for me this month was *Tycoon City New York*.
I'm no fan of business/strategy games, so I didn't expect to enjoy
this title at all, but I picked it up nonetheless out of geographic
loyalty. Much to my surprise, I've had quite a lot of fun with this
game. It's actually less of a business game than it is a city-builder
like SimCity. The gameplay is _very_ rudimentary (so much so that it
is actually _impossible_ to lose; at worst, the gameplay slows down to
a crawl) so I spend spend all my time tweaking my city's appearance.
And, surprisingly, that's enough for me. The sheer scale of the game
is impressive too; it doesn't actually model all of New York (or even
all of Manhattan Island), but with several thousand customizable
buildings and 65000 unique inhabitants, who cares. The only downsides
for me are technical; it takes forever to start up (and longer to
quit), and has a tendancy to crash-to-desktop when I least expect it
to. But I love just roaming through the virtual Big Apple.



A handful of other games briefly graced my harddrive. I had a short
fling with the *Marathon Trilogy* (with the help of the Aleph One and
the freely released gamefiles from Bungie) but after a couple of dozen
of nearly identical maze-like levels, I just couldn't keep going. The
story is interesting; it's the gameplay that wore me out. Marathon is
still on my harddrive and I'd *like* to finish it off, but I don't
think I'll be able to stomach it.



*Broken Sword 3 Rise of the Dragon* lasted on my harddrive for all
about ten minutes. I hear it's a good game but, quite frankly, the
control scheme pissed me off immediately and I decided to find
entertainment elsewhere. Sorry, but when it comes to adventure games,
I want point-n-click.

*Conquest Frontier Wars* lasted a good hour or two, right until it
crashed halfway through a mission. But by then I'd already grown tired
of it; I told you, I'm just not an RTS fan. And if I am going to
bother to finish a RTS game, it's going to have to be one that has
some inspiration to it besides "let's texture everything to look
spacey!" and, yes, that doesn't crash. Fortunately, CFW -like Broken
Sword 3- was one of those ultra-budgeted "please please won't somebody
buy me" bargain-bin games so I'm not out anything but a few bucks.


And finally, a couple other games remain forever on my harddrive:

-Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (mostly for when the PS2-playing younger
cousins come over and need entertainment)

-Need for Speed Underground (a fun game, but I've just not been in the
mood for arcade racing recently; I'll get back to it eventually)

- Bioforge (DosBOX rules. So too does this game. But the awkward
controls turn me off, and I play it for about ten minutes a month
before I give up on it again)

So, that's a full month of gaming for me (I also managed to read a
couple of new novels by C J Cherry, watch the 2nd Season of Babylon 5
on DVD, and go to two parties. And every now and again I showed up for
work, too .


What have you been playing?

I played SW: Empire at War.

though utterly simplistic, I did enjoy it for a while. The ending
(of the Rebel campaign), made me think I'd been utterly
gypped. I couldn't believe it could just end like that.
So pointlessly. No spoilers, but it was just an idiotic
ending. There needed to be something more, subtantially
more to make the time and effort invested in patiently
building everything up mean something. But it was for naught.

Other than that, it was HL2 for the seventh time, and GTA,
just to drive around on the motorbikes and fly, fly like a leaf
on the wind.

Sandro - waiting for a new, decent shooter to come out.
Or hopefully Godfather will be good. I know it's a fool's hope,
but it's hope all the same.