Games reheated
January 29, 2006It’s really satisfying being able to totally upgrade your own PC - it’s great no longer being at the mercy of your local techie when it comes to upgrading your CPU or your motherboard. One of the greatest pleasures is revisiting old games and running them at high-quality without suffering any slowdowns in framerates. A really good example of that is the first Lord of the Rings RTS Battle for Middle Earth.
This game could not play at all on my old PC, even on low-low-low detail. The game is not optimised for low-spec PC’s, which probably explains why the game sank without trace a few months after its release. It’s a bit late, but I can now play the game on ultra-high detail. Essentially the game is a simplified version of Warcraft 3 - you have your creeps, your heroes that can level up, etc… What really sells this game (and where most of the effort has obviously gone) are in the unit animations. Watching your troops celebrate a victory, or quivering in fear when faced by a Nazgul, adds an illusion of reality to gameplay. Nevertheless, it’s still a Warcraft clone.
The other game I’m playing at the moment is FEAR, voted Best Action Game of 2005 by quite a few gaming magazines. After playing the first few levels, I wouldn’t go quite that far. The graphics are pretty impressive - going for realism instead of shiny high particle effects. The level design thus far is pretty average - just lots of grey corridors and shiny piping. But what really sells this game (to me) are the AI of the enemies, as well as the cinematic sequences. There’s one truly awesome moment involving a wall of flame that has to be experienced to be believed. In the end, the shiny presentation manage to paper over some average level design and an over-hyped graphic engine. But hey, it’s fun and that’s what counts.
I’m definitely going to finish Far Cry after I have a go at FEAR. I can’t wait to see the tropical island on my PCI-Express videocard!
