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MuttersomeTaxicab

Toukiden is a helluva game.

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Gettin' my strategy on!


Way back in the golden days of PC gaming, I was stupidly hooked on Dune II. Most of the time, I was running the trainer to keep things rolling along nicely. (Being largely unable to handle both the real-time and the strategy portions of that game. I just liked making dudes.) 
 
Sometime after that, I got Overlord for Christmas one year (also called Supremacy elsewhere) and really got into that.  

Then I eventually moved on to C&C, where my buddy invaded my base with stealth tanks via 56k dialup and taught me that you must ALWAYS BUILD TURRETS. 
 
Then, natch, Starcraft, Dune 2000, Tiberium Sun, Heroes of Might & Magic III.
 
Then came a pretty lengthy hiatus from gaming that really didn't end until Bioshock came out for the PC. Then Left 4 Dead. 
 
Since then, it's mostly been shooter after shooter after shooter for me, with nary a backwards glance to the strategy nerd I once was. 
 
Conceptually, strategy games have still held my interest. I mean, I've certainly picked up enough of them. But, y'know, life's gotten crazy and it's hard to justify 4-5 hours of strategizing when I can get the same hit of video gaming out of 45 minutes of shooters. Either way, since Starcraft 2 has hit, I've found myself once again hopelessly losing hours and hours to coming up with harebrained schemes and trying to execute them masterfully. Here's a list of what's tickled my grundle.

List items

  • Yeah, this one's a given. Much as I love SC2, I find I've actually let it take a backseat to a bunch of the other strategy games I've had lying around.

  • Man. Paradox totally dwarfs Creative Assembly in terms of nerdy historical strategy games. The sheer mountain of information at my disposal is mind-boggling.

    Mostly, it's just fun playing as an idealistic asshat and trying to establish anarchy as the dominant ideology.

    So far, no luck. But Russia's making a LOT of friends. And starving to death.

  • It's stuff like Dwarf Fortress that just reminds me how much I love the PC as a platform. Who in their right fucking mind makes a stupid in-depth strategy/sim and bases the art style on roguelikes? Well, regardless, I'm overjoyed they did!

  • Not out yet, but Stardock's latest looks great. These cats caught my eye with the top-notch Sins of a Solar Empire a few years back. Yeah, I'm nerdy enough to have gone for the deluxe edition with the cloth map and pewter dragon. Next to Spiderweb software, I can't think of another company offering that same kind of nostalgic weirdness and tchotchkes tied in wtih PC games.

  • Was utterly unaware that a version of this came out for the Genesis. My copy should arrive in a few days. STOKED.

  • Had this one hanging around for a while thanks to the many, many steam deals.

    After spending so much time killing zombies in Left 4 Dead, I wonder if I'll have the strength to marry one.

  • Seems to be more coherent in every way compared to Empire: Total War. At least, the tutorial bits seem to be presented a little more clearly.

    Anyways, I've been interested in the Total War games since Shogun, and with Shogun 2 coming down the pipe (and the newly updated social media stuff attached to the Total War games) I figure I should get good and ready for it.

  • I've always found this period of history relentlessly fascinating. But, yeah, every time I booted up this game, my head caved in at the thought of the sheer immensity of the whole thing. Napoleon seems to have made that a little less scary. Definitely interested in comparing the differences between the two.

  • Okay, okay, it's more an old-school RPG than any kind of strategy game, but the combat is turn-based, and there's a clear sense of tactics in place. And, again, in keeping with this whole strategy nostalgia trip, I've also inadvertently triggered the need to check out the retro RPGs that the likes of Spiderweb and Basilisk have put out lately.

    Also, it seems to be the most engaging/user friendly of the Avernum series and has me hopelessly hooked.

  • As much as I'm going to give Starcraft 2 the credit for giving me the strategy bug, Dragon Age definitely reminded me that there's still thrills to be had, even though you're pausing every couple of seconds in battle. Also, yeah, there's no shame in dropping stupid amounts of time on a game and not completing it or, hell, even seeing significant progress.
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