Defender of the Crown was a classic strategy game during the days when I was playing games on my old Atari ST (and if you think that is showing my age, just bear in mind that I can still recall playing games on the old Atari 2600!!).
In DotC, you were a Saxon lord during the time of Medieval England. The king had just kicked the bucket and the country was falling apart. In such troubled times, the country needs to rally under your banner. Unfortunately, some Norman lords disagree with you and foolishly believe that they would make a better king. In other words, time to build some armies and place old Blighty under your benevelent leadership (by killing everybody who disagrees with you!!).
In the old days, strategy games were very often a mix of strategy and arcade action. The strategy element was comprised of a map of England split into different counties that you would need to "liberate" from the Normans. Each turn, you could do various different stuff such as going on castle raids (to steal money!), trying to take over castles (so I could lob sodding great boulders at the castle walls!) or entering jousting tournaments (so I could get knocked off my horsey and land on my butt).
All told, I loved this game. It had great graphics (for the time) and simple strategy mixed in with some arcadey fun and I can't recall how many hours I poured into this game.
In February 2007, the game was finally remade under the title Defender of the Crown: Heroes Live Forever. I always wondered whether this game stood the test of time but didn't want to take the plunge at full price. Luckily for me, Stardock had the game on sale recently where it was only HKD31. At that price, I figured that even if the game was crap, it would still be worth it for the trip down memory lane.
Having played the game for a while now, I have to say that this game has aged surprisingly well - as long as you played the original!. By 2007 standards, the graphics and gameplay are so simplistic that you would hate this game unless you were digging the nostalgia element. The game is more of a repackaging rather than a remake. Having said that, it still seems incredibly fun to wander round England kicking ass.
At HKD31, this game was more than worth the price for the nostalgia alone.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
gamerDNA
I recently created a profile on gamerDNA.
Its an interesting site which, in addition to other things, allows you to keep a list of games you play and why you like playing those games. This then offers you suggestions on other games you might enjoy based on the descriptions given by people with similar tastes (based on why they liked those games). For example, I said that I liked Rainbow Six:Vegas because it was tactical, an FPS, intense, had a cover system and was squad based. The site suggested I try playing CoD4 (intense and FPS) and R6:V2 (for obvious reasons)
What games do I play?
The real benefit for me though (lets face it, considering how much time I spend reading about games, ideas for my next game to play aren't exactly lacking!) is that it really lets me see the exact types of games I play and why I like playing them. I have input the games which I have played over the last 3 years and it really gave me an interesting look at the type of games I enjoy.
Looking at the lower right hand side of my profile page, you can see some numbers about the types of games I like to play. Not surprisingly, fantasy and sci-fi are by far the most popular settings for me. I also love games where I am the hero (makes sense, in all RPGs, I always play the good character and only play evil characters so that I can see how this influences the game).
Did I like those games?
In the middle column of the screen is a list of the games that I have played over the last 3 years together with my quick review of them. A quick note on my rating scale:
5 stars - Brilliant game and a must play for all gamers
4 stars - Great game and a must play if you are a fan of the genre
3 stars - Good game and recommended if you are a fan of the genre
2 stars - An okay game - only play if you absolutely love the genre and have nothing else to play
1 star - Can't Recommend A Purchase - this is reserved for games which I didn't like
I'll also try to upload quick text reviews of the games there.
My game activity
The site also lets you record your game activity so you can talk about what you have been doing. I won't be updating this religiously (I'd prefer to spend my time playing games) but will use it to post quick notes on stuff related to games I'm playing for which I don't want to expand into a full blog post.
My gamer psychology
The site also has various quizzes that you can take to better understand your play style. On the gamerDNA site is an overall summary (right hand side of the screen) from which you can see that I'm very much a social gamer. You can see the results of the individual quizzes at the bottom of my blog.
The Bartle Gamer Psychology test is based on the Bartle Test but updated for MMOs instead of MUDs. I don't actually play MMOs but I play enough multiplayer games that I figured I would take the test anyway. You can see my main play style is socialiser which is also why I don't play MMOs - I would much prefer playing co-op games with friends than random strangers.
The FPS quiz shows that I am 92% support focused. Again - spot on. In multiplayer games, I generally follow the lead of others and am very much focused on the team winning regardless of my own stats. In fact, you may recall an earlier blog post where I mentioned my kill/death ratio in Halo 3 had gone up after I stopped playing objective based games and focused on team deathmatch.
The RTS quiz shows that I am a strategist. All this really means is that I try to come up with the best strategy to achieve the objective rather than having a preferences for turtling etc.
The last quiz shows that my gaming has been influenced primarily by the 80's and 90's. No real surprise there considering my age. :)
Update
Squueeeeee!!
Check out the comments! Someone from GamerDNA actually read this post and responded - On a side note, I think I just managed to double the number of people who read this blog! I can't believe they not only took the time to read this but post a comment as well (granted, his job title is Community Manager, but still - squueeeee!!).
That, my friends, is how you build an online community!
Its an interesting site which, in addition to other things, allows you to keep a list of games you play and why you like playing those games. This then offers you suggestions on other games you might enjoy based on the descriptions given by people with similar tastes (based on why they liked those games). For example, I said that I liked Rainbow Six:Vegas because it was tactical, an FPS, intense, had a cover system and was squad based. The site suggested I try playing CoD4 (intense and FPS) and R6:V2 (for obvious reasons)
What games do I play?
The real benefit for me though (lets face it, considering how much time I spend reading about games, ideas for my next game to play aren't exactly lacking!) is that it really lets me see the exact types of games I play and why I like playing them. I have input the games which I have played over the last 3 years and it really gave me an interesting look at the type of games I enjoy.
Looking at the lower right hand side of my profile page, you can see some numbers about the types of games I like to play. Not surprisingly, fantasy and sci-fi are by far the most popular settings for me. I also love games where I am the hero (makes sense, in all RPGs, I always play the good character and only play evil characters so that I can see how this influences the game).
Did I like those games?
In the middle column of the screen is a list of the games that I have played over the last 3 years together with my quick review of them. A quick note on my rating scale:
5 stars - Brilliant game and a must play for all gamers
4 stars - Great game and a must play if you are a fan of the genre
3 stars - Good game and recommended if you are a fan of the genre
2 stars - An okay game - only play if you absolutely love the genre and have nothing else to play
1 star - Can't Recommend A Purchase - this is reserved for games which I didn't like
I'll also try to upload quick text reviews of the games there.
My game activity
The site also lets you record your game activity so you can talk about what you have been doing. I won't be updating this religiously (I'd prefer to spend my time playing games) but will use it to post quick notes on stuff related to games I'm playing for which I don't want to expand into a full blog post.
My gamer psychology
The site also has various quizzes that you can take to better understand your play style. On the gamerDNA site is an overall summary (right hand side of the screen) from which you can see that I'm very much a social gamer. You can see the results of the individual quizzes at the bottom of my blog.
The Bartle Gamer Psychology test is based on the Bartle Test but updated for MMOs instead of MUDs. I don't actually play MMOs but I play enough multiplayer games that I figured I would take the test anyway. You can see my main play style is socialiser which is also why I don't play MMOs - I would much prefer playing co-op games with friends than random strangers.
The FPS quiz shows that I am 92% support focused. Again - spot on. In multiplayer games, I generally follow the lead of others and am very much focused on the team winning regardless of my own stats. In fact, you may recall an earlier blog post where I mentioned my kill/death ratio in Halo 3 had gone up after I stopped playing objective based games and focused on team deathmatch.
The RTS quiz shows that I am a strategist. All this really means is that I try to come up with the best strategy to achieve the objective rather than having a preferences for turtling etc.
The last quiz shows that my gaming has been influenced primarily by the 80's and 90's. No real surprise there considering my age. :)
Update
Squueeeeee!!
Check out the comments! Someone from GamerDNA actually read this post and responded - On a side note, I think I just managed to double the number of people who read this blog! I can't believe they not only took the time to read this but post a comment as well (granted, his job title is Community Manager, but still - squueeeee!!).
That, my friends, is how you build an online community!
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