I decided to rate Civ IV since I don't think I'll be playing it much more, time to analyze the experience. Short and sweet below.

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Same old game for the most part. What's new seems to be taken from games like Rome Total War.

It's fun for a few rounds, but not really as addictive as you may think at first. As with all other Sid Meier's games the repetitiveness is what wears you down fast.

I didn't get so far as to try the multiplayer aspect of it (yet), which could breath some more life into the game. Haven't touched it for a few weeks now and don't miss it.

Sound and music is excellent, Sid Meier fans will probably recognise a few sounds there from other games, such as Pirates.

I would have liked to see the diplomatic part worked on a whole lot more. You are faced with the same frustraiting lack of options there for the most part. Instead of really boosting such things, they've chosen to animate the characters....

On the whole it fully deserves a grade between 7.5 to 8.5, not much more, certainly not 9.4

My Rating = 8.2

This time it was SW Battlefront II. Again, to short and sweet to really make a real judgement. As before I can't keep to games I don't like instantly, the best such games can hope for is going to the bottom of the "To Play" list.

In my opinion all the recent SW shooters feel like console games. Childish gui always gets on my nerves. Played my way through one battle. It was ok, but not many WOW's if any.

HL2 has seriously ruined games for me. It pushed the standards so high that no other game developers seem to have a chance of competing with Valve - apart from Rockstar obviously.

I have semi-high hopes COD 2 might be something worth playing. We will have to wait and see.

Until I get my hands on it there is always HL2DM. The weekly friday session has been confirmed by most regulars :)

Want to join in? Message me then!

For those that don't know, I live in Iceland. We aren't quite as extreme in any way as for instance Americans. We don't sue someone for making to hot coffee, and we certainly don't sue game developers for making violent games.

But, apart from this the media is for the most part the same. When it comes to news stories about violent games, we get all the same nonsense. I haven't yet seen an enlightened, unbias news report from the main stream media when it comes to computer games.

They can't get away from the "horrible violence". Which tells us only one thing. The news reporters don't play games. They don't get the simple fact that violence is means to an end. It's about the experience, the adrenaline rush, oh and let's not forget about a good seratonin dosage after a job well done :)

Ok, this is all going somewhere, I promise.

When I say I haven't yet seen an enlightened, unbias news report, it isn't exactly true. Yesterday I saw something of the kind. It wasn't enlightened by any means, but it had a different approach. The main focus wasn't that computer games are so horrific, but that the parents should get involved and actually watch what games their kids play!

Wow, we have actually moved forward, finally! People are starting to realize that games aren't only made for the agegroup <12.

At least here in Iceland. Now we have to see if parents can figure this out as well, or if they will keep on blaming game developers...

Well, time to go play some very violent HL2DM. I must be an extremely bad person enjoying all this pointless violence :D

I haven't posted since AOE III arrived. I can't say I've tried it either.

I tested it for about 30 minutes, and first impression weren't pleasing. I think it might be just horrible.

Last weekend I also playtested Football Manager 2006. More fun to be had there, but it's just way to time consuming.

Haven't had time to play at all during the week, but tomorrow we are planning a long and happy happy happy HL2DM night :)

As much as I've been bashing Civilization 4 the last few times I've blogged, it's probably the best game of the lot I've been trying out the last weeks. It may be hard to compare games such as Quake 4 and Civ 3, since they have absolutely nothing in common, but you can certainly compare Civ 4 with AOE III. Doesn't look promising for AOE, allthough it can't possible be as annoying as it looked for those first 30 minutes.

But ok, about the HL2DM session tomorrow night: Last weekend I found this excellent german Team DM server. The mapcycle had loads of maps I've never seen before, many of them were outstanding both in design and gameplay. Others were worse, but you always need a break anyway :)

Cphlux then joined me and this was the best time I've had playing online in ages.

I miss organized play though. I've been seriously contemplaiting creating a HL2DM clan, just to get the occasional structured adrenaline driven clanmatch. It should be easy enough, looks like most games are either 2 vs 2 or 4 vs 4.

I've talked it over with my regular public play buddies, and they seem to like the idea, yet not love it. Since I really don't have the time to organize it, nor to play more than I allready do (a couple of hours during weekends) this probably won't happen. But you can always dream :)

... just arrived from Amazon. Wheeeee!

I will install it at 18:00, open up a Viking (beer) and kick back after a 50 hour work week. I am sure it will go to 60 hours, still 2 days left of the week.

I discussed Civ 4 briefly with Rav yesterday. He rated it at 10 which I couldn't understand (still can't). He made some good points about what is good in the game, while I was more focused on what could be better in the game :D.

I think I actually found a really serious gameplay bug, will post more about it later, have to try it again to see if it is constant.

Anyone for some HL2DM this weekend?

Well, I managed to squeese in a few more Civ. 4 hours this last weekend. 10 to be exact. This was the amount needed to finish 1 normal game, standard speed and mapsize.

I had a lot more fun than in the first game. Still my opinion hasn't changed much. All the annoying "bugs" from previous versions seem to be in their place.

For example, the opponent diplomatic AI is non-existant. A Civilization that I had all but crushed suddenly decided to piss me off and make stupid demands, which could only lead to one result. Pissed me off and I finished the job.

When you are trying to negotiate some trade, the npc usually has everything "in red", meaning he won't discuss even the possibility of trading those items. Not until they are on your good side at least, which takes a few hundred years of ass kissing and bending over.

Another extremely annoying thing is when it comes to conquering enemy cities. It takes a millenia for your culture to spread in a new country it seems, so the cities are cornered off without access to pretty much everything for at least a few hundred years. Unless of course you conquer the entire civilization....

And Gamespot rated this game higher than Half-Life 2??? Come on....

Still, it is enough fun to keep me playing for those 10 hours, and I will probably play a game or two before I give up on it. But a score of 8 is more like what it deserves.

7.5 even, yeah I think that sounds about right.

Well. don't ask me...

It's the same as Civ3, which was the same as Civ2, which was the same as Civ.

Seriously, I tried it last night, played 1 tiny map with 1 opponent, won by beating him to space (so I went through the entire evolving thing). It all felt exactly the same as last time I played civ3.

We will see what happens during a more thorough playtesting.

All (both) the biggest ISP's in Iceland rely on Farice (www.farice.is) to connect this island of ours to the rest of the world. We were so happy when we first heard of Farice, it was going to be the saviour of Icelandic gamers. To make a long story short Farice has proven to be nothing but trouble. There is a failure in Scotland every other week at least.

When this  happens ping (anywhere within the uk for example)rises from 50 to 200 or even 300. Imagine the frustration for active clanners. I am just happy not to be one of them at the moment.

I kept on playing hl2dm last weekend. Mostly alone but managed to drag [SC^2]Vagabond with me for a few maps. It would be nice to get a fortress mod soon, but somehow I feel it (www.fortress-forever.com) won't be released in the next few months.

Q4 is getting annoying. I decided to play it on hard (second hardest of 4 available settings) and there is no way to change it once you have entered the game. All sorts of other small user interface and experience aspects are also getting on my nerves. For instance, when you die you are always sent back to the menu. You can hit F9 to quickload there, but why not just mousebutton ingame to quickload when you are dead?

I doubt I will have the patience to finish it. So many games on the "To Play" list, so little time.

I played Q4 for about an hour last night, and had loads of fun. It's no HL2 as I've said before, but so far I like it.

It even has those "calm before the storm" chapters. Perhaps more of a "calm between the storms" though.

I'll post more about it (withouth any spoilers of course) once I get more playing done.

We played some more HL2DM last weekend, were up to 4 together on skype. Excellent fun! (when the lag is minimal)

#"$%&"%&"/"%$#%"#$ Farice!