YOUR #1 SOURCE FOR INDEPENDENT PC GAME REVIEWS AND NEWSFebruary 2012

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PC requirements revealed - but not on Steam!

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Storm in a TeacupStronghold 3Dustforce

Reviews:Plenty of game giveawaysthis month! Also, writingand screenshot contests!

Firey Studios’ game of medieval slavery, war and economic times has been rather unfortunate this year with a number of bad reviews and metacritic scores oating around the internet. It’s a shame to see this, especially with the predecessor, back when it was released in 2005, ticking all those vital “what makes a good PC game” points. This was back in almost 7 years ago now, and times have changed, which unfortunately hasn’t been altered in the latest.

Good-day me lord!IIt’s very slow-moving, so slow moving in-fact that if you aren’t properly immersed, which is quite clearly what Firey have tried to achieve, you’ll lose interest. Fast. With long storyline missions this may not be the correct way to tackle the increasingly ‘dynamic’ and ‘quick‘quick game changer’ gamer. Let’s look a little closer into it though.

The tutorial is always a good place to start, and something which I really never touch upon. Just because of the fact that I think for games of today, if you can’t just jump in and have an idea of what’s going on, then that may turn down the majority. This is stereotypically thinking, but even forfor the ‘pure hard-core strategists’ and depending on the structure of how the tutorial leads you, this may not suffice. It’s good to see a tutorial that works and isn’t too slow. You know an FPS game which asks you to crouch for a good 2 minute before you reach the other side. Everyone kknows how to bloody crouch, C or Ctrl right? Anyway the tutorial gives you a rm grounding of what’s going on, where to start but at the same time providing you with the basic instruction to build your mighty empire. (Which you won’t).

Giving you the option to click around whilst reading and listening to the hilarious “Norfolk” folk saying “Gooday my lord” or in Norfolkian “Gewdai mi lurd” is brilliant. I guess you stereotypically think that anyone that comes from Norfolk are instantly a farmer or live off the land. For ourour European and international readers, Norfolk is ‘the’ agricultural part of the UK. After a few clicks, I started to build my rst item, an orchard! A beautifully grazed and well looked after farm that was until it caught the plague. And whipped out 90% of my villagers, but we’ll gloss over that onone. After you carry on building your ‘village/town’ you’ll inevitably start to create some troops, which you’ll be relieved at why you did later on.

Gameplay though overall is rather good and it’s a shame to see these small “glitches” still apparent. Combat needs adjusting for the majority as this has been highlighted in a propitiate amount of other reviews. This is what Stronghold is all about, the large mass scale battles and hilahilarious voice overs and it’s unfortunate that on this time around, FireFly have missed out the ‘fundamentals’ of making it enjoyable, instead of a pain.

Half Asleep Troops...OOther PC game editors have whittled and moaned about how the in-game HUD doesn’t illustrate any of the specic statistics like attack, damage, range of each troop. Does it really need to? I mean, a guy with a big spear will most likely be in a much stronger standing against someonesomeone with a knife. This gives you the ability to use your brain and think, “Oh, I better not attack those troops with peasants”, I mean really, c’mon. Though it’s not all good news unfortunately as the game still holds a considerable amount of bugs, even after a large number of ppatches that have been released, since its release back in October. Troop’s STILL not recognising orders are a real problem and is something which hasn’t been noticed from just archers. Either that or peasants are just too stupid to attack that wild bear.

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Stronghold 3

Overall, I’ve enjoyed the experience and the core mechanic that has been offered. The sound design is fantastic and I rate it highly. Even if you don’t have the game, go listen to some of its soundtracks because they’re just fantastic. Though it’s a shame to see a few bugs/glitches still present, especially with troops not responding to orders and it being a known problem since the start of November! We don’t know of any Stronghold 4 (Stronghold Kingdoms maybe?), but hopefully, and in all business cases, this is the ‘soggy’ part of the business cycycle.

Careful! Wild Bears attack!EEconomic campaign is fantastic though and suited my personal needs effectively. The story features a previous village in considerable turmoil, with occupants having to leave. It pits you with 1 ‘leader’ and a couple of villages as you try to make your way to recovery by building up your smallsmall village. As you build and build your income and food resources start to pile up. Now remember I mentioned those troops? This is where you’re going to need them, especially when the term “Economic Campaign” sounds rather peaceful and purely regarded as an ““Economic Struggle” you’ll still have to battle against wild bloody bears and other combat targets. Protip, make sure you have a considerable amount of villagers as the brown furry beast will literally; I mean literally, nom on all of your precious workers.

-Jason

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Stronghold 3