Reviews - PastTime

Game developed by Pyro Studios(The creators of Praetorians!), that should be enough to explain why have I evaluated it's worthness to a big, striking and self satisfying 10.

It's just a brilliant series of tactical games that changed the dimension and approach towards making new games where everything is dependant on stealth and workarounds for various situations.

Graphics took the advance over most of games released in the days of Commandos' glory, it's definitely a strong side to their ship, destructible environment and smooth animations were really good.

Music, it has definitely created an immersive atmosphere while playing, too bad they didn't last long and they were usually a part of intro to the mission's start. This could've been done better (unless I've played some strange version) but that's not much of an issue.

Gameplay, mechanics, the technical aspects of the game rely on skills, there's not much to learn about it, apart from hotkeys that tend to be quicker and more effective in usage than grabbing stuff directly from a backpack. It has been improved in further versions. There are some bugs and AI may amuse most players but I don't think it has been improved much since Commandos was released.

Summary
It's a great game, has it's own charming essence that makes people think more than once, completing each missions grants player a lot of satisfaction and eager for even more.

It definitely deserves 10/10

Lionhead Studios go far into the past, their roots lay in the Bullfrog which made really good and innovative games like Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Powermonger, Magic Carpet and a few more.
These were really, really advanced games for that time when they were released.
However, they split up and most of them went to Lionhead studios, who started the series called Black & White.

The first one was really original, the theme is always the same. You're a god, and it's up to you what you'll do. But you're not the only god, there are your opponents who don't want your presence at all. You have to fight them back, either with pain, misery, cruelty or with love, patience and hard work.

The main goal is usually to take over all villages around the map by doing the miracles, it's really various and dependant on your attitude. If you're evil, you'll just burn them, if you're good, you'll take them over by impressing the peasants.
Black & White 2 brings many new features like armies and easier interface.

You can have your own creature, you can teach it how to do miracles, and give it a lesson what not to do (Like eating villagers).

The game is really something unusual, I fell in love with it, Black & White 1 deserved 10 grade, just because it had multiplayer support, even if it died shortly after, some Polish community revived it.

The 2, had no multi support at all but it was way better, physics, graphics and music were much better.

I really recommend this game to players who want to feel like a god and it's up to them what happens in the world.
Im pretty sure it's way better than a game called "Dust".

GSC are known of making these strategies that have lots of units in a huge set of battles.

Game has really nice features that make it look original on the background of most RTS games. Even if it's really old and outfashioned now, it's still kicking ***** with the innovations.

Storyline
As you could probably find it out by yourself while looking on the title, it focuses on major events in the times when America was just discovered, the conquiscadors, the states fighting for their liberty, war between UK and France and many others that I can't really mention here, but the storyline is really various.

Economic system.
It isn't even complex, it's even easier than Age of Empires actually. You have six types of resources, and that's all. Everything requires a building and workers.

Military system.
It's one of the greatest part, every peasant can be trained into a soldier, so it's essential to keep the fortress supplied with new cannon fodder!
There are possiblities to create formations of soldiers, it requires certain amount of them but it's way easier to control a line formation than every single guy.

Battles.
Well if that's not the most fantastic thing here then I don't know if we could be friends, when formations are getting their ***** kicked, most of the soldiers run away like chickens and it's hard to keep everything in control, you have to mix your strategies, you could easily kill your own troops if you're not cautious.

Music is great, perfectly fits the theme, graphics were good for the year it was released in.
But there are of course some bugs, and the thing that's hitting me like a bloody stick in my face. The multiplayer was dead, even when it was released. It was and it is insanely hard to find anyone who still plays this game.

But the grade is high enough, GSC should think about making something as new and as original as American Conquest.

Game that I will remember for lifetime. Realistic simulator where you have to use your brain and luck, even if everything is fictional, or seems like it. It is really cool in any other way, although the vanilla game doesn't give you maximum feeling of simulator, the modifications make it dozens of times better, like new models, animations. You can go in this game from a spear to a space marine from Warhammer 40k.
And the thing that I should mention comes now : The maps are really huge, it takes lots of time to travel with a car from one town to another that is placed on the other side of the island.

Yet, one of most modded and expanded with users' invention game full of suprises, can't even count the variety of games you can have in W3.
Even if it's from 2001 it provides you with above million of people playing it around bnet, garena or tunngle + hamachi servers.
Talking about vanilla game, it perfectly recreates all the events from Warcraft, it feels nice, the atmosphere is dark and dull even if all the graphics look like fantasy. Storyline and voice acting are just bloody brilliant.

The Men of War is a hardly famous game (unfortunately). Which came out in 2007. Developed by Digitalmindsoft.

Graphics: Well, can't judge this game by looking on the nowadays titles but for 2007 it was bloody brilliant, especially because the gameplay was smooth even on the older PCs (im not talking about wooden ones).

Considering the fact that really lots of stuff happens on the screen... Well done Digi.

Sounds/Voice acting: I belive it's the worst part of Men of War, but hey, it's not as bad as STALKER or crappy RTS games from 2011. Although the weaponry and vehicles could be better. It's not bad after all.

Gameplay: It's not even complicated, but it depends on player's abilities, if you're bad at micromanagment then it's definitely hard nut for you because the tips and tutorials suck really much.
The game is pretty complex:
- you have to customize your soldiers' equipment, considering their abilities.
- you have to use brain on harder modes, because you can't respawn when your soldiers die.
- Vehicles^ physics aren't exactly like reality but I can only say that you have to be aware that tanks actually have their weak spots.
ETC.

Historical Accuracy: You can never reenact the things that actually happened there in the past, but Men Of War is really close to the historical events from WW2. I was really suprised at first.

I spent hours on playing Men Of War (because Modders made the game even more exciting) because vanilla MoW gets boring pretty quickly.
There are some nasty, wrong, bad and bloody crappy bugs and glitches:
- Try to hit a single tree with a car... ridiculous.
- AI is retarded, most of the time you better control the units yourself because you might be suprised with results of AI's actions.
- Animations of soldiers... well they are moving like monkeys sometimes.
- Imbalanced and unreal forces disproportion during missions, just lol.

That's all I can think of, but the game is really worth buying. If you seek for the most realistic RTS game.