Reviews - odin-gaming

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I don’t think I’ll ever play a vanilla game of DoW again. It’s just. So. Goddamn. Epic. It’s like it was made for me.

There are 12 armies to choose from (if you use some of the recommended partner mods). And they have some crazy titans and superweapons – enough to make the Emperor proud.

There is a lot of additional complexity introduced to the game with UA – more buildings, more units, and more ways for them to interact and for you to interact with them. I spent a significant amount of time reading unit descriptions (to then immediately forget unit descriptions) my first through playthroughs – and that was just with one race. As with any RTS, you may way to practice on a lower difficulty while you get to grips with a new race. It’s worth noting that in adding all of this new content, some serious imbalance issues have been introduced. Casuals might not notice (or care), but I don’t think the spirit of the mod is in well-balanced, precisely-executed strategy.

Some might see the extra complexity as a negative. I get that. And it’s definitely easy to get lost amongst all the options presented to you in UA. But I also think it’s still simple enough to bumble along to the end-game and start playing with nukes, and I feel like that’s really a feeling at the core of the Warhammer universe, at least for me – unadulterated brawls on a ridiculous scale.

If you’re feeling disappointed by DoW3, or put off by the mixed reception, this might be a good opportunity to dust off that old copy of DoW that set the bar so high, and give it a bit of polish right from the heart of the fans.

See the full review at Odingaming.com

C2C introduces a lot of additional depth and complexity to Civilization IV. It goes beyond a TBS game and makes Civ a civilisation simulator, which is arguably what Sid intended when he set out on this journey with the original Civilization back in 1991.

Often when I reflect on these mods, and for the benefit of you, the reader, I open with the qualification that more depth and complexity isn’t for anyone. I stand by that, but I feel like this doesn’t quite apply with C2C. The mod is so massive that it shifts its base game’s genre significantly enough that it can no longer be compared directly alongside it.

There are features in C2C that I could quite happily ignore. In fact, one can quite easily do just that with many features given how customisable the game experience is (in game setup and the in-game BUG menu). However, there are many, many more features that I just couldn’t go without in Civ IV knowing now that they exist.

There’s enough in C2C to keep a player occupied for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours before they’ve even seen it all just once. And there are some incredibly ambitious expansion ideas on the horizon, such as the aforementioned Nomadic Start and Multi-Maps, which make it worthwhile to keep coming back and seeing what’s changed. I can’t express how excited I am to see Multi-Maps – and the possibility of expanding naturally into a space 4X game – arrive in C2C.

The years of work by its many contributors has generated a truly iconic game in Caveman 2 Cosmos. It’s not perfect – there are technical issues – and it’s not finished – some later eras have not had the same love and attention as their predecessors. But it draws you into an historical simulation – no, a bonafide anthropological study – like no other.

See the full review at Odingaming.com

Ashes of Erebus is, above and beyond everything else, an immersive, TBS, fantasy experience. (I must give due credit to the base Fall from Heaven II mod, though.) It’s better, in my opinion, than any fantasy 4X since, including the likes of Age of Wonders III or even Endless Legend (although the latter comes very close).

Incredible depth has been achieved with the diverse civilisations, beautiful and bustling fantasy world, and responsive game mechanisms like the Armageddon Counter. AoE’s contribution of improved flavour starts, expansion of unique city graphics, improved AI, and expanded alignments (among other additions) go a long way to rounding out what FfH2 started.

But. It’s still lacking polish in some areas. The artwork is spot-on, but the lore – one of FfH2’s strengths – is becoming patchy. The Civilopedia, while generally informative, has holes. There are text-holders in some in-game pop-ups. The game crashes more frequently than I’d like, and I sometimes have to load a save a few times before it works. Honestly, a lot of this is more noticeable than it might be in a comparable mod because a lot of the other additions are so well done.

When all is said and done, though, I really do feel like I’m at the helm of an immortal race of Romans ready to reconquer Erebus. And that’s what Ashes of Erebus is all about.