I guess that makes me the beast.
11 Jul 05

Well, my weekend of Battlefield 2 didn't happen. I had applied the patch. Then EA says to uninstall the game and reinstall without the patch. I hate that. I finally got around to doing that today so I haven't had a chance to play.

Fortunately, my weekend was not a gaming loss. I got sucked into Darwinia. You may remember the gushing over Darwinia a while back. It truly is deserved.

Just as I was praising the refined game design of Kohan II for its polished, streamlined take on an established genre, I come across an equally stunning design. The difference is that where Kohan II is refined, Darwinia is innovative.

There's really nothing to compare Darwinia to. In a pure strategy sense, you're retaking a world overrun by a ruthless enemy. But the imagination of the world itself is amazing. Even the darwinians themselves that felt so hollow in the demo, grow on you as you progress in the game. You see their connection to the world and they start to take an active role in helping you.

There are so many neat little things to discover that I wouldn't want to spoil any of it for you. I will say that almost all of it is done with clever art design. There's nothing overly complex in the game yet everything is visually striking. I could see where screenshot might merely look confusing, but the experience in the game world is immersive and breathtaking.

It would be hard to find an innovative game to compete with Darwinia, so for this week's game we'll look again to polishing up a classic genre. It's Heroes of Might and Magic V (official site) from Nival Interactive. At its core, it's another HOMM game. You build up your cities to create your forces lead by your heroes in a turn based environment. But oh my the graphics. My eyes, they can't take the beauty. Just take a look at the three movies on the site. Everything they're saying right now sounds good, but we'll see come the beginning of next year.

Jason