Valkyria Chronicles

"I'll do it. Even going to war, I'll do it."

As Street Fighter IV has recently shown, stylish graphics can be just as engaging as photo-realistic depictions, and one of the games that I've always been aware of for its style but haven't yet dipped a toe into to find anything out about it is Valkyria Chronicles.

One part watercolour memoir, one part tactical role-playing game, Valkyria Chronicles takes players through the Second Europan War as a band of brave peasants determined to prove that nobody is going to get trampled on without a fight.

All I know about it before playing is that it looks mighty interesting.

Age of Empires: Mythologies

What's next? Age of Mythology: Empire?

When it came time for me to play Age of Mythology, an Age of Empires game where the stories and legends of the ancient world form the basis of inspiration for the units and gameplay, rather than the actual history of the period, I would ultimately conclude that the game was alright. Worth a play, but it was largely interchangeable with any other Age of Empires I had played before it.

But now there's another one, this time Age of Empires: Mythologies, on the Nintendo DS. Is this an Age of Empires game or an Age of Mythologies title? Is this a merging of the two? How would that even work? And on a handheld? You must be mad.

Well, I'm mad enough to take on a 1001 games list just to see if I could, and now that the Internet is finally stable enough to write something about these games, it's time to find out what on Earth is going on here.

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution

Around the world, around the world.

Source // MobyGames

My time with Civilization games has been long and fruitless. With multiple paths to victory, there are multiple ways to fail, and I have seen them all it seems. Nothing I do is good enough, fast enough, precise enough. Another nation always pips me to the post, rubs my nose in it, and kicks me when I'm down.

But like an absolute idiot, I keep coming back for more. This very second I am re-installing Civilization VI because of my experience playing Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution, a "simpler" game designed for consoles and handhelds that aims to give you a considerable chunk of the full Civilization experience.

50 minutes of downloading to go, let's see how I got here.

Carcassonne

Tiles. Not cards, tiles.

Source // Microsoft

It's no surprise that I like video games. I wouldn't be going through this many of them if I didn't. I've grown up with video games, I've not really stopped playing video games, I get a lot of my entertainment from video games.

But my other big passion is gaming on the tabletop. It was once in the form of mass-market board games, then of pencil and paper RPGs, and then, a few years ago, mostly thanks to P2 (though I will admit I took the ball and didn't so much run with it, but outright blast it off to space), board and card games.

They're big business these days, we're quite defensive about them, we will fight you on your incorrect opinions - it's very much like video gaming, actually. Give it twenty years and we'll all look back with a different set of eyes and appreciate some of them a little more, though The Mind can piss right off.

That's another topic for another day because we're talking about a video game version of Carcassonne, which, according to P2, is the absolute best you can get from a board game. She's wrong, but not by much, and it's the Xbox Live Arcade that plays host to this version.

Grab your Meeples. Yes, the things that look like fat people. Just pick them up already and let's get tiling.

Patapon

Pon Pon Pata Pon!

The PlayStation Portable was home to a fair few oddities, with two big titles coming to mind, famed for their charmingly simple looks and catchy music. The one I'm more familiar with will appear elsewhere on this 1001 list, but the other is the rhythm strategy side-scrolling beat 'em up, I guess, that is Patapon.

You are the Almighty, God of the Patapons, beating the drum that leads them towards... It.

What is "It", anyway? I've no idea, but it's all the way over at Earthend, presumably quite far to the right. Get your rhythm going and watch your believers march to the beat of the drum.

Quadradius

3D Space Checkers on Crack

Does Chess need a bit of pep? Some abilities dropped onto the board to introduce new ways of playing, new strategies to master? If you think it does, you're not alone. There are untold numbers of Chess variants out there to spice things up. I up a couple of physical variants myself, and the 1001 list wants to take you back in time to the days of Flash and Quadradius.

Chrome and the Internet of 2020 have other ideas, however...

Medieval II: Total War

That's not a hedge line, is it?

"I think I'd enjoy a sequel more", I once said, with regards to Medieval: Total War. "Oh yeah? Go on, then" replies the 1001 list, shoving Medieval II: Total War into view.

Sequel to the first game, obviously, Medieval II brings the middle ages into the modern ages with the new 3D engine first seen in the last outing, Rome: Total War. I've never gotten into these strategy games, but if I said I thought I'd enjoy a sequel more, I better at least play the sequel to find out, right?

Naked War

MOVE OUT

'What do you get if you cross Advance Wars with Worms?' I hear nobody saying, because as questions go, that's not ranked high on anyone's list. The answer, apparently, is a must-play game called Naked War, where units don't explode and turn into tombstones but instead lose their clothing and run around the map desperately searching for a promotion.

Huh.

Civilization IV

"Never bring a sword to a gunfight."

Has the 1001 list deemed it essential to play every single Civilization game so far? Oh no, we skipped Civilization III. I wonder where that one went wrong. Anyway, we're back to turning a bunch of early humans into a world superpower in Civilization IV, and truth be told, I've played so many Civ games for this list that I've forgotten what it was that I'm looking for in this genre of gaming.

Did I want things to be easier to grasp? Probably. Improvements in graphics are a bonus, but not an essential one if memory serves. I'm basically going into this game knowing what I'm going to get, but not the form I'm going to get it in.

Will we rise and dominate the globe, or get crushed or out-cultured by our neighbours?

Pikmin 2

That's unusual product placement...

A while ago, I played Pikmin and wasn't thoroughly impressed. I could see what it was trying to do, I could see how some players would be all over the kind of gameplay it offered, but ultimately, I just wasn't interested enough in playing it myself.

I ended by wondering whether Pikmin 2 would alter my views. And I suppose I also wondered why it, too, was on the 1001 list. Can this gameplay, of ordering sentient seeds to do your bidding, really warrant two entries on the list?

Rome: Total War

I came, I saw, I crumbled.

Medieval: Total War was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I liked the carnage that was taking place on the rolling hills of the English countryside but wished I could control some of it. Or most of it. Well, all of it. The idea is to be in control of your armies, not panic, lose shape, and hope for the best.

Anyway, there were some highlights that a sequel could potentially make brighter and more natural to grasp for my feeble little brain. Enter Rome: Total War.

Set further back in time, Rome: Total War takes us through a campaign to become the Emperor of Rome, fighting out in the fields and seizing territory from our enemies across a mix of turn-based, Civilization-like strategy and real-time battles.

I wasn't too keen on that in Medieval. Will I come around to it in Rome?

Railroad Tycoon 3

Toot toot.

There's something magical about trains. Kids enjoy train sets, even though they limit where the carriages can go across the living room carpet. Lots of folks admire the craft of model railways, from the simple setup to the elaborate museum piece, even though they're just going around in circles.

As a board game player, I can tell you for a fact that the hobby is full of train games. Games where you lay track, games where you buy stocks, games that newcomers can jump into, and games for the devoted enthusiast.

Video games too are no stranger to train games, and Railroad Tycoon 3 may just be the most prominent stop on the line. From laying track to buying trains and keeping your stocks in check, it offers a wealth of steam-powered, land-based, transportation management gameplay.

But is the service any good?

Medieval: Total War

Run away!

The first time I saw a Total War title was on the BBC show, Time Commanders. Take a group of most likely non-gamers, present them a historical war to recreate in Rome: Total War, and have them command their troops to victory.

Back then, in 2005, I wasn't aware that it was even a playable game outside of the TV show, let alone that it was from the Total War series, whose second entry, Medieval: Total War, is on this 1001 list. What was I doing in 2005? Sure didn't involve PC gaming, though it was around the time where I heard some of my friends talking about building a PC. It sounded expensive. It seemed complicated.

Anyway, Medieval: Total War gives players control of hundreds of troops in a real-time strategy battle, and it is as daunting as it is intriguing.

Sacrifice

Sallying forth!

Sacrifice? Sacrifice?! What on Earth is Sacrifice? I've had this 1001 list for years now, and have had to go through it many, many times looking for games to pick up from sales and second-hand shops. At some point - November 2015, according to a quick search of my inbox - I bought Sacrifice along with a bunch of other titles. I didn't know what it was then, and in the four years since, I've still got no idea what it is. I've never knowingly seen it. What's this all about?

Sacrifice is a real-time strategy of wizards and their summons; of mana fountains and opposition altars; of bickering Gods and bloated creatures. As commander of your summoned forces, you'll be the boots on the ground for the Gods in the skies, commanding your troops to attack, defend and even sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

It's time to sacrifice some time towards Sacrifice.

Faselei!

ZZZzz...

The 1001 entry for this next title says that it 'is well worth the considerable effort it may take to hunt down a copy', owing to the fact that it was released so close to the end of the Neo Geo Pocket Colors' life that copies didn't even make it to the shelves. Thankfully, enough of them made it out into the wild and into players hands that someone, somewhere, managed to copy a ROM for us peasants to emulate, and what a game it is.

Turn-based Mech combat isn't new. Turn-based Mech combat where everyone programs their turns then fires them off at the same time, hoping not to see an enemy walk out of range of a 'well-planned' series of shots is new. New to my video game experiences at least. Programmable movement and board games I'm familiar with, in Robo Rally and Colt Express, but this isn't a board game. This is perhaps the best Neo Geo Pocket Color game in existence (is my bias showing?). This is Faselei!.

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash

SHUFFLE PILE

When I first skim read information for this game, I thought it would be one that I'd probably have a hard time finding in order to play in the first place. It's a Neo Geo Pocket Color title, a handheld that I've never seen in my life. In my experiences, you either had a Game Boy Color to play Pokémon or you didn't. There was no Neo Geo round our way.

The Neo Geo Pocket Color itself had such a hard run competing against Nintendo devices that the number of games available for it wouldn't even fill a top 100 list, but, according to this 1001 list, there is a title that simply must be played, and it is SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash.

Take a bunch of SNK characters, a bunch of Capcom characters, make them into a Magic: The Gathering-style card game... oh we're going to be all up and down on this one, I can feel it.

Snake

######    <>

Versions of this mobile phone phenomenon have been around since the mid-1970s, but the 1001 list has singled out the Nokia port/remake/version of Snake as the absolute pinnacle of the hundreds upon hundreds of versions, and it's hard to argue with that decision - after all, I just referred to it as 'this mobile phone phenomenon'...

You'll need to use your imagination for this one.

Final Fantasy Tactics

"Have you ever heard of the Lion War?"

Previously, I dabbled in a game by the name of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, where Final Fantasy met Dungeons & Dragons and all was good - only it wasn't good because I found myself moving away from it, rather than towards it.

Final Fantasy Tactics is to Tactics Ogre what D&D 5th Edition is to Pathfinder: Easier for the newcomers. Developed by the same brains as those who worked on Tactics Ogre and steered in an easier but still tricky enough direction by those who knew the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy Tactics is a game I've been looking forward to playing for a while now.

The world of Ivalice is a world of war, and we are but knights in training looking for our place within it. And there might be something about a stone and some Zodiac signs. I really don't know. Time to dive in and find out.

Dungeon Keeper

It is payday.

Why do you always have to play the hero? Even playing a flawed hero is still playing the good guy on a quest to defeat the bad guys. Who wants to do that over and over again? Who, instead, wants to let their bad side free to dictate the way things go? Who wants to be a Dungeon Keeper?

Part real-time strategy, part simulation, Dungeon Keeper is all kinds of different. You play as an evil overlord whose Imp minions are mining out your dungeon so that you can fill it with nasties to protect yourselves from the inevitable visit from a hero hoping to prove himself.

Will you smartly scope out your surroundings and build on the strengths of your forces and the needs of the situation, or will you flail around like a useless imp?

Civilization II

"Your attempted 'review' makes us laugh."

A while back, I said that I would never have the time for a proper game of Civilization, where I'm in control of every tiny detail, micromanaging my units across the globe. I had fun with it, but felt it was a little bit automatic, with advisors prompting me into this or that, promising me that it would mean something in the future - only I never knew what, exactly.

Why was I going down this path? Why should I build this unit? What is my strategy? I had little idea and was just following the motions until eventually wiped off the face of the map.

Fast forward to the here and now, and it's Civilization IIs time to put my knowledge to the test. What's changed? What's new? Will I still start as the English?

Well, duh, yeah.