J!-ENT
Asian Entertainment News and Pop Culture

A game that helped me become a fanatic of Real Time Strategy games is “Rise Nations” from Big Huge Games (published by Microsoft). Definitely an awesome game that still ranks on one of my favorite strategy games of all time, it was a no brainer that I had to try out “RISE OF NATIONNS: RISE OF LEGENDS” from Brian Reynolds (lead designer for “Alpha Centauri”, “Civilization 2″, “Colonization” and “Rise of Nations”).

Where “RISE OF NATIONS” focused on building a village, commerce and overcoming rivaling neighbors that want to go to war for land, “RISE OF LEGENDS” follows a storyline that is broken into three parts.

The main premise is that you lead an inventor turned leader of the Vinci named Giacomo. A person who will lead the Vinci after his brother is killed in battle because of the Doge, ruler of Venucci. Needless to say, the campaign is a campaign of revenge but along the way you meet characters willing to join you and add to your arsenal.

Taking place during a steampunk era and utilizing ideas of aircraft and war machines that Leonardo DaVinci has thought up, where “RISE OF NATIONS” featured growing with technology, with “RISE OF LEGENDS”, the technology is there and the technology imagined for this game is pretty cool.

Imagine the a “Clockwork Man”, a large towering robot or “Clockwork Spider”, a robot that looks like a Spider but full of power and durable in battle. Then there is “Sawu”, the powerful geni, the “heartseeker” a demonic looking archer and much more.

As mentioned earlier, the storyline is broken up into three parts. Each part features a map of country which you must win each state and build its defenses and technology. The first part takes place in Vinci and you take on the Venucci which you battle in villages and grassy terrain. The second part is which you must go against the Alin and battle in desert terrain. The final part takes place in Cuotl and this is where you take on enemies with supernatural powers in jungle terrain.

GAMEPLAY:

Similar to most RTS (Real Time Strategy), mine for Timonium, make money and build your military and vehicles and create commerce. At times, you have less than an army and you have to outwit the opponent by using what you have to beat them. Other matches have you in one area and having to fly and ambush an army in another area.

I found the game very enjoyable and the fact that it had a storyline that features revenge, a love triangle and your typical “I am not sure I can do this…” and everyone supporting the newly made leader to fight for his cause. But despite the cliches, its the overall gameplay and atmosphere of the game. The characters and the vehicles they ride or the robots in your possession, it’s just something new and enjoyable.

I did find the second part a drag because once you beat several areas of the map, the Saw (Dark Alin) comes and destroys what you have worked hard to beat. So, you end up backtracking to build the defense and the military of that area over again. Also, some areas feel repeated (even dialogue by Giacomo is repeated) and that sucked.

But despite those minor disgruntled comments, the game is still enjoyable and will definitely test your RTS skills.

Most of all, I was able to run this on my Compaq laptop (single core, 1 GB of RAM) with no problems at all.

As for multiplayer or skirmish mode, I just played the single player mode so far, so can’t comment on these modes at all.

GRAPHICS/SOUND:

Because I do not use a dekstop for PC gaming, I’m limited to my graphics card and equipment. So, I played things on low setting but did put things on high to see how things looked and it looked great but it was taxing and thus played it on low graphic settings. So, can’t comment on the high graphical settings.

I felt that the music and voice acting was done on the cut scenes and the graphics were pretty cool. Not the best but it was fine. Dialogue was alright and it’s long but not long like “The Longest Journey” 10+ mintes of dialogue type of long.

Overall, the look of futuristic towers, prison areas or enemy headquarters placed in high cliff mountain areas combined with the unique characters and weaponry/vehicles adds to the enjoyment of the game.

JUDGEMENT:

“RISE OF LEGENDS” is an interesting game that brings together a steampunk futuristic outlook combined with mythological type of atmosphere. It’s a beautiful game and the gameplay is enjoyable. I really enjoyed this game.

As far as negatives are concern, again probably the backtracking to retake a country or hearing Giacomo saying the same things with each pre-battle sucked.

Also, I found updating my game to the latest patch to be frustrating than any game I had tried to update for a PC game ever. I ran into a problem of updating and then an error at 80%. Looking at the forums, people had similar problems which had you delete a file and re-uploading. Nope, never worked but my game worked fine and so, I said screw it with the update.

But the positives outweigh the negatives by a long margin. Most reviews on this game praised the multiplayer and some felt the single player was not all that great for them. I’ve only played single-player and enjoyed it immensely.

Anyway, “RISE OF LEGENDS” is cheap at $29.99 and you can find it at a Target store or online. And if you haven’t played “RISE OF NATIONS”, definitely pick that up as well.

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MISSING SINCE JANUARY (PC) - Published by THE ADVENTURE COMPANY

RATING: MATURE 17+ TYPE OF GAME: ADVENTURE

WHAT THE GAME IS ABOUT:

“MISSING SINCE JANUARY” is the US title for the popular murder/mystery adventure game “IN MEMORIUM” from French developers Lexis-Numerique.

The main storyline is about journalist Jack Lorski and his friend Karen Gijman. Jack who works for SKL Network has been hot on the case of murders by a serial killer who goes by the name Phoenix.

It appears that both Jack and Karen have been abducted by Phoenix and no one has been able to break the cryptic puzzles developed by the Phoenix until the CD arrives in your hands and you have become the person along with a team who will help you on your determination to end the Phoenix’s murders and hopefully put this crazyman behind bars.

GAMEPLAY:

What’s interesting about “MISSING SINCE JANUARY” is that it utilizes the Internet to solve some of the puzzles thrown in your way by the Phoenix and interesting enough, you do get e-mails from people who work at SKL Network .

The game features watching full length videos of Jack who recorded his adventures of investigation and you get to watch he and Karen search for clues throughout Europe and also getting closer together as the chilling murder has brought the two closer together.

Everything is done via keyboard and mouse and some puzzles are easy, some require some indepth research on Google (especially, your associates who try to assist you by giving you hints and Websites to check out along the way).

And what adventure game would it be without the pixel hunting and trying to get a word hidden on a wall or somewhere on the program.

Some games have basic puzzles that remind me of something from the NES days but nevertheless, calling this game difficult is an understatement. To tell you the truth, if you can beat this game without having to look up on the Internet for the “In Memorium” FAQ, then you are an uber-player and investigator.

IS THE GAME SCARY?

Scary like in a “Silent Hill” sense? No. You do see video or clips of people murdered by Phoenix but nothing so disturbing. If anything, some puzzles are chilling. Where one video features Karen singing a song…frightened. The Phoenix cuts up the song and you are to put it together.

Other videos feature the Phoenix being a voyeur and stalking the two before kidnapping them.

But nothing truly scary where I couldn’t sleep. If anything, I got into a curious mood of thinking “the Phoenix is as serial murderer and intelligent. He knows his mythology and he knows how to program games to see if anyone can catch him. But why would he program some chilling games and some stupid games”. A nd the type of games you have to solve became more of a chore that I didn’t feel anything but “finally, I beat that game. Now on to the next…”.

LAPTOP FRIENDLY?:

The game is indeed laptop friendly. Since the game came out several years ago, people should not have a difficult time playing this game. It’s also not a game that utilizes a lot of hi-res graphics either.

J!-ENT FACTOR:

I love the lush locations throughout Europe shot for the making of “MISSING SINCE JANUARY” and I felt it was so cool for the “GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION” to come with the expansion pack, making of the game and pocketbook friendly. Oh, and yes, I felt the actress who played Karen Gijman as a bonafide hottie!

GOOD FOR BUSY PEOPLE?:

If you are short on time, no. This is not for busy people who want 15-30 minutes of gameplay per day. Some games are quicker than others and some…longer.

JUDGEMENT:

All in all, “MISSING SINCE JANUARY” is an interesting game that I have to admire the presentation of the cryptic games and the utilization of the Internet, Google and e-mail. But the overall execution turned a game with so much potential, to a game that just left me feeling rather empty and disappointed.

The acting on the video is acted well but the truth is… I felt myself fazing out on several of the later videos and using my other laptop to peruse on the Internet or forwarding the e-mails I got from the virtual characters of the game (especially the e-mail that Phoenix sends to you) to friends to see how they would react (without telling them that its from a game - so, bad of me).

I felt the game started out well, the mid-section was interesting but somewhere near the end… the storyline went downhill. Possibly because the games become more difficult and as I mentioned, become more of a chore. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some people just stopped playing if they found it too difficult.

If there was anything that really ticked me off was how the game ended. You are one-on-one against the Phoenix in the final game and all of a sudden… the game ends. You receive e-mails from your associates and a week later, another e-mail from a familiar person. And you can only ask yourself… I worked my ass off to beat these puzzles and this is the ending that I get?

Definitely not the worst endings for a video game but “MISSING SINCE JANUARY” will be on my list at the top for “disappointing endings” for a game.

But I still feel this game introduced something new, something different and also, you can’t go wrong since the game costs only $19.99 and the GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION comes with the expansion pack “The 13th Victim”.

[NOTE: Because of a server change, you will need to download the following patch/update after installing the game to obtain the e-mails necessary to play the game. ]

The sequel “EVIDENCE” is now out and can be purchased at retail and the game looks exciting but already I can tell its another battle with you know who with more cryptic games and another session of yanking all your hair out.

And makes me wonder if I want to go through it all over again…

REQUIREMENTS:
PC: Pentium II 333 MHz Processor; Windows 98 / 2000 / ME / XP; 128 MB RAM; 8X CD-ROM Drive; SVGA Graphics Card with 32 Bit Color; 16 Bit Sound Card; 700 MB of Free Hard Drive Space; Keyboard, Mouse and Speakers; 56.6 Kbps or better Internet Connection

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