On Revisiting The Third Age

My recent musings on EA’s video game Lord of the Rings: The White Council and its possible cancellation put me in a Tolkien gaming mood. I wanted to play a Lord of the Rings video game, I wanted to mercilessly kill Orc after Orc, but which game to play? I settled on The Third Age,Continue reading “On Revisiting The Third Age”

On Lord of the Rings: The White Council

From about the time Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring released in theaters in December 2001 until about the time Lord of the Rings: Return of the King had its extended edition DVD release I visited TheOneRing.net at least once a day. Maybe for the latest rumor on the films, maybe for the latestContinue reading “On Lord of the Rings: The White Council”

On Incompetent Blundering

Henry the Navigator is an incompetent fool and a worthless ally. Our battleground today was someplace vaguely New England-like. It’s hard to say precisely, as it was a random map–Gandalf’s Random Land Map, to be precise. The landscape’s features, though, said New England, even if the native allies–the Lakota and the Iroquois–and the native fauna–herdsContinue reading “On Incompetent Blundering”

On a Fan-Made Age of Empires Expansion

I saw on AoE3 Heaven this afternoon that a group of enterprising Age of Empires III fans had designed an expansion for the game–Napoleonic Era. New civilizations. New units. New maps. How could I not take a look? Thusly curious, I downloaded the install file. Napoleonic Era adds several new map types, some European, someContinue reading “On a Fan-Made Age of Empires Expansion”

On Gran Turismo: HD

Here’s another reason to dislike Sony and their PlayStation 3 plans: Gran Turismo: HD will cost players an arm and a leg to play. The current rage in online gaming is microtransactions. Because consoles–like the Xbox, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3–have hard drives and online capabilities, users can purchase content for their games and downloadContinue reading “On Gran Turismo: HD”

More on LEGO Star Wars II

I sat down today and played through several levels of LEGO Star Wars II. I have almost enough LEGO studs to purchase my save file from the first game. That’s a mite disappointing, that I have to buy something that’s already on my XBox’s hard drive, but that’s how the game is, so I justContinue reading “More on LEGO Star Wars II”

On Something Like D-Day, But Not D-Day

Last night, after watching House, I wanted to play a computer game. But what? Hmm, Age of Empires II seemed promising. I’ve given all of my real-time strategy love to its successor, Age of Empires III, so why not spend some time with some Age of Kings or The Conquerors? So, I fired up TheContinue reading “On Something Like D-Day, But Not D-Day”