Review: Game: Age of Empires 3

This is a review fo the game "Age of Empires 3" (not including the expansion packs 'The War Chiefs' and 'Asian Dynasties').

Year Made: October 2005
Console: PC
Company: Ensemble Studios
Graphics: 5
Story-line: 7
Controls: 8
Overall: 8

- Details -

So what can I say? I am a big fan of strategy games like the Age of Empires. I play them alot, and I won't boast, but I aint bad at them.

The newest version of Age of Empires (3 if you didn't realise it) is becoming a bit old, where fans are crying out for a new game release. However, despite saying that Age of Empires till has managed to make it to the top real time strategy games.


Despite several set backs, this game has easily become on of my top ten suggested in this genre. Its highly addictive, and offers many challenges.




- Graphics -



The game itself features some pretty damn graphics. The game is old enough that most people's computers can run it without any lag, whilst still providing a very nice gaming 'board'. The graphics have been designed to appear more realistically (if you notice the water in this picture). And if you have only played Age of Empires 1, you will surely notice there is a HUGE difference in terms of graphics.


However, despite the improved graphics, many of the actions your characters and vessels undertake appear far from realistic. Sure you may actually witness rubble from buildings being thrown into the air when attacked, but a wall being scattered in such a way does not really grant the realism that many newer games offer.



The level of detail, despite the realism concept mentioned above, has been closely looked at. If you play the game and watch a couple of your people hunting, you can actually see them fire a bullet or arrow at their prey (depending upon your civilization level).

However, again to the detail, your characters no longer need to return to the town center or designated building to drop off resources. Somehow they have infinite pockets that go straight to the resource holding center.

I should point out I was shocked at part of the graphics. When I first installed the program, the very first screen you see is the Home City screen. Which graphics were amazing for this style of game. I was so excited, thinking these were the sort of graphics you would be dealing with in actual game play. But reality is so much harsher.

- Story line -

As most people know this style of game does not really have any true set story line. It has been designed more so for quick games and gaining points per account.

However, there are several campaigns for you to follow if you wish. These campaigns will base around a character (or a number of characters) who will generally lead your armies into battle. You still have full control over them, and your armies, as they end up acting more like Generals than anything else.

Again, the basic story line will follow for these. Something has been stolen from them, and they are trying to retrieve it. Or an invading army is threating the peace at home, and you must defend your country and culture. Throughout the campaigns smaller stories are thrown in that you must deal with to reach the overall outcome.

The gameplay works the same throught each and every game however, which I found was a fair bit of disappointment. You create your home base, send your villagers to collect your resources such as food, gold and wood. And from those resources you purchase and build more buildings, purchase building and army upgrades, or train fighters. And once you have enough resources behind you to support you through a war (which will provide a strain on the resources as you train more and more fighters) you send your army off into the distance and slaughter everything and anything in your path.

Going back to the point system for a while. You gain your experiance points according to buildings built, upgrades, and enemy units killed. You get your overall level points, which accounts for your home city level. These are slow to level up, and often require a number of games/battles before your level goes up. You then also have your home shipments, which require far less experience points and are used during in game play, where you get to select from a number of cards bonuses and extra resources to use throughout the game. You cards can be unlocked at your Home City screen, with a number of cards available per city level. You can also customise your city with flags, lights, different types of people, etc. But once they are out and about in your home city, apart from removing them, that's about all the interaction with them your gonna get. A nice pretty background for your menu structure really.

-Controls -

So this game can work entirely off point and click mouse controls, but it also supports many keyboard commands that often will create, select or destroy various objects and units within your city. So far with my experience, the controls have functioned pretty much flawlessly. You click on a unit, and it almost always select it, no need to be extremely precise and try and click them on their head a few hundred times (like a hammer).

One feature I did like, and which many new games do include now-a-days, is the drag and select military. Even if your armies are in the middle of the town surrounded by livestock and villagers, you can easily select them now. I hated the older games where you had to individually select them (a pain in the butt for when you were getting seriously attacked by enemies).

- Overall -

So what do I think overall? It's a very decent game, particularly for the year produced. It's about time Ensemble Studios released another game like it (which I believe Halo Wars will be the next similar game). However there are aspects to this game that many serious RTS players may not like. None the less, this game is DEFINITELY worth trying. Many people really enjoy it.

Note: all these pictures were obtained, and are still linked, from www.gamespot.com.au.

Cool Idea: Human Evolution

So my grandfather sent me this link: http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/.

The link was pretty damn awesome. Basically it's an interactive graph and timeline of human evolution and movements across the worlds surface.

I don't believe however that it includes some of the recent findings dealing with the person known as the 'hobbit'. In fact, I think the entire worlds theory about the evolution of humans is based upon about 300 skeletons and body fragments. Not much really, when you think about how many people and skeletons must have been there before us.

However, none the less, its provides a good few minutes thinking to yourself, ' fuck I have come a far way '.

Just thought I would share it with you.

Review: Handtech.co.uk - Completed

- 5 Star Ratings -
Price: 4
Customer Service: 5
Product Span: 4
Overall: 5

This is just a catch up from my last review with them. Overall, I give them a 5. Do you know why? Well again I contacted their live support, and they helped me with all the questions I needed answering. In actual fact it was just to find out small details that didn't really matter, but none the less I got to ask them!
Secondly, as you might have guessed by now, is they have sent the actual products I ordered!

Here's a review of what I ordered:

• Sony Ericsson Xperia X1
• 8 GB Micro SD (can't remember brand)

So in overall dealings with them, I highly recommend that you buy from them if you are purchasing off the net and they have it. Why wait for long payment processing, they do it all within a day for next day delivery!

It's been said people, until my next dealings with them this is the final review for the company for now.

Review: Game: Cradle of Rome

This is a review fo the game "Cradle of Rome".

Year Made: November 2006

Console: DS

Company: Cerasus Media

Graphics: 7

Story-line: 2

Controls: 4

Overall: 7

So I played this game, and found it decent. Afterall, there are some seriously bad DS games out there, and this one wasn't too bad. It effectively kept me entertained for several hours at least. The game essentially has two different area's to it; the first being where you play 'match 3' in order to score points, the second is the city screen where you spend your points on house and building upgrades. 

- Graphics -

The graphics weren't bad. Some of the better graphics I have seen in the game. When in the actual game puzzle mode the graphics were quite decent, where the symbols are easily seen and recognizable. 

However, I personally thought that the graphics in the city view were almost over-attempted. Don't get me wrong, they were quite decent, but they appeared a little pixelated. 

- Story-line - 

The story line of this game is a little weak. The entire point is to spend your points to level up and buy your buildings and ultimately build your city. That's it. Done.

- Controls -

Playing this game I had absolutely no issues with the controls. It all functioned perfectly with the touch screen. 

-Overall -

So overall, I give this game a 7. It was addictive. It was fun.  But it wasn't quite perfect. Sure the levels got harder and harder as you played, but I didn't find too much difficulty as I played. But none the less, it was definitely worth a try.

Review: handtech.co.uk

- 5 Star Ratings -

Price: 4

Customer Service: 5

Product Span: 4

Overall: 5

This is a review of the website handtech. Again, please keep in mind that this review is opinionitive, based upon my dealings with them.

- Details -

So I have purchased the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and an 8gb Micro SD card from Handtech. Cost me so far 457 pounds. Not too bad, for both those items. For example, I worked out that in Australia that for the same brand and size Micro SD will cost between 67 and 87 dollars. That's a significant difference between the price I'm paying from this website and how much I can pay here in Australia. A good 30 to 40 dollars difference.

Being the stingy person I am, I will go every where just to find the best bargain, and then try and convince them to give me an even better bargain.

But the real question of how good handtech is will depend upon today. I have waited for the shipment to come in, and I am now waiting for them to decide whether to ship my order or not.

- Price -

So the question of price. I have seen prices else where for cheaper, such as clove.co.uk. But if you read my previous review, I am very unsatisfied with their customer service. As good as it is to get soemthing cheap (even dirt cheap) I am one of those people that liked to be sold to. I refuse to buy off someone that insults me, and so forth. But, customer service next. 

Overall, the price isn't bad. It's not the best out there, but it's worthy to be brought. I have seen alot worse out there for this phone however. 

- Customer Service -

I love the customer service of this company. So far with my records, I have to say that they provide the best customer service for an online company that I have met so far. Like some unnamed but popular companies don't even give you an email address to contact them by, which frankly to me is a big NO-NO. Like Scam, anyone?

But handtech.co.uk almost have a tagline "5 ways to contact".  You have the option to go with phone, email, live support, fax and post. Phone, email and fax are pretty straight forward. Except I don't like companies that still use fax. Well more so, I don't like companies that rely on only fax. It's an outdated piece of technology! Com'on companies! The fact they use it in this circumstance only suggests that they are trying to accomodate for all their customers, even the ones that still use fax. (And I am seriously sorry if you are one of those people that use faxes...)

I particularly like the live option in terms of contact. They are on I believe between 10 am and 5pm. Bit of a bummer for customers outside of Europe; as you have to wait for time zone difference's for them to come online.

As for email replies. I have sent quite a few emails to them regarding product information, shipping and payment questions, etc. And out of all those emails, I have ALWAYS recieved a reply within 24 hours. To me, that is good. Very good.

- Product Span -

Handtech.co.uk has a decent range of products. Enough that it functions quite well as a website to purchase off. They seem to stock most of the latest technology as well. 

- Overall - 

So overall I am rather happy with my dealings with handtech.co.uk. But their real test comes tonight, when they determine they ship my Xperia or not. 

Drum roll please....

And the results are...

Expect in a later post. :P

Review: Game: Zoombinis Logical Journey

Year Made: September 2001
Console: PC
Company: Broderbund


Graphics: 6
Story-line: 4
Controls: 8


Overall: 9


Also commonly known as the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. There have been released a number of different games following the Zoombini people over the years. Find the latest information on the Broderbund website.

I looked up this game, as it was one of the main games I played as a kid. I must say at first I found it a little odd - sure there was a good 10 years time gap - but I had always remembered the game as very challenging. Now, when I play it, its the easiest game ever. But none the less, it was worth re-downloading again. And if you have kids, I definitely say its worth getting for them.


- Graphics -
The graphics and nothing like people are used to. They are quite frankly old - but hey the game is old too! Despite this, they aren't horrible. It is one of the few games of its time that has successfully created decent graphics that look good for an old style. Basically, they didn't try to over do it and create something that ended up in a flop. They kept with very basic character designs.




- Story-Line -
The story line is very simple, but since its target audience is for 8 - 10 year olds it passes. Essentially the zoombini characters need rescuing, and you are their guide! The entire story line involves you leading them along a path or two, where along the way you encounter many puzzles.
For example, you can encounter the pizza monster(s) - depending upon your level how many there are - who demand you make them pizza (and possibly dessert and drinks). However each pizza monster likes a certain type of pizza, whether its a straight plain base to lots of cheese to pepperoni. A child may be tempted to just click random buttons and generate these pizza's, however it requires a bit more strategy than that. You only get a certain number of tries per character, and there are several choices to choose from. By simply adding ingredients one by one, keeping those they like and removing those they dont, you can find out which pizza is their ideal pizza. At which stage their hunger is satisfied, they move aside and let your characters pass.


- Controls -
The controls have been designed simple, since it came from the "dawn of the computer era". Its just a simple matter of point and click with a mouse.
I attempted to use the touch screen on my tablet pc, however no luck. But thats understandable.


- Overall -
So overall, this game is a many favourite to people out there. I found many people were purchasing it, downloading it, and just talking about it, and all because they remembered that they loved it. In fact, its one of those things that many people pass down to their kids. Though kids in today's world are used to high details, blood and other violence. This game gets them to think, with a bit of a challenge but not enough to turn them off the game. It's a refreshing change, showing that some old things were meant to last.


I never completed the game as a kid or an adult, for different reasons of course :P. But I hope you do, and/or your kids do. It's well worth it.

Review - Clove.co.uk

This is a review of the website www.clove.co.uk. Keep in mind that it is opinionitive. 

- 5 Star Ratings -

Price: 4

Customer Service: 1

Product Span: 4

Overall: 2

- Details - 

I found that overall I was not really satisfied with dealing with this company. I started off really hopeful, as I was planning to buy my mobile phone (Sony Ercisson Xperia) off them.

I will make a point that my dates mentioned are extremely rough. I made my order on the 12th - late at night so it came through for them as the 13th as the order date. I was ok with this. 

On the 15th they expected more stock than what they currently had, which came in, and they apparently shipped out. It got to the 17th, and having not heard from them about my order being shipped, I sent them an email to check. I discovered that I had not been in that shipment, despite the fact that when I brought the product it claimed stock I infact did not 'qualify' for the product in that session. They replied to the email that I would have to wait for the next shipment.

According to their website they claimed they were getting more stock in on the 3rd of Decemeber. I decided that, as much as I hated it, I could wait. Before I checked the website however, I sent them a return email requesting a rough arrival date of my product from the next shipment. 

They returned email that the shipment was now expected at the END of DECEMBER, if not  later! What the FUCK!

Sorry about the swearing, but that is rather annoying/frustrating. I had to wait because of the stuffed up order, and now I have to wait for bloody years. 

But as opiniontive as this review is, and as you can see my frustations, I will try to point out some good sides of dealing with clove.co.uk.

Price: 4

Out of all the online shops I have found so far, this place seems to be the cheapest. I have spent a lot of my time searching for safe websites, spending ages trying to find websites where anyone is safe to use a credit card or bank transfer etc without risk.

Customer Service: 1

Please read above for main reason why I don't like their customer service. Apart from that, however, they replied to my emails within 48 hours. 

Product Span: 4

They had alot of products, a wide range. Bravo to them! As long as I have been watching their product lists, they seem to be able to get new products in early - but they sell out FAR too quickly!

 

Overall:2