Report #47

Age of Empires III is a RTS game and the third part of the AoE series. It is set in the New World, spanning from the Spanish Conquistadores to the Wild West. This is the Complete Collection, which means it also includes the two expansions.

The basic concept is like any AoE game, but AoE III adds a new mechanic where you can get support from your home country. At the beginning of the game you can choose a number of "cards" which have specific effects once activated: Get you X amount of ressources or Y amount of a certain unit. Over the course of a game you gather experience with which you can unlock said cards and therefore receive bonuses. It adds another layer to the game, albeit a very simple one.

It has some nice graphics and a few interesting units, but I wasn't too satisfied with the game. The maps feel much smaller than in the previous AoEs, which is weird, since this is the newest game of the series. The ressource gathering has been simplified and there are less things to build overall. The whole game feels a bit more simple and juvenile than the other games of the series. This feeling may partly be increased because I played Company of Heroes right before, which is very mature and realistic in comparison.

The expansions are worthwhile though, they add more gameplay features for the new factions they introduce. Also they take away the focus from the European perspective and shift it to the Indian and Asian one. There is one strange thing though: In the Asian campaign you play as a Chinese and later as a Indian hero. However, in artwork of the loading screens, both look totally western. It's just weird, couldn't they make them look a bit more authentic?

Do I recommend the game? Not so much. The game is much worse than the first and second Age of Empires. So if you're going into the game expecting another one of these, you'll probably be disappointed.

Runaway is a P'n'c Adventure from the spanish Pendulo Studios. It is the start of a whole trilogy and released in 2001. It features a dorky protagonist who gets involved with a hot dancer (as if that would ever happen…) and helps her escape the mafia.

The game has a beautiful intro and an interesting initial approach to telling its story. The beginning of the game had me pretty hyped, alas this hype died down pretty quickly. The visual representation is nice and it feels like people were really passionate about it. The problems arise in other departments, mainly the game design: The puzzles involve a lot of pixel hunting and some are awfully repetitive and monotonous. I'll illustrate this with an example: At one point of the game you need to fill a boiler with water. The boiler is at point A, the water at point B. It takes forever to get from A to B and vice versa, which is the first annoyance. The container you transport water in is rather small. So it's not enough to make the trip once, but 5 times. Which takes at least 15 minutes. And to make matters worse, you get no feedback when filling the water into the boiler. So without a guide, you would probably stop after it didn't have the desired effect after the first time. Who would continue on doing something 5 times without even a hint whether it's successful? That's just awful design.

On top of that, the game only runs in 1024x768. In principle that's fine for a game from 2001. But the game stretched everything to fill my widescreen monitor and I couldn't get it to start in windowed mode. Therefore I ended up playing the game distorted.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend the game. It has nice elements and I suspect that at least some of the people working on it were really trying their best, but the bad game design sadly outweighs the positive.

Pendulo's second part of the Runaway trilogy is unfortunately worse. The main character Brian has (d)evolved into a formidable douchebag and all the women seem to wear even skimpier outfits than previously. All the design problems of the first part are amplified in the second game. And the story is even quirkier, but not in a good way.

Recommendation? I cite wikipedia: "In retrospect, Pendulo's Josué Monchan called Runaway 2 'a horrible game' and 'the biggest shit we've ever made'"

It seems that Pendulo learned from their mistakes. The final part of the Runaway trilogy has an integrated help system, highlights interactable objects in the game and its puzzles are way better designed. Personally I also found the story to be more compelling. Unfortunately the voice actors for the two main characters changed though. And there is almost no continuity to the second game.

As a standalone game A Twist of Fate may be enjoyable, but the series was already ruined for me. I admit I skipped a lot of dialogue, hence the short playtime.