Portico

An occasional weblog of one man's musings on computer strategy games.

8/26/2006

In lieu of Gameblogs...

Since Gameblogs still hasn't processed the feed for my new location, here's a reminder that there is over a week's worth of stra...

8/16/2006

Move almost complete

The transition to the new domain is close enough that I will now begin regularly posting over there. So, update your bookmarks and feeds for...

8/14/2006

Forge of Freedom

One of 2005's biggest disappointments for me was Crown of Glory from Western Civilization Software by way of Matrix. The ambitious Nap...

8/13/2006

More than a feeling

Between finishing up an article and doing some much needed house cleaning, I found the time to learn three new board games. My friend and co...

8/10/2006

While I'm talking about awards...

My homeland has announced the nominees for the first ever Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts . Dubbed the "Elan"...

Gphoria 2006 fails to amuse

Not having cable, I missed Gphoria 2006. Even if I had it, I'm not sure I could have stomached much of it, if Kyle Orland's summary ...

8/09/2006

Commander - Europe at War

Slitherine Strategies has unveiled the first shots of its new World War II grand strategy game, Commander - Europe at War . Though many peop...

8/08/2006

September CGM is out

It's a big issue for a big month. School starts again (but not for me, it seems) and the console section is very thin. So there is a lot...

7/26/2006

Another brief update

The friend handling a lot of the domain transition stuff is going through a rough time, so the big move will have to wait until after I deal...

7/18/2006

Still Alive but Still in Transition

The last couple of weeks have been busier than I expected and the migration to the new location is taking its good sweet time. I have a ton ...

7/05/2006

Preparing to Move

Be ready to reset your RSS feeder if you got it. If you've visited Portico in the last day or two, you probably noticted that it looked ...

6/30/2006

Glory of the Roman Empire

Even though the score translates as average, so far, I'm the big, bad Hun when it comes to evaluating Haemimont/CDV's Glory of the R...

6/28/2006

Fall From Heaven

The great hope for Civ IV was that its open architecture would lead to a lot of creative and unusual mods, taking the basic design of the g...

6/27/2006

The Ten Best Years

Next Gen has an interesting story on what they see as the ten greatest years of gaming. I won't spoil their story by listing the punchl...

6/26/2006

Strategy Games of the Half-Year 2006

It's been a good six months for strategy games. So good that I've had a hard time winnowing my list down to the top three of the yea...

6/24/2006

Profiling Gamers

Only a Game has released some of the results from a survey they took of gamers. The intent of many of these question is to establish whethe...

6/21/2006

Sid Meier is always right

I was at Firaxis yesterday, mostly tagging along with a fellow scribe as he worked on a preview of an upcoming game. He had a chance to talk...

6/18/2006

A Sense of History

I've been listening regularly to the PC Gamer Podcast for the last month or so, and it is getting a lot better. The addition of a singl...

6/17/2006

Firaxis podcast

I'm an admitted Firaxis fanboy. Though I will often take shots at the company for resting on Meier's past triumphs, I can't deny...

6/16/2006

Developer Interview: Xavi Rubio

I recently noted that Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War has some of the best RTS naval mechanics around. And, considering the dearth of g...

School's Out

The last exam taken, the last form submitted, the last tearful farewell from a student and my year of teaching has come to an end. I had a l...

6/14/2006

Rise and Fall - Between Good and Average

You can read my review of Midway's Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War here . Actually, this is Stainless Steel Studios' game - the...

6/12/2006

Peace, Love and Understanding - Zero Coverage

This month's CGM has my review of Breakaway Games new "serious game" A Force More Powerful. And so far, it is the only review...

6/09/2006

What I've Written for Games Radar

Previews Rome: Total War - Alexander Reviews Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War Glory of the Roman Empire

Macedonia: Total War

You can read my hands-on preview of the new Alexander expansion to Rome: Total War at Games Radar . This is my first, but hopefully not fi...

6/07/2006

New Paradox Expansion

Victoria is the ugly stepsister of the Europa Universalis games. It's good, but fatally flawed in a number of ways. Even the much vaunt...

6/03/2006

CGM Summer Issue

Computer Games Magazine has a combined July/August issue this year, which makes sense since they are trying to launch their MMO mag. One les...

Then there were three...

Paradox has postponed the release of Roman city-builder Heart of Empire Rome until the first quarter of 2007. No reason was given for the ...

6/01/2006

It's the little things...

Gamespot has a nation preview of the Persians for Midway's upcoming Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War , Stainless Steel Studios' ...

5/29/2006

Irrelevant?

There are lots of reasons to criticize Game Informer , Gamestop's pet magazine. Subscriptions are often pushed on consumers (It's t...

5/26/2006

Any good gaming pod/videocasts?

I love talking about gaming almost as much as I love writing about it. I don't pretend to know all there is about the subject and there ...

5/24/2006

Rise of Legends Packaging

I'm still trying to suss out the nuances in Rise of Legends . I've been told this is a game for RTS wonks, which I used to be but ha...

5/23/2006

Turn based is not the same as smarter

Bruce Geryk gets the Matrix Games newsletter, and I don't. If I did, I probably would have written what he did , but it would have had ...

5/21/2006

The Perfect Strategy Game?

GameSetWatch has published a design blurb for the "perfect strategy game" as envisioned by IGDA co-ordinator Michael Lubker. His ...

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