Category Archives: Electronic Entertainment

Electronic Entertainment

The Ouya: Still fucking stupid!

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So, the Ouya, is it still a useless pile of engored over-marketed shit? Of course it is, the core concept is broken as all fucking hell, a useless consoles to play mobile games, games that are almost universally unplayable and shouldn’t exist outside of Newgrounds.

Another sad tendency, is the fact that flash games, previously something you’d play on Newgrounds when you where bored, are now sold as actual games, genuinly expensive games, a staggering concept to me, games like these aren’t worth anyones time, least of all me.

Now, the Ouya does live on, of a short, it runs on the nightmares of deranged marketing people, the dreams of redditors who flock to anything vaguely rebelious and the money, the money, the fucking money of Venture capitalists, who happily hurl cash at anything that have even the slightest chances, of making them fortunes.

To bad nothing good will ever come from the Ouya, other than more than a few laughs and giggles.

And behold, Amazon’s getting into this too, or are they? Nope, it’s just another little happy TV thing, with the whole console thing added as a little bonus.

TOUCH IT
TOUCH IT

There is no real demand for the Ouya, everything it can do, can be done better or easier with something else, like say, a laptop and a HDMI cable.

But alas, it was marketed as some liberating concept, handed down to us, humble plebs, by the Great and Glorious gods from upon high. Free the games, indeed. I don’t want the games free, Quality control is awesome.

But that’s not to be. But enough of all this, we all know the Ouya’s a stupid pile of crap.

Yves Behar’s design is still fucking stupid, and sweet lady, have you seen the design he made for the One Laptop per Child idea? Why the hell?

Why wouldn’t they just ask Lenovo if they could use the ThinkPad instead, cheap and durable beats overdesign crap anyday.

HATE
Hate.
Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, in-depth Finacial Audit.

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So, Diable 3‘s latest, and probably only, expansion has just been released recently. At a price of 39.99 € for the standard edition. 40 € for an expansion, expensive? Hell yes.

So, let’s split the cost into tiny bits, and laugh at the end result. For your hard-earned fourty Euros worth of game, you get the following: Adventure mode, Act 5 and the Crusader. And that’s it, nothing else, there is no extra content beyond those three elements, everything else is included in the base game.

Let’s start with the biggest sinner, the adventure mode, and just before I start my blitzkrieg attack on this useless waste of time, let’s just cover what I thought it was: Randomly made maps, where you could just murder shit, with random missions.

What it actual is: The storyline maps, with two kinds of missions: Kill guys and kill guy. Same maps, same bosses, same mobs, same everything, nothing new at all, using the same art assets and content.

Total cost: 14€ for something that took about half and hour worth of coding, what it should have cost? Nothing, this shouldn’t have cost anything, anything at all, it’s just watered down story mode crap, using the same assets and a bit of extra voice work.

It should have been included with a patch at some point, for free.

Diable3oo1

Next on the itinerary, the Crusader, an extra character is kinda nice, plenty of extra voicework, lots of crap to do, but otherwise, nothing special. I’d pay 14€ for an extra character to have fun with.

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And for the final nail in the proverbial coffin, Act V. Now, this one’s a real pile of crap, it’s basically just around four to six hours of preditable content and story, and if any of you fuckers bitch about bloody spoilers? I’ll laugh from now ’till the heat death of the goddam universe.

And why? Because the story is stupid and preditable, another BIG BAD guy appears, you kill him, that’s it, that’s all there is to it, no big surprise, no big thing, just you walking through a city, then a few shitholes, then hell, then murder end-boss.

Absolutely no surprises at all, which is a welcome addition to the base game storyline, where the little innocent girl character, turns out to be the daughter of EVIL and get’s possed by Diablo, something even the meanest intelligence, could tell, around Act I, part four, the chase for the magical murder thing.

So yeah, worth 14€? Fuck no, not for that little content.

So in conclusion, Reaper of Souls does fuck all for Diablo 3, the giant patch does EVERYTHING for Diablo 3, the 40€? Is just Activision rearing it’s grotesque head again. Did I buy it? Yes, I have friends, it’s the price you pay, for friendship, which isn’t magical, just expensive.

Electronic Entertainment

The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots

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The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots.

The OUYA, a magical beast from a time that never should, is a kickstarter funded, andriod-based video game console. It became an overnight success on Kickstarter, because people bought the Virtual Boy, the Philips CD-i, the Ngage and stupidity, and went off and raised over eight million US$. Why? How? Simple comrades, simple. An effective “stick-it-to-the-man” and “rebel-without-a-cause” approach, combined with the incomprehensible growth of libertarianism, add in a dash of idiocy, no sense of quality or control, a lack of knowledge about HDMI cables. And lo and behold! A stupid video game console.

It was sold, in the start, as a sort of “poor-mans” console, 100 US$ for a console? Sold! But consider this, what kind of poverty stricken human being, would waste 100 bucks on a fucking video game console? No, that’s not the right answer, the correct answer is absolutely no one on the surface of the planet. So we return to the first proposal: Idiots, with no knowledge of HDMI cables. HD-TVs are fairly expensive anyway.

It was then sold as a “rebellious” alternative to “the Big Three”; Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Who, with their old well-established consoles, surely need an opponent! With a 60.000 strong user-base, who has no clue how HDMI cables work, playing bloody mobile games on their giant HD-TVs, well done. Sony must be shitting bricks, out of sheer existential dread. Again, nonsense. So we’re back to people, who can’t hook up a pc to a TV and who has no earthly clue how HDM*I works.

And then, and then, the argument became: “I want to play Android games on my TV” , because, well, who doesn’t want to play “Angry Birds” on their television. Other than people with a bit of taste, and a laptop, or a PC, or perhaps AppleTV, or a Rasperry PI, or the future SteamBox, or a smartphone, or an Xbox, or a Playstation, someone with a chess set, or perhaps an old fucking Sega.

So, morons, who enjoy simple colourful lights, I mean, mobile games, have no knowledge og PCs and cannot fathom how HDMI cables work.

Then they brought up the open nature of the platform, which sound really good, if you are blessed with a completely lack of common sense and logic, because at the point where this stupid thing get’s close to release, and surprise, “open” means, absolutely no quality control, at all, nothing, nada, zip, zero. so the OUYA shop looks like unregulated Newgrounds, you know, without the quality control that site has.

A 100 bucks to play flash games? And add whatever devestatingly stupid price to “developers” ask for their games, that parts that aren’t “free”. The hell? Just hook up and old laptop or something. It’s bound to be cheaper and much more flexible, than this stupid, barely working, box of cellphone innards. And hey, you don’t have to pay to use Newgrounds and Kongregate, so that’s a Vicory, and very small one, but a Victory is a Victory, no matter its relevance, size or meaningfulness.

And thus, comrades, we return. Back to the unbelievably thick, optimistic, gullible, stupid and weak morons, who fall for anything, even the smallest, most pitiful, hype. Who cannot understand how cheap PCs can be. Who cannot use HDMI cables. Who pays money for flash games. Who rejoices in pointless rebelion against targets, who are not even remotely worth it. And deified Julie Uhrman, a maniac, a former “Junior-Vice-President” of Digital Distribution, sadly not at Valve or Microsoft, but at IGN, so not actually someone who knows anything outside marketing phrases. I’m more of a Video Game Veteran than this bag of empty philosophy, you people will fall for anything, wont you?

Julie-Uhrman-OUYA-Founder
BEHOLD! THE DARK MISTRISS OF TERRIBLE HAIR!

So here we are, the OUYA, you know what? Fuck that name, I’m just going to replace it with random phrases, makes more sense. The OGABO is being released, technically, slowly, and probably not at all anyway. And guess what? To rave reviews! In the deranged mental landscape of its mentally deluded supporters at least, everyone else just thinks it’s rather shit. The Verge thought it was spectacularly rubbish, in one of those “Oh shit, I really don’t want to actually say how shit this is, let’s just fire of meaningly bullshit and give it a low-grade” ways. Joystiq went slightly harder, more honest, to work, and called the UOYA: “The Infinite Garage Sale”, presuming the damn thing ever get’s out to all 60000 users, and not just to the roughly thirty it’s reached so far, You can even get a picture of the Hardware if you check this one out, you will have to scroll, a lot.

And of course, the marketing machine went fucking haywire. And unleashed every single one of their awe-inspiring weapons of sales directed psychology. Or that’s what those maniacs thought they did, for the rest of sanity, this is what they did:

They claimed that reviews shouldn’t be made, until after the OKLHA had been released, because, get this, it wasn’t “ready” for reviews. How the hell does anyone even remotely believe this? Even after Uhrman’s insanity made her claim the damn thing was “finished”, and hey, seeing as no one’s actually getting this stupid thing, I guess she was rightWRONG.

WHY? YOU FUCKING MORONS! WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

I guess the HOKAH is only really useful, as a very expensive decorative item. A decorative item designed by Yves Béhar, a big fan of boxes, squares and useless overhyped junk. apparently he’s biggest credentials is his involvement with some “Laptops for kids” initiative, not sure what a designer does on a charity project, money’s better spent elsewhere, just go use IBMs old laptop design, cheap, indestructible, perfect.

The OUYA isn’t anything new and shiny, there’s been attempts to make Open platforms before, many attempts at “indie” consoles, all have faded into obscurity, none has ever taken off, this is just another Ngage, CDi and almost a Phantom.

The OUYA was stupid when I saw it on Kickstarter, it’s still fucking stupid, if you think otherwise, then do I have an offer for you! A free Eiffel Tower, only 100 US£, slightly used.

Philip “Ragnarokz” Balfour, is a useless hack, you shouldn’t read this.

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Omerta – City of Gangsters deserves concrete shoes

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Omerta – City of Gangsters deserves concrete shoes

Omerta – City of Gangsters is a turn based tactical strategy game, blended into a crime simulator, set in prohibition era Atlantic City. Or is it? It isn’t. It’s a shallow crime building simulator, where combat encounters are done via turn based tactical action, similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Or is it? It kinda isn’t. It’s actually a shallow crime building simulator, with a nor terrible impressive turn based combat encounter system bolted to it, and the similarity to XCOM is strictly theoretical.

It’s the latest game from Haemimont Games, known for their remastering of the Tropico franchise, and horribly overpriced German publisher Kalypso Media, known for their outdated habit of demanding preposterous sums for shallow games, small DLC and similar such villanous deeds. Like demanding 30€ and more for this wreck of a game. For fucks sake guys, i loved Tropico 4, stop doing this shit, Dungeons was a pile of useless waste too.

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Now that I’ve mentioned Tropico 4, I can mention it some more! Wait, just kidding, you’re not getting the pleasure of me talking about a good game, I was going to mention who they’re using the same damned engine, thus cutting costs even further, hell, it even reuses several bits and pieces of Tropico’s art assets, even a couple of voice actors get paid again. Should mention that they voice actors are actually very good, and have, duty done.

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Crime Simulators doesn’t pay.

Omerta – City of Gangsters is simple, and due to it’s simplicity, it’s easy as hell to play. The simulation have a theme of duality. Illegal (dirty) and legal (clean) cash, liked and feared ratings, joints and premises. The dirty cash is used for the setup of illegal activities, the clean for construction sites and little else. Liked ratings improve some activities, mostly gambling, and feared makes shit cheaper and pawn shops better. Not that you would ever build more than one speakeasy, boxing ring and similar, seeing as diminishing returns makes yet another ugly appearance here.

The gameplay is nice and simple, you rent joints and premises, and make your money using a limited range of illegal and semi-legal activities, some are logical, like speakeasies and nightclubs needing supplies of beer from breweries and liquor from disteleries, in order to rake in the dough. Other? Less so. Like the pizzaria that makes people fear you? I really don’t recall the part of the Godfather where Don Corleone spread fear through a fucking pizza hut.

Throughout most of the empire-building parts of the game, your opposition is pre-programmed and lacking, little if any AI will present you with any opposition, and the lack of any sort of logically located speed-up function can and will make the game hideous and slow.

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XCOM is weeping for it’s lesser cousin, for it has lost its way.

The turn based combat, oh dear merciful Eris, daughter of Chaos, preserve us all, it’s not very good. I’ll make a presumption, and presume that you have all played the new XCOM:Enemy Unknown, which I know declare the benchmark of turn-based squad gameplay.

Omerta’s connection to the shinning beacon of XCOM, is technical at best, in XCOM, cover was basically everywhere you could see, a tree was cover, a car, a wall. In Omerta? Only where the programmers have determined it to be, can you find cover, so where it’s instinctual in XCOM, it becomes illogically flawed in Omerta.

The complete lack of any serious customization beyond slightly better guns makes the game even shallower. There’s no armour, so when the game ramps up the difficulty, oh boy, does shit ever die. It becomes a matter of luck if you can even manage to drag all your gangsters through a combat mission.

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Should I play this?

No. You really shouldn’t, perhaps with an expansion pack it might become more interesting, and if Steam comes around with a giant sale, you could pick it up, if you are so desperate for a Gangster empire builder.

If you chose to ignore me, you can find it on Steam and on GOG.com.

However, if you want a tough-as-nails crime simulator? I suggest Gangsters: Organized Crime. With the warning, that I suck at it.

I give it 36/100.

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

City Builders and you: Grand Ages Rome

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What I really love about this game, is that your inhabitants mill around, toga-clad patricians head to the temples, children head to school, plebs work in their insulae and slaves are being lead to their bloody brutal deaths in the Arenas. It’s delightful to watch, absolutely nothing like zooming in on your grand forum, and seeing some citizen holding a speech.

Grand Ages Rome is a classical Roman city builder. You build a Roman city, you ensure people have their needs, that temples cover the cities houses, all the good old stuff, we all know and remember, from Impression Games’ Ceasar. You build mines, quarries, logging camps and farm, producing all that the three clases of Roman society need.

Resource management is classical, pun intended, buildings costs cash and some materials. And then has an upkeed in materials, forcing you to upgrade your resource infrastructure, in order to support growth.

The three classes of Roman society are, as any educated person will know, the plebs, the equite and the patricians, in that order.

The Plebs are your lower class, they work in the basic industries and are by far, the most common of people in your fair town. Make them happy, through ensuring they have enough different food, basic entertainment and religious access, and they’ll start producing goods, out of the workshops and small business on the lowest floor of the insulae, used by the upper classes and good for export to the rest of the empire.

Equite are your middle class, their area was the army, so when happy, the produce recruits for your Legions, they also man the more advanced industries, some of the temples and most of the military infrastructure. They also improve some the areas plebs also work in.

And finally, the top of the cities social stratum, the elite, the rich, the Patricians. These guys work in the really advanced public buildings, the senates, the bigger temples. When these upper class twits are happy, they produced Authority, used for an number of special abilities, like getting an emergency batch of slaves.

The military side is straightforward, if the barbarians have two squads, show up with two better squads or obliterate them with massive army of proud Roman legionaries, or let a few auxilia deal with their barbarian brethern. Surpress their barbarian villages to gain a steady stream of resources, or burn it, crush them, to gain a one-time bonus of slaves and money. So if you don’t need the bonus, burn their houses, kill their man and enslaves everything else, including the pigs.

Slaves are technically speaking a fourth class in the game’s Roman society, they just don’t have any houses. Instead of houses, you build slave camps, that provide slaves in an area, you can then use them as a sort of, I-don’t-feel-like-building-a-settlement-over-there, instrument. They can handle basic industries, like logging and quarries.

But, you can also use them in Arenas: “THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE, SALUTE YOU!”, which they never actually said, still, a cooler use than anything else.

Now, the multiplayer is sadly utterly extinct, this isn’t a new game, so the multiplayer scene is pretty much gone. As far as I could tell, you build a city or more, and then just duke it out, sending your armies out to destroy your opponents armies, and besige them, I guess it could be really cool.

There’s a second mode, where you just have to reach some goal or milestone instead, like get a certain amount of income or something. The only activity I found was a few Italians using the lobby as a chatroom, wich just confuses the fuck outta me.

Alas, a good game, with good missions, good fun. Worth a look really.

You can get it from Steam. I give it a 88/100.

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Duke Nukem Forever is bloody stupid.

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The game starts up with Duke taking a piss, but not just any piss. A piss of such magnitude, of such glory, so loaded with testosterone and steroids, that’s it officially qualifies as a chemical weapon in no less than 53 of the lower states. Now Duke zips up and fires of some catchy remark.

Which i sadly didn’t listen to, wondering if the game is really taking the piss, of everything. It’s a relic, a pipe(bomb( dream, something that really should have stayed lost, or make ten years ago, where it would have been a masterpiece. Sadly, now it’s just another mediocre FPS, which is really bad, because this was once upon a time, the potential for a champion among champions, now, and yet.

Duke Nukem Forever is probably the Silliest Game of the Year, which is a bit of a problem, because I do not think, it was suppose to feel quite this silly, defenitely not a serious game, but it doesn’t take the shit quite as good as say, Serious Sam did, it just messes around with mediocre health regeneration, quicktime event and sexism. It’s just juvenile to such a staggering degree, that it just ends up being fucking stupid, you don’t laugh, you groan.


I never see the enemies like this, all I see is a garbled mess as they mindlessly charge me.

A health bar replaced by an ego bar, increased by looking in a mirror, eating doughnuts, pumping iron and behaving like a pillock. An enemy AI that’s just about the same, as the one used in Duke Nukem 3D, the decade old gaming classic, shows that Gearbox didn’t even bother trying to innovate this game at all.

An entire stage, with a miniaturized Duke, driving around in a fucking RC car, it’s just so sad, Half-Life 2 did this years ago, twice, without the retarded gimmick. It’s like playing that ancient MicroMachines racing game all over again, just worse, and less fun. Seriously, who thought this was in any way a good idea? Yes, I do indeed love sections of constantly re-spawning enemies, where all I can hope to achieve in my present state, is make them jump around on a single leg. Dodging sure is fun, fun like taking a shite in a winter forest, surrounded by rampaging LARPers.

And don’t make me start ranting about the magnificent design off the random passersby you encounter, they look like they’ve just escaped from freaking Outcast, or perhaps even, from some of the old trailers of Duke Nukem Forever. There’s just no excuse for this kinda useless work.

And these motherfucking pigs! Fuck them, hateful little shite gameplay.

And dear sweet one-eyed Wotan, god of destiny, god of death, the all knowing, the all-seeing, all hail Odin, true King of the Gods, those fucking twins are annoying, it’s like having Tony Blair licking your ears, possibly pleasant, but deeply annoying. I don’t even want to save them, when they are inevitably kidnapped, the world would be better of without them, hell, the universe would be better off without them.

And hey, remember how Alyx from Half-Life 2 looked, behaved and dressed like a sensible human being? And remember how no one really tries to do that again? Duke Nukem Forever once against proves that it is the anti-matter of all innovation, and scales the whole thing back to strippers and lesbian twin schoolgirls. Skimpy clothing, skimpy brains, skimpy motivation, boring as fuck.

Go visit and actual strip bar you useless freaks.

Gotta give the game a few points, it’s tradition, it is deeply honest, it does have a mature rating, no pandering to the politically correct crowd, or to WalMart. And it runs on my ancient PC, a pc that’s so decrepit, that it’s being held together with glue, dust and my iron will.


This picture contains nothing but filthy lies!

In the end, don’t bother, unless you have the mental youthfulness of a seven year old German boy. The game-play itself, is so utterly devoid of innovation, so generic, that the layer of ancient nostalgia, makes you feel kinda sad.

Don’t buy it, watch a Let’s Play on Youtube, see a stupid friend play it. But stay away, it’s just not good.

Not even charming.

If you are a retarded man-child, go buy it on Steam.

Rating: 43/100

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Aion: Tower of Obvious Grind

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Let’s get something out of the way before I start pouring out the bile and hatred on this little stupid Korean MMORPG.

It’s very, very, very pretty. In most cases, when it comes to the environment and scenery, I’ll go as far as “beautiful”, and that’s going far when it comes from the horrible human being who adores Impressionist art.

The environment is utterly alien and completely awesome, it vaguely reminds you of old Morrowind, simply because you see so much odd shit, unlike World of Warcraft, which is actually fairly generic fantasy bollocks.

The character design is as retarded as you’d expect from a Korean MMO, utterly useless armour, wings, bling and more bling.

It’s like some accidentally walked into a Cosplay convention covered in glue. Which I suppose is what Aion’s primary focus group wants: Anime chicks in steel bikinis. Or anime chick in metal dominatrix gear.

It’s silly, useless and about as practical as a sword during the Battle of Midway, standing on a battleship, on the Japanese side, before it gets fistful of torpedoes up it’s ass.


Now, onto the actual gameplay.

It plays like World of Warcraft, pretty much like World of Warcraft, select enemy, murder it, collect loot, enjoy the seething anger of Greenpeace.

There’s one or two stupid little gimmicks and one pretty large stupid gimmick. One of the small ones is the whole combo system, which I believe Age of Conan introduced into mainstream MMOs, which works I suppose, the timing doesn’t have to be absolute, so at least they know about the concept of lag.

The second much larger gimmick, and the one Aion’s been selling itself on, is flight. When you get to lvl 10, you go though a silly little cutscene, get a pair of wings and what? 40 or 50 seconds worth of flight. Woohooo!

I’ll admit that the ability to attack from the air is awesome, to bad there’s plenty of place where you can’t fly, due to gameplay issues and magic wizards of Oz.

So it remains a gimmick.

Now I never made it beyond lvl 12ish, because the game is boring as all hell, if you’re not some weaboo lunatic who lusts after Son-Goku’s useless arse.

I suppose it’s heaven for that particular part of the market, but it’s not heaven for any sane person with tastes that move beyond flashy lights and big muscular men screaming at each other.

Supposedly, there’s alot of active PvP and bollocks, but then, supposedly, Atlantis lies in Sweden and Copenhagen is the capital of Amsterdam.

So yeah, plays like World of Warcraft, looks pretty, has retarded character design only a delusional madman could possibly enjoy.

Which brings me to a small little spot of hatred: The female voices, occasionally you’ll get to hear your character produce some odd moans and noises, presumably in order to be “awesome” or something similar.

To bad the experience was ruined when my supposedly dark and hardcore fireball-slinging sorceress squaked like a four-year old during a cut-scene.

Dear merciful Osiris, they didn’t obliterate the retarded Asian high-pitched girlish scream from the game when they transferred it to the West?

Why am I surprised? This is a game for the deranged anime fans who watch Naruto like it was the second coming of Napoleon.

Anything else? Oh yeah, as I said, I never actually managed to get anywhere impressive with this silly game, so I’ll leave you with this, possibly outdated, little image:

Now, to be fair, I don’t know if it’s still accurate, but the fact that a company is capable of misjudging the entire MMO customer base of the Western world that badly, is kinda scary.

This isn’t the old EverQuest years NCSoft, there aren’t many hardcore loser gamers left, they’ve all gone casual, or have somehow managed to get a life.

The final verdict? Don’t buy this piece of shit, spend your money on something more useful.

Like a lobotomy.

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

City Builders and you: Children of the Nile

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Welcome to a brand new bunch of useless reviews no one will ever read, because you’re all to busy masturbating to a disorganised list of Warhammer 40k quotes.

This series is all about the particular Video Game genre called “City Builders“, a largely Niche genre, which mainly aims towards hilariously nerdy people, me included. It can be seperated into two main sub genres: Ancient City Builders, based on anything from ancient Egypt to Medieval Castles, and Modern City Builders, who are basically just SimCity and it’s successors, also the entire Modern City Builder sub genre died out with Simcity 4, SimCity Societies sucks awfully and Monte Cristo can’t make games.

Now, today’s game is Children of the Nile by Tilted Mill Entertainment, oddly enough the same damn company who made the absolutely awful Simcity Societies. However, they are also the successor company of Impression Games, one of the grand old City-builder developers, the only other members of that rare club is classical Maxis, back when they where still developing shit other that the Sims, and good old Bullfrog.

Children of the Nile is set entirely in Ancient Egypt, with it’s expansion pack Alexandria, covering the rise of Greek Egypt, during the conquests of Alexandria. And remarkably enough, it actually has plenty of unique selling points for the budding little simulation nerd to enjoy.

The graphics are quite good, for a game developed by a small independent company, and is actually fairly enjoyable to watch and observe, which is important for me, I personally enjoy watching all those little people, running around, pretending to matter.

It’s single largest selling point is the way the economy works in the game, unlike most Ancient City Builders, the players involvement in the city’s economy is actually slightly limited.

In most of those games, you have a currency, say gold, you use it to build absolutely everything, but not in this game, this is ancient Egypt after all. it was all barter economy back then, gold and silver was used exclusively to make jewellery and bribes to foreigners.

So the parts of the economy the player actually controls are based on two things, bricks, used to build most of the mid to high-tier buildings, like bakeries (Produces food for government employees) to gigantic Cult temples. And the the big dog, food.

That’s right, the most important “currency” in Children of the Nile is simply food, as King, you take a share of most of the food produced from the farmers of your city. Your own palace will, throughout the game, support from six to ten farmers, who will then deposit a lions share of the food into the city granaries, that food is used by brick makers, bricklayers, government labourers, soldiers and of course: Priests, scribes, commanders and Overseers.

There is also a large private economy, which, if done properly, is larger than the Government funded one, all farmers build their houses out whatever they can find, you simply decided how many there should be, the answer to that one is, by the way, as many as you can, and a few extra just in case.

Now, your Palace can only support, what, six farmers in the beginning, that’s not really enough to get a nice big city now is it? Of course not, fortunately enough, Egypt is a feudal society, and you can build nice big estates for Nobles, who then support even most farmers, and you get a chunk of the food produced, as taxes. Which you then mainly spend on various support structures for the city itself, ie. temples, hospitals and schools, manned by the most important educated Government employee, the Priest.

So, what does the nobles, farmers, servants, government employees and the Royal family itself, spend most of their food on? Why mats, linen, pottery, baskets and in the case of the nobles and educated, six different kinds of luxuries. In most City builders in the Ancient world, it’s up to the player and the government to set up production chains, pay wages and so on and so forth.

Not here, Common shop-owners and luxury show-owners handle everything themselves. The inhabitants of the city use their food to buy stuff from the shops as they need it, the show-keepers then travel around and gather the materials themselves, often sending out their kids to do it, and produce it themselves. They are completely outside of Government control, they only thing you as player do, is control where they build their small shops.

It’s oddly realistic, especially when you remember that most societies back then where utterly dependent on a successful and good harvest.

So now you have a lovely little city, plenty of food to go around, your scribes out collecting taxes from the fields, you priests handling the gods and the people’s health and education, your commanders commanding what military you may or may not need and your Overseers handling, oh yes, what are they doing, why they are answering a questions you would presently be thinink about.

“That’s all good, but what’s the point of all this?”. You blood moron, it’s fucking Egypt, what the hell do you think the point is? To build some damn Pyramids!

Your Overseers handle the labourers dragging the necessary stones to the sites of the pyramids, the raw obelisks and statues to those sites and temples. They can also be used for mining and quarrying when needed.

And what are the pyramids and brick tombs used for? Well, first of all, to contain your dead Pharaoh, members of the Royal family and in the case of the really small brick Mastaba, the nobles and Educated people of the city.

And guess what, they also produce Prestige, which is the “currency” that decided how many Educated governement employees you can have in total, thus really enforcing a limit to how large your city can grow. You need more priests to handle all those temples and hospitals after all.

These is also a little world map thing, which is similar to what Impression Games old products had, you set up trade routes, send out your army to murder everything that looks at you funny, complete little tasks. All to gain more prestige, resources and cool luxury bollocks to keep your nobles happy. Those dilletants even need entertainers, private economy again, and servants just to be happy. Although the servants are also used by the luxury shopkeepers to gather resources, they can afford it anyway.

Oddly enough, your shopkeepers and entertainers usual end up being filty rich, simply because they really don’t have that much to spend the money on. They don’t buy all the luxuries the nobles and educated citizens can spend their income/wages on, so it simply builds up.

Meaning that in the later game, most of your nobles are former Luxury shopkeepers and so on. It actually works fairly well, there are little annoyances, but nothing serious.

So yeah, if you enjoy these kind of city builder games, I’d happily recommend Children of the Nile, Tilted Mill apparently really do care about this little game.

Oh yeah, the military part isn’t very strong, but they rarely are, so who cares?

I would’ve have ripped Hinterland a new arsehole for being a shallow city builder with a shallow RPG smashed into it, but apparently they are releasing another freaking expansion for it, so hey, I’ll wait.