GameInformer's Top 200 Games of All Time Commentary

For its 200th issue, Game Informer's editors have created a list of the top 200 games of all time. Although you can't see the article online, there's a summary here. Just for fun, I’ve bolded the ones that I’ve played. However, in general, most of the coin-op games listed I played in best-of collections or on the NES. In either case, I did not play them when they came out and thus really could never truly appreciate the value of most of them. This means that for the most part, I didn't comment on them. I’ve also written up some of my thoughts on the rankings, presented below.

1 -- The Legend of Zelda (NES, 1987)
2 -- Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1985)
3 -- Tetris (PC, 1984)
4 -- Grand Theft Auto III (PS2, 2001)
5 -- Half-Life 2 (PC, 2004)
6 -- Doom (PC, 1993)
7 -- Metroid (NES, 1986)
8 -- Final Fantasy III (SNES, 1994)
9 -- Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES, 1990)
10 -- Ms. Pac-Man (coin-op, 1981)
11 -- World of Warcraft (PC, 2004)
12 -- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1992)
13 -- Super Mario 64 (N64, 1996)
14 -- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3/360/PC, 2007)
15 -- Final Fantasy VII (PS, 1997)
16 -- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES, 1987)
17 -- Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)
18 -- Resident Evil 4 (GameCube, 2005)
19 -- Metal Gear Solid (PS, 1998)
20 -- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998)
21 -- Super Metroid (SNES, 1994)
22 -- Contra (NES, 1988)
23 -- Galaga (coin-op, 1981)
24 -- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS, 1997)
25 -- Street Fighter II (coin-op, 1991)
26 -- God of War (PS2, 2005)
27 -- BioShock (360/PC, 2007)
28 -- Diablo II (PC, 2000)
29 -- Half-Life (PC, 1998)
30 -- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360/PC, 2006)
31 -- Tecmo Super Bowl (NES, 1991)
32 -- GoldenEye 007 (N64, 1997)
33 -- Super Mario Kart (SNES, 1992)
34 -- Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis, 1991)
35 -- StarCraft (PC, 1998)
36 -- Civilization (PC, 1991)
37 – Sim City (PC, 1989)
38 -- Mega Man 2 (NES, 1988)
39 -- Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001)
40 -- Gran Turismo (PS, 1998)
41 -- Resident Evil 2 (PS, 1998)
42 -- Pokemon Red and Blue (GB, 1996)
43 -- Final Fantasy X (PS2, 2001)
44 -- EverQuest (PC, 1999)
45 -- Final Fantasy Tactics (PS, 1998)
46 -- Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3/360, 2008)
47 -- Super Mario World (SNES, 1991)
48 -- Deus Ex (PC, 2000)
49 -- Guitar Hero (PS2, 2005)
50 -- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2, 2001)
51 -- Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)
52 -- Pac-Man (coin-op, 1980)
53 -- Battlefield 2 (PC, 2005)
54 -- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox, 2003)
55 -- Ico (PS2, 2001)
56 -- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, 2009)
57 -- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PS, 2000)
58 -- Mass Effect (360, 2007)
59 -- Adventure (2600, 1980)
60 -- Arkanoid (coin-op, 1986)
61 -- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB, 1993)
62 -- Star Wars: X-Wing (PC, 1993)
63 -- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64, 2000)
64 -- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2, 2004)
65 -- Fallout 3 (PS3/360/PC, 2008)
66 -- Zork (PC, 1980)
67 -- Soul Calibur (DC, 1999)
68 -- Double Dragon (coin-op, 1987)
69 -- Dr. Mario (NES, 1990)
70 -- The Sims (PC, 2000)
71 -- Age of Empires (PC, 1997)
72 -- Mortal Kombat II (coin-op, 1993)
73 -- Rock Band 2 (PS3/360, 2008)
74 -- Tomb Raider (PS, 1996)
75 -- Super Bomberman (SNES, 1993)
76 -- Mario's Picross (GB, 1995)
77 -- Ninja Gaiden (NES, 1989)
78 -- Command & Conquer (PC, 1995)
79 -- Kingdom Hearts (PS2, 2002)
80 -- Final Fantasy II (SNES, 1991)
81 -- Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES, 1988)
82 -- Left 4 Dead (PC, 2008)
83 -- Okami (PS2, 2006)
84 -- Shadow of the Colossus (PS2, 2005)
85 -- Metroid Prime (GameCube, 2002)
86 -- Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube, 2001)
87 -- Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (PC, 1995)
88 -- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (PC, 2000)
89 -- God of War II (PS2, 2007)
90 -- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii, 2006)
91 -- Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2, 2004)
92 -- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (PC, 2002)
93 -- Skies of Arcadia (DC, 2000)
94 -- The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GameCube, 2003)
95 -- Silent Hill 2 (PS2, 2001)
96 -- Counter-Strike (PC, 1999)
97 -- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis, 1992)
98 -- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS3/360, 2002)
99 -- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PS2/Xbox/GameCube/PC, 2003)
100 -- Portal (PC/360, 2007)
101 -- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC, 2002)
102 -- Heroes of Might & Magic III (PC, 1999)
103 -- Donkey Kong (coin-op, 1981)
104 -- Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3/360, 2009)
105 -- System Shock 2 (PC, 1999)
106 -- Resident Evil (PS, 1996)
107 -- Gears of War (360, 2006)
108 -- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3, 2008)
109 -- Crash Bandicoot: Warped (PS, 1998)
110 -- Halo 2 (Xbox, 2004)
111 -- Tetris Attack (SNES, 1996)
112 -- Final Fantasy XII (PS2, 2006)
113 -- Earthbound (SNES, 1995)
114 -- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (PC, 1998)
115 -- Command & Conquer: Red Alert (PC, 1996)
116 -- Advance Wars (GBA, 2001)
117 -- Fallout (PC, 1997)
118 -- Team Fortress 2 (PS3/360/PC, 2007)
119 -- Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Xbox, 2005)
120 -- Mega Man X (SNES, 1994)
121 -- Lemmings (PC, 1991)
122 -- Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn, 1998)
123 -- NHL '94 (Genesis/SNES, 1993)
124 -- Warlords (coin-op, 1980)
125 -- Shadowrun (SNES, 1993)
126 -- Twisted Metal 2 (PS, 1996)
127 -- Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (PS, 1997)
128 -- Metroid Fusion (GBA, 2002)
129 -- Homeworld (PC, 1999)
130 -- Kingdom Hearts II (PS2, 2006)
131 -- Pilotwings (SNES, 1991)
132 -- Quake II (PC, 1997)
133 -- Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC, 1997)
134 -- Borderlands (PS3/360/PC, 2009)
135 -- Final Fight (coin-op, 1989)
136 -- Star Fox (SNES, 1993)
137 -- Madden NFL '99 (PS/N64/PC, 1999)
138 -- Call of Duty 2 (360/PC, 2005)
139 -- Wolfenstein 3D (PC, 1992)
140 -- Diablo (PC, 1996)
141 -- Civilization IV (PC, 2005)
142 -- Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (PC, 1993)
143 -- Assassin's Creed (PS3/360, 2007)
144 -- Burnout 3: Takedown (PS2/Xbox, 2004)
145 -- Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC, 2004)
146 -- Power Stone 2 (DC, 2000)
147 -- Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 1991)
148 -- Super Mario RPG (SNES, 1996)
149 -- Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (PC, 2002)
150 -- ActRaiser (SNES, 1991)
151 -- Fable (Xbox, 2004)
152 -- Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (PS2, 2003)
153 -- Asteroids (coin-op, 1979)
154 -- LittleBigPlanet (PS3, 2008)
155 -- Crackdown (360, 2007)
156 -- Gauntlet (coin-op, 1985)
157 -- Devil May Cry (PS2, 2001)
158 -- Pong (coin-op, 1972)
159 -- Battlefield 1942 (PC, 2002)
160 -- Thief (PC, 1998)
161 -- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (360, 2005)
162 -- Far Cry (PC, 2004)
163 -- Robotron: 2084 (coin-op, 1982)
164 -- X-COM: UFO Defense (PC, 1993)
165 -- Peggle (PC, 2007)
166 -- King's Quest VI (PC, 1992)
167 -- Doom II (PC, 1994)
168 -- Tempest 2000 (Jaguar, 1994)
169 -- Braid (360, 2008)
170 -- Ridge Racer (PS, 1995)
171 -- Bully (PS2, 2006)
172 -- Ikaruga (GameCube, 2006)
173 -- Lode Runner (Apple II, 1983)
174 -- Gunstar Heroes (Genesis, 1993)
175 -- Dig Dug (coin-op, 1982)
176 -- Castlevania (NES, 1988)
177 -- Tekken 3 (coin-op, 1997)
178 -- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS, 2005)
179 -- NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (coin-op, 1993)
180 -- Max Payne (PC, 2001)
181 -- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3/360/PC, 2009)
182 -- Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo, 1993)
183 -- NFL 2K5 (PS2/Xbox, 2004)
184 -- Vagrant Story (PS, 2000)
185 -- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES, 1995)
186 -- Marble Madness (coin-op, 1984)
187 -- Infamous (PS3, 2009)
188 -- Planescape: Torment (PC, 1999)
189 -- Kid Icarus (NES, 1986)
190 -- The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox, 2004)
191 -- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2, 2004)
192 -- Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GameCube, 2002)
193 -- Jak 3 (PS2, 2004)
194 -- Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (DC, 2002)
195 -- Ultima (PC, 1981)
196 -- Call of Duty (PC, 2003)
197 -- NHL 09 (PS3/360, 2008)
198 -- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox, 2004)
199 -- Tactics Ogre (PS, 1997)
200 -- Beyond Good and Evil (PS2/Xbox/GameCube, 2003)

Total Played 138/200. Wow. That's sad. I may have even played a few of the older ones a time or two, but I wasn't sure.

It’s hard for me to say whether this is a good or bad list, but this is the kind of thing I love to think about. I’ve played the vast majority of these games, barring the ones that pre-date my first console, which was around 1990. Of course, as I mentioned before, I didn’t play some of these games in a timely fashion (when they first came out), though I’ll try to limit my bias.

On first impression, I’m inclined to think that this list is rather good. Of course, everyone will find things to nitpick, but in general I like the list. Here are a few things that I would personally change:

Notable Snubs: Several games definitely deserve inclusion into this list. Here are some games that should have been included, in my opinion.

• Secret of Mana. Since SoM was on their top 100 list in their 100^th issue (78^th place), I’m going to let their own words do the talking. Personally, this easily cracks my top 50. Seiken Densetsu 3, although it was never released in English, is also an outstanding game that should be on this list. A beautiful game in its own right, Secret of Mana is actually an important release in Square Soft’s history. Other than a few Game Boy titles, this really is the first time Square ventured outside the Final Fantasy realm and explored what else the RPG genre has to offer. Secret of Mana’s stimulating, real-time gameplay and breathtaking settings came together to create a near Zelda killer – a feat no developer has even come close to achieving.
• Master of Orion: Arguably better than Civilization, though the former was more relatable and consequently more popular.
• Thief II: Many people consider this to be the best game of all time. I disagree, but it is certainly in the top 100.
• Paper Mario
• MechWarrior 2
• Wing Commander
• Shenmue
• Suikoden II
• Xenogears

Games That Shouldn’t Have Made This List

• Sonic and/or Sonic 2: While I’m sure Game Informer would have gotten a great deal of flak for including neither Sonic game in this list, they certainly should not have included more than one of these two. I would have supported including Sonic and Knuckles or Sonic 3d in lieu of Sonic 2, but, simply put, neither Sonic or Sonic 2 were that great compared to their contemporaries on other platforms, and there were even several other Genesis platformers, such as Vectorman, that were much better than the Sonic games, albeit less widely owned.
• Call of Duty 2(not CoD:MW2): There is no reason for Call of Duty 1 and 2 to both be on there. Although both games were strong, they weren’t different enough from each other to both warrant inclusion, when other sequels like Civilization II don't make the list. Sorry.
• Dr. Mario: For a game that was outclassed 6 years prior by Tetris, Dr. Mario should not have made this list. You may be nostalgic about this game (I know I am), but Dr.Mario simply does not compare well to its contemporaries, or even games that preceded it by half a decade. Or even other Smash Brothers
  
• Crackdown: While there is certainly a case for this game, I think that there are plenty of other games that warrant the spot that this game took, and that Crackdown is a borderline inclusion at best.
• Ridge Racer: While I loved playing this game at the time, it was simply the first good 3d racing game that I can remember. Otherwise, there wasn’t much special about it, and it was quickly outclassed by higher-quality games like Gran Turismo.
• Samurai Showdown: Simply weaker than its contemporaries, Showdown is a great example of a game that should never have been considered for this list.
• Mega Man X: I loved this game, but the Mega Man franchise is simply too short and too derivative for this type of list. With that said, Mega Man X is definitely my favorite Mega Man game. I will buy that Mega Man and Mega Man 2 were more revolutionary for their respective days (never played) but Mega Man 2 should most certainly not be ranked as high as it is.

Game Series Where the Wrong Game was Chosen:

• Max Payne 2: Max Payne had a great single-player campaign and ushered in bullet-time, but Max Payne 2 was simply a much better game overall. While it could be argued that Max Payne was more the more ground-breaking of the two, the games were released only a few years apart and the second game was much, much more fun to play, in my opinion.
• Quake: Quake II was a fun game, but Quake was the first truly 3d first-person shooter, and one that really broke new ground. The music was done by Nine Inch Nails, for Pete’s sake! I can still remember playing this at my uncle’s company on a LAN for the first time. It was something special.
• Soul Calibur II: Soul Calibur was a fun game, but this pick was made on balance and variety of fighting styles, things that SCII had much more of.
• Unreal Tournament: Unreal Tournament may be the better shooter today, but Unreal Tournament was the first game of its type and broke the genre wide open. Although both are probably strong enough and different enough to warrant inclusion (Unreal 2004 is much faster and its vehicles and new modes help to differentiate it), Unreal Tournament was simply the better game when compared to its contemporaries.

Games that are more than a little high or low on the rankings:

• Half-Life (29) and Half-Life 2 (5) should be switched: I think both of these games are phenomenal, however, Half-Life was clearly the more groundbreaking of the two. Half-Life was the first FPS that I can remember being exhaustively modded, and is ultimately remembered as being one of the most modded games of all time, but it was first known for its incredible single-player campaign. Half-Life featured the best plots of any FPS to that date and its AI was years ahead of its time. If my best friend were to ask me which one to play today, I would say Half-Life 2, but this list is replete with other instances of games with superior sequels, though the originals were more groundbreaking at their time and are thus included in this list.
• Fallout 3 (65): Some people may argue that this is one of the best games of all time, but I know more than a few people, myself included, that literally could not play more than a few hours of this game. While many have called it a first-person shooter, Fallout 3 is simply a VATS game with great graphics and an outstanding story. In my opinion, it is simply a first person shooter for people who hate first person shooters, again with a great story. Fallout 3 might just be one of the only games on this list that is a bad game, in my opinion. While I am willing to grant it a spot based on peer reviews, 65 is way too high.
  
• Braid (128): Although short, Braid was priced as a value game, and it more than delivered value. Braid is simply one of the best, if not the best, platformer to date. I would have placed Braid in the top 100 games.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (64): This may be just my opinion, but I think this is still the most fun GTA title to date and is one of my favorite games of all time, even today. San Andreas was an outstanding combination of open-world sandbox play, an RPG-esque leveling system, a wide variety of mini-games, and shooter elements. While I will give a nod to GTAIII as a revolutionary game, GTA’s attempt at realism (particularly vehicle handling) was not terribly entertaining, nor did I enjoy the fact that the game would sometimes slow down dramatically and the controls always felt a little sluggish. I would probably swap the places of GTAIV and San Andreas, and probably drop GTA IV a little bit more.
• Burnout 3: Takedown (144): Burnout 3, in my opinion, is definitely better than #144, as it’s one of the best non-hardcore racing games this side of Mario Kart. I would have ranked it around #50.

Other comments:

It’s interesting to see how GameInformer ranked some brand-spanking new games. Uncharted 2 (56), Batman: Arkham Asylum (104), Borderlands (134), Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (181) and Infamous (187) all make the list. I haven’t played Arkham Asylum or MW2 yet, but aside from those, these ratings feel relatively acceptable to me. Borderlands might be a touch high, but it definitely deserves to make the list. Uncharted 2 also seems a bit high; I would have put it around 80 or 100. Modern Warfare 2 feels too low, based on my impressions of the game pre-launch.

My biggest complaint with this list is that some franchises seem to only receive one or two mentions for several similar games while other franchises receive many more (the Call of Duty and Zelda games are less different from each other than other franchises such as the Sims that only warranted a single mention). Ultimately, I think it would have been better to list these similar games together in a single listing and treat them as a single body of work, if they are very similar to one another, or list them separately and make the list more competitive. GameInformer tried to split the difference, and I think it doesn’t work out.

Ultimately, it should be recognized that putting together a list like this is nigh-impossible, so although it may be fun to criticize individual choices, in many cases its simply better to leave lists like this a little bit shorter.

-Jon

Over the Weekend: Adventures in Kaiserreich

The past two weeks have been pretty exciting for me, gaming-wise. I spent the first half of the week continuing to play Borderlands, and got in a little bit of playing time with Dragon Age: Origins starting on Thursday. I had a LAN party over the weekend with a few friends of mine, and as such I don't have enough to write about DA:O yet.

Kaiserreich, the game that I played over this weekend, is another matter. Kaiserreich is a mod for Paradox Interactive's Hearts of Iron II that simulates an ahistorical World War II scenario in which the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire) won World War I instead of the Entente (World War I's historical victors).

I'm a huge fan of complex simulation games. As a kid, Sim City 2000 and Civilization II were probably my two favorite games, and I've spent countless hours playing their successors, Sim City 4 Rush Hour and Civilization IV. My favorite aspect of playing games is that it gives me the opportunity to try hundreds of different experiences, and battlefield/theatre of war command games present an entirely different experience from almost anything that you could find in the real world. Europa Universalis II (which I'll probably write about later this week thanks to its recently-released For The Glory expansion) was the first game that got me hooked on the nation-building genre, and is still my favorite, but I've also really enjoyed playing Paradox's Hearts of Iron II.

In my opinion, Paradox's offerings, while they can be a little buggy and difficult to learn, are far and away the best strategy games out there. While the Total War games have comparable campaigns in terms of scope, they are really battlefield simulations tucked into a shallow framework that gives meaning to each battle. Paradox's games tend to eschew the traditional battlefield focus in favor of diplomatic, economic and societal focuses which emphasize the difficulty of effectively governing and building a nation rather than simply winning battles. They also generally allow players to play as any number of different countries or government entities which existed at a certain point in history, rather than limiting players to a handful.

Hearts of Iron II, being the most war-focused Paradox game, has more in-depth combat mechanics than other Paradox games. Still, the emphasis of the game focuses on fielding a strong army rather than scheming unique strategies for individual units. Within the main game, there are several different screens which allow you to control nearly every aspect of your country and its government.

After selecting a country and scenario and starting the game, you will be presented with a map of the world and several different game screen options from which to control your nation. On the main screen, you can see a map of the world, and a summary of your resources, along with lists of provinces, army units, navy units, and air units you control. Additionally, You can view the world map in a number of different ways, as there are several different map modes. The territorial map is pictured at right, but there is also a terrain map, a weather map, an economic map, a supply map, a revolt map, a victory point map, a diplomatic map, a region map and an area map. Each province is clickable, and doing so provides details about its terrain, resources, owner and controller, industry, transportation network and more. Units are also visible and can be issued commands on this screen. Finally, there are several tabs above the map which allow you to visit the other five main game interfaces. In the next few paragraphs, I'll discuss some of the more relevant ones.

The technology tab allows you to view the technologies that you will produce throughout the game and control your nation's technological research. On the left side of the screen are a number of "technology teams" which are used to research technology. Each nation can research between one and five techs at a time, but can have many more tech teams than these. Each of these tech teams has a skill level and individual specialties, as noted by the small icons under their name. While skill level provides a base rate of research, specialties increase that rate when a team's specialties match the specialty demands of a particular tech. Put in simple terms, specialties mean that you will want tech teams like Ford working on tanks and motorized infantry research while leaving nuclear weapons research to Albert Einstein. There are many, many different techs available in the game, so your teams will always be busy.

The production tab allows you to control your nation's economic activity. The two most important areas for any country are at the left and upper right portions of the screen. The left side of the screen is devoted to production, and allows you to build implements of war as well as infrastructure. As you can see in the screenshot, Italy is currently producing a series of motorized infantry units, a battleship, a tank, another motorized infantry unit series, and a bomber. However, due to its limited production capacity, only the first three are currently being worked on. Green units are currently being produced at full capacity, while yellow means that a unit is being produced at partial capacity, and orange means that a unit will not be worked on until objects above it in the queue have finished or production capacity is expanded.

Production capacity is controlled at the top right of the screen, along with several other economic activities. The total amount of economic activity for a country is equal to its modified IC, which stands for industrial capacity. This IC is divided between five different economic activities, namely consumer goods, production capacity (the topic of the previous paragraph), supplies, reinforcements, and upgrades. Consumer goods are required to keep the populace happy, especially during times of peace. During times of peace, citizens are willing to accept less consumer goods. Certain government choices can also reduce the amount of consumer goods an economy requires. Most players think of consumer goods as simply mandatory wasted IC, which is true in many cases. Consumer goods also supply money, which is used by tech teams to conduct research at full capacity. Supplies are consumed by army units at all times, and can also be traded away. Reinforcements allow you to place lost soldiers, while Upgrades allows you to upgrade obsolete units after your tech teams make new technological discoveries.

All of this economic activity requires resources, which can be found to the left of the production sliders and on the main screen. IC requires energy, metal, and rare materials to function, and all units require supplies and sometimes oil to operate effectively. You can track your production and consumption of these supplies on either screen, but there is also a trading interface if you are endowed with an excess or shortage of a particular resource.

The last main screen is the diplomacy screen, which allows you to control your nation at its highest level. Political orientation sliders are a hallmark of Paradox games, and Hearts of Iron II is no exception. Each nation has its own set of sliders which dictate its government type, values, and several different aspects of its society. For example, the Italian Federation (a reactionary federation of Italian states governed by the Pope in the Kaiserreich scenario) has a National Populist style of government with a closed (controlled) society, some free market enterprise. It also has a standing army, and its ruling body is hesitant but willing to go to war generally. However, given the current state of the world, they desire to intervene in current conflicts and world affairs. Each of these sliders has a different set of effects on player's diplomatic and economic options; for example, the Interventionism/Isolationism slider controls the cost of conducting diplomacy, the difficulty of normalizing relations with other countries, the amount of dissent created by declaring war, and the level of consumer goods that its populace demands. Global events, the influence of other nations, and even the player can control the orientation of the sliders throughout the game.

Also featured in the diplomacy screen is a list of government figures, which can have smaller but more manageable effect on a country. Most of these figures can be replaced at a cost of some dissent, which in turn reduces IC. However, the Head of State and Head of Government can only change from events, such as elections (which you will receive every few years in a democratic country), or deaths/coup d'etats (generally in more authoritarian societies).

On the left side of the diplomacy screen is a list of all countries in the game, together with a list of excess resources that they produce. As you might imagine, diplomacy and trading can be conducted from here. In the center of the screen is a list of the currently selected nation's diplomatic relations, along with its belligerence rating, which is basically a measure of naughtyness which controls the willingness of other countries to declare war on it, and the cost of declaring war on it. In the top right corner of the screen is a list of diplomatic actions that you can take on that country.

As you can see, the control that players have over a nation's affairs is already quite comprehensive. Yet once war is declared players must also manage their nation's army in war. War is conducted in a much more macro sense than most other RTS games, but is still more strategic than other games with a similar focus, such as Civilization. First of all, nations tend to specialize in one or several unit types that are a reflection of its resources (it is hard to field an army of tanks if you don't have much oil to run them) and its warfare doctrines, which are developed on the technology screen. Army composition generally determines the best way to fight with an army. However, there are also other considerations. Armies attack and defend more successfully when they have support from adjacent territories, air support from fighters or bombers, if their landing beach has been shelled before attempting to land, and if they have the proper equipment for fighting in certain conditions (for example, tanks don't fight well in hills, mountains, or cities). They fight less effectively when crossing rivers, when they have been repeatedly bombed or shelled, are cut off from supply, or are being flanked from one or more sides. The tactics of World War II are reproduced fairly effectively (encircling troops through the use of blitzkreig is the best way to deal with them), and the AI does its job reasonably well in combat. All in all, while you are still only giving general move, attack and context-sensitive support commands to your troops, Hearts of Iron still does a good job of giving you a feel for combat.

This post ended up getting pretty far off-track from what I originally wanted to discuss, but I will try and salvage some value regardless. If you like strategy games and are looking for something different, I highly recommend giving Hearts of Iron II or Europa Universalis a try. They are very difficult games to learn, but the payoff, in my opinion, is well worth it. There is simply nothing like it.

-Jon

Windows 7 Impressions

The last week has been a bit slow for me as a gamer. Usually I'll only play new games for about a week or two before a new game comes out that grabs my attention, but Borderlands has been a highly resilient experience and I haven't really found anything in the last week that has pulled me away from it (Next week: Dragon Age: Origins). I've been replaying the game, which I purchased on Steam after my Xbox died, and having a good time of it with a few of my friends.

Anyways, in the spirit of keeping my blog updated (see the sticky note in the top right corner of my desktop?), I've decided to type up a few of my thoughts on Windows 7, as it may pertain to a few of you.

I purchased my copy of Windows 7 before it released and installed it on release day. Although I have Vista installed on my laptop, I'd never taken the leap with my custom-built desktop, which was still sporting the ever-stylish Windows XP.

The upgrade process was very simple. Although I'm pretty sure I clicked through for a clean install of Windows 7 like the upgrade advisor said I should, the installation process ended up upgrading to Windows 7, leaving all of my drivers intact, and moving all of my old installation files to a Windows.old folder. The process took about an hour

While I haven't truly put Windows 7 through its paces yet, my first impressions are pretty positive. Windows 7's interface is nearly identical to Vista's, save for the obvious differences to the taskbar. While I was hesitant at first to accept the taskbar appearance change, I think I've come to like the new one more overall. Unlike the old bar, in Windows 7 the taskbar shows previews of pages you can open if you hover your cursor over the corresponding icon on the bar (see the three Firefox windows open above). This is pretty useful and is definitely an upgrade over the Vista system, where you could only see the name of each window. Smaller taskbar icons also allow for more windows to fit onto the taskbar.

A key difference for me was also the addition of gadgets, which are surprisingly nice. I have installed two. The first is a webmail gadget which checks your email periodically (I think that's how it works, though it does seem to pick up on new email pretty fast) and chimes when you have new e-mail. When I first log on, the gadget is one of the first things I look at and can save me a bit of time if I don't have any new mail. It's also great to have when I'm multi-tasking, or working on a document for long periods of time, as it does a good job of alerting me when I have new mail. The weather gadget is also fairly nice, since it saves me the trip to weather.com every morning.

Vista's visual changes are take-it-or-leave-it, (I'm on the take-it side) but one other nice graphical addition has been the inclusion of dynamic backgrounds. Windows 7 allows you to set your background to change periodically, which is a nice touch if you get tired of looking at the same thing all of the time. I have a nice rotating setup of art from games that I'm following or a fan of, as well as some Halo 3 pictures I've taken while playing that game.

Performance-wise, I haven't had anything to complain about. One of my concerns when I was making my purchase (I opted not to go for Windows 7 professional, which includes some XP reverse-compatibility pack) was that I would be able to play all of my old games. All of the games that I have tried to play on it have run just fine. While I haven't booted up my copy of Sim City 2000, I have booted up copies of Alpha Centauri and some pretty ghetto Paradox Entertainment games, which have both worked very well on the new platform. Moreover, I haven't had any issues with drivers (though I'm running the 32-bit OS and I'm told that the 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7 have most of the driver-related issues). Since I didn't upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, I can't comment on the framerate changes I've seen in some of my games yet, but I can say that my framerates are not noticeably down from Windows XP.

On the included applications side of things, I also haven't noticed much of a difference, but Paint does seem to have a few more drawing options, which I've actually made use of for a project I have been consulting on. You can see the fruits of my labors at the right (sorry, can't share images from the project, but this will give you some idea of the additional capabilities). Notable additions include transparent colors, additional commonly-used art pieces (arrows, thought bubbles, speech bubbles, etc.) and different brush styles. While we're not exactly looking at Adobe Photoshop for Windows here, the additions are pretty substantial and were a nice surprise.

I've bulleted most of my other application-related observations to save me time trying to tie all of them together.

• WordPad still does not have spell-checker, so you're going to still have to buy MS Office or go download OpenOffice for free.
• Internet Explorer 8 is still worse than Firefox.
• Vista's new games are back in Windows 7, though they got rid of my favorite one, Inkball. Chess Titans is definitely the best of the bunch if you haven't seen Vista's game selection.
• Windows Live is another promising addition, but unfortunately I haven't done much with it other that look around.
• If you're a math teacher, there's a handy-dandy math writer. You can do all sorts of crazy crap now.
  
• Microsoft Security Essentials (not included but launched recently) is a great freeware security system.
  

If you were sitting on the fence about getting Windows 7, hopefully this article has given you a little more information. I tried to include most of the information that was relevant to me, hoping that you would find these same considerations important to you as well. In general, I'm pretty happy with my purchase, though there is nothing terribly special about the new OS. It's just a slightly upgraded experience that has some additional graphics support (DX 10 and 11). If you're tight on money, or happy with XP, feel free to stick with it, but if all of the bells and whistles in Vista and Windows 7 appeal to you, by all means, Windows 7 seems like a pretty harmless upgrade.

One of the benefits of a small readerbase is that you get 1 to 1 feedback, so if you have a question about some aspect of Windows 7 you don't see covered on other blogs/websites, I'll check for you!

-Jon