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REVIEWS

NOTE: I sat down to write this review, and fortunately had a lot of time on my hands. So the initial version of this was a hefty 8 pages long, and detailed every aspect of the game (although even I – the original "wordy bastard" – omitted a small number of things to keep the length down. Ha ha!).

But I passed the review for a cursory glance to my pals and coworkers and they all had the same opinion: "You say you liked it, but it sure looks like it sucked." Huh? You mean my dazzling prose and rapier wit failed to convey my meaning precisely? I was crushed. To be so impugned was unbearable.

Such is the burden of a reviewer. I’ve referred to it in other reviews, but with a game the complexity of Imperialism 2 it seems that the age-old conflict is highlighted. As someone whose job it is to examine a product and report a summary of its quality, I’m pulled in two distinct directions.

It’s all about credibility. Everyone knows that we get to keep the games we review, and therefore it’s obviously in our interest to keep getting free games (who wouldn’t? If my spouse thinks this is entirely a scam to justify the hours I spend on the computer, the Gentle Reader can be forgiven for assuming something similar…). That’s a no-brainer. But the dutiful reviewer is then faced with the challenge of making sure this doesn’t get in the way of what’s ostensibly an objective opinion. It’s like coaching your own kid on the football team; no matter what you do, people are going to think you’re being ‘nice’, so conversely you have to be extra hard on something you really like.

Finally, everyone who bothers to read reviews reads a lot of good ones. Too many. Too few reviewers are willing to say something really sucks, either out of enlightened self-interest or simple human pity for hard-working developers and designers that usually are not allowed (by time, money, politics, or all three) to follow the ideal that a game was designed to reach. Nonetheless, there are too many "Joel Siegal" (of "60-Second Review" fame) clones out there. They like everything they see. And nobody with any sense of self-worth wants to be seen as a yes-man.

So I spent a disproportionate amount of time explaining the things I didn’t like and not enough time on the parts I really did. So, I’ve set myself a half hour to pound out an entirely NEW review, that skips the blah-blah details of interface and method, and chews on the very meat of the review: my opinion of the game.

Click here to read the longer version.

I played Imperialism (1) a lot. In fact, you might say I was an addict, as my spouse semi-jokingly referred to the game as "Isolationism – the game". So when I got the nod to do a review of Imperialism 2, I was ecstatic. But, as everyone in the gaming world knows, sequels of really successful games have a tough row to hoe – quite frankly, usually they suck.

The reason for this is twofold: first, their ancestor is held in a mythic level of regard based on the rose-colored glasses of memory. Everyone KNOWS "X" was a great game, but people tend to forget that there were invariably things about that older title that either flat-out sucked, or would be unacceptable in today’s marketplace. So the sequel competes against the ideal memory of the first game, not the game itself. Second, since the first title was great, the second should be even greater. In the computer industry, anticipation is poison. The longer a game is talked about, the higher the hurdle it must cross to even be "adequate".

Fortunately, Imperialism 2 crosses these hurdles. They spent a lot of time going over the USENET posts in regard to gameplay, management and balance issues for Imp1, and tried their damnedest to make Imp2 and improvement, not simply a revision.

But they didn’t content themselves with simply re-doing Imp1. Imp2 is – while clearly maintaining its heritage – a different era, with different challenges. Frog City decided to move this product to the 1500’s (from the Nineteenth Century) which allowed them to significantly change the gameplay in regards to exploration and exploitation of the New World.

The methods, by and large, are the same as Imp1 – it’s guns vs. butter. But with the earlier economics, guns are more expensive and butter’s harder to find, so everything has a much "tighter" feel to it. In all honesty, it’s a harder game. But they’ve also expended a lot of effort to offer options (in which you can crank it all the way down to simple-simple) and provided an in-game tutorial whose only weakness is its strength: it’s so comprehensive that players will be tempted to ignore the very good manual and jump right into the game. And get their asses handed to them, as I did.

Every part of Imp2 shows effort and craft. The graphics, while still in the strategic-gaming category (let’s face it – how many opportunities in a strategic turn-based wargame ARE there for visual chrome?) are outstanding. Likewise the music is period-appropriate, and the sounds are unobtrusive. Both visually and aurally, Frog City has spent a good deal of effort successfully drawing the player into an immersive environment.

They’ve tweaked around the information presentation, generally for the better. Industrial growth is a lot more predictable, and all in all the interface requires a lot less micromanagement than Imp1 – which was a major complaint. For the seriously lazy, in just about every function you can enable an AI assistant to manage the ugly details for you.

In every aspect, then, Imp2 is an improvement over Imp1, which should give some idea of really how good a game this is. But, in candor, there are some issues that will (I am assured by Alan Wassermann, producer) need to be patched here and there, and there are things that I would have handled philosophically differently – but then, I’m self-evidently a critic, so you should expect that! As I said in an email about it recently: Imperialism 2 is like Christy Brinkley with acne. She’s gorgeous, but some of the little stuff is disproportionately distracting. That’s not fair, but there it is.

Imperialism 2 is an engaging game. I daresay it’s a great one and will very likely be my vote for the game of the year. If they can address the little things, it will be an awesome game. Now let me get back to it! I have Swedes and Portuguese that need to be taught the hard lesson of exactly who’s in charge in the New World…

Reviewed by Steve Lieb

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