Quite literally yesterday’s news for anyone paying attention, but seeing as the franchise has a bit of a bad rep these days and everyone’s currently playing that game, thought I’d point out that a Settlers 6 demo has been released.
Yes, Settlers. No, honestly, it’s alright.
Developer Bluebyte showed me Rise of an Empire (for that is its wholly unnecessary subtitle) a couple of months ago, and I was pretty impressed. Few I told believed me, as it’s been a series in constant decline since around the third game, a lineage with fine origins that most games hacks now sneer at. Having played some preview code recently I’m not totally sure the game’s going to be quite as delightful as I thought from the hands-off look, but there is some really cute stuff in there. Most of all, it seems to have nailed to some extent that traditional Settlers joy of sitting back and watching your custom community go about its business. It aslo has ferrets in it.
Anyway, do have a go at the demo. The Settlers: Rise of an Empire (Ugh. Screw it, we’re calling it Settlers 6 here from now on) seems to be getting somewhat overlooked by the gaming press and public alike, and, though I can’t be sure until I’ve played complete code, I strongly suspect that’s a shame.
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I’m sure the Germans will buy it, so don’t worry too much.
If I wasn’t getting Bioshock in the mail today, I’d be all over this. The Settlers (Amiga) is probably my favourite game ever.
“Rise of an Empire”
What a transparent attempt to ride on the coattails of another franchise.
KG
I dunno – as CA have proved, Microsoft don’t have a monopoly on ‘Empire’. I think it’s just one of those crap, generic subtitles that Ubi thinks it has to stuff on the end of all its games. The key word in it, if it has one, is actually ‘rise’.
There’s a difference between just using the word “Empire” and using a subtitle which is just another game’s title with a couple of letters swapped off.
EMPIRE: TOTAL WAR doesn’t sound anything like RISE OF EMPIRES.
RISE OF EMPIRES sounds like RISE OF AN EMPIRE.
I mean, it’s commonplace – look at the mass of Tycoon games from a few years ago – but this is a particularly shameless version.
KG
Erm. Actually it’s ‘Age of Empires.’ And ‘Rise of Nations.’ This is just a subgenre that lends itself to a small subset of words.
It’s just another example of generic RTS naming, nothing unusual.
Game title: Clumsy and unnecessary subtitle.
I dunno why marketing departments with sufficient influence have a fascination with this particular concatenation, except where they want to introduce an existing hnnnngh franchise to a new audience (see Thief: Deadly Shadows’ transition to console) Even then it’s a bit of an insult to the savvy consumer. Would Bioshock be improved sporting the appended appelation “SUBAQUEOUS URBAN UPRISING”?
Hope Fallout 3 doesn’t suffer the same ignominy.
Heh. Brilliant. The naming is so generic that I can’t actually separate them anymore.
This is kind of my point though.
KG
Bethesda have “promised” that they will not add a subtitle to Fallout 3. (But then Bethesda haven’t signed to a publisher yet).
“Fallout 3: The Rise and Fall of Radioactive Particulates”
“Fallout 3: Half-Life”