As I recall, we were told that before the release of Shogun; before the release of the first major Shogun patch; before the release of The Mongol Invasion; and before the release of the first major patch for that. I suspect the same claim was made about other TW games.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

I actually disagree with that, kind of. Studying shakespeare is worthless without ever seeing it

Hyperbol-wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I actually disagree with that, kind of. Studying shakespeare is worthless without ever seeing it, and most schools don’t take the kids to see it, certainly not often. It takes ridiculously good teachers to teach shakespeare with the plays, let alone with just the texts. I utterly despised shakespeare in school, and it’s only with a great deal of effort and some fortunate circumstances that I’ve come round.

WHY do british game-journalists write better than americans?

Assuming this is true, and not just a bias, my entirely speculative reasons would be:

1. A better, more competitive market for expensive, in depth magazines that can afford to spend lots on writers (by journalistic standards of course) – think Edge in particular, but there are a ton of mags covering PC gaming in the UK, and hardly any in the US (and the main surviving one is owned by a British publisher). This is largely a function of geography and media culture, which means that UK mags are much more dependent on sub revenue and much less on ads than US mags. Consequently editorial quality is more highly prized.

2. A distinct, non-console based British gaming culture going back to the Speccy/BBC Micro days, but now sadly disappearing. While the US had the NES and SNES, the UK had the C64 and the Amiga. This gives British writers a different perspective on games and the market. Even more tendentiously, the PC-centricity of the UK market until recently could mean that there were more games worth writing well about. This isn’t a diss on console games at all, it’s just that PC genres like RTSes lend themselves better to AARs than, say, Madden.

3. Point 1 means there is a lot of work available (again, by journalistic standards) for a relatively small community of freelance writers, who live and die by the quality (OK, and quantity) of their writing. There was a much closer connection between individual writers and the readers than in the US (in my experience, and only until podcasts came along and changed everything) , which again promoted quality writing. I remember chatting with the editor of ST Format on their BBS with my 2400 baud modem.

While doesn’t make it better or worse, how the two developed in separate markets changes lots of fundamentals (in terms of what a writer is thinking when setting forth to right).

For me? In short, YS was permission to go mental.

KG

I’m forcing myself not to buy this on release and instead wait for the second patch or gold edition.

I see where you’re coming from, but if everyone did that, it would never happen.

/follower of Kant ;-)

And it won’t install, of course. Not even put the files on the hard drive, because Steam has its fingers in its ears and is going ‘la la la’.

I’m forcing myself not to buy this on release and instead wait for the second patch or gold edition.
The difference between Medieval 2 on release and Medieval 2 (v 1.2) was immense. Better balanced, better optimised, vastly improved ai and so on.
I think I’ll have to play through the four mini campaigns of Kingdoms before I get into this. I mean I want to, I don’t have to. There’s no ransoms or anything. I’m fairly certain my mum won’t die if I fail to convert Lithuania. Not 100% certain but fairly sure.

Better safe than sorry is what I’m saying here.