It’s been a wonderfully sunny bank holiday, which we’ve been making the most of, but there’s always a little bit of time for games! Let’s check out what we’ve been up to.
Anno 1800
I’ve never played any of the previous Anno titles, but at EGX Rezzed I got to spend a decent amount of time playing Anno 1800, the latest title in the Anno series. As it’s been a Bank Holiday weekend and I’ve been away I haven’t had a bunch of time to play yet, but have still managed to squeeze in a few hours.
My home city was shaped quite a lot by the industrial revolution with a chap called Brunel creating some of our finest landmarks, which I think makes it a little more interesting to play a game centered around it which is exactly what Anno 1800 is.
First things first, this game is beautiful, the buildings you can create are packed full of detail, from drunkards at the pub letting loose after a hard day, to farmers tending animals. There’s so many little things to notice when you zoom right in. The world looks pretty stunning too with fantastic water effects across the seas, and loads of detail in the terrain too.
Game play wise, I’ve been getting stuck in to the campaign and am about 20% of the way through it at the moment and I’m really enjoying it. There is a lot of focus on production and trade in this game, where you can build trade routes between islands and factions. You will need to build mines, then refineries in order to create metals and bricks, so far there has been lots to get stuck in to and it all unlocks at a pretty decent rate.
If you don’t want to take a peaceful route you can engage in war, although that’s not something I’ve actually tried yet.
As I’ve said I’m only a few hours in, but I really love what I’ve played of it so far, keep an eye out for the full review once I’ve had more time to get properly stuck in to creating my metropolis.
-Will
F1 2018
With the return of the Formula 1 season in March, as well as finally watching the Netflix F1 show, drive to survive, I caught the F1 bug again and had an itch to continue with the career that I started when I first got the game for my birthday last year. So I reinstalled F1 2018 for PS4 and picked up my McLaren career mode in the 2nd season where I left it. The first race I picked up was Azerbaijan which I believe is round 4 of the season.
It took me a while to familiarise myself with the controls and breaking zones and such, but I ended up winning my return race, and would then go on to win the next 7 races I participated in. One thing that really wound me up was participating in 4 wet races in a row after Azerbaijan. Monaco, Spain, France and Austria I believe were all back to back wet races after dry qualifying sessions. Was pretty annoying and made for some less than routine wins. Monaco in particular being tough in the rain. But i’m really enjoying my return to the game, and I’m pretty determined to complete the R&D trees for McLaren before maybe jumping ship elsewhere at a rival team.
GTA Vice City
And another craving I had was to return back to GTA Vice City. I bought the PS2 trilogy for PS4 some time back for £15. Having completed III upon my initial purchase back then, I delayed moving to Vice City. As is the case other games released, became priorities and Vice City and San Andreas fell to the back log.
But with money a little limited as of late, It’s time to burn the back log, and I returned to Vice City.
It honestly takes a while to accept the visuals. I remember the game looking much better than it does. It doesn’t however hurt how good the game is. The story and missions for the most part are still really engaging and after a while you adjust to the PS2 visuals and carry on with the game.
I’ve just started the part where properties can be bought, so I’ve purchased the boat dock, Ice cream company and sunshine autos so far.
The memories that hit me when returning to this game is awesome, I had such a blast and so many hours pumped into this game back in 2002, it’s really incredible replaying it again these years later, and still have the appreciation for it that I did back then. And the nostalgia and memories it brings back make it more special completing it again this time round.
-Murr
