Greed Corp Review Now Live

Woah! What happened there? PLAY READ WRITE sort of blanked out there for a while! I think it might have something to do with the GDC '10 or maybe some of the big announcements like Nintendo's next DS (generation). Anyways, some news:

My review of Greed Corp for Xbox Live Arcade is now live at Game Revolution. I ended up giving the game a positive review, but for the full breakdown and score, you'll have to click on over to Game Revolution. I've already written about the game on PLAY READ WRITE, but seeing the review on GR has me thinking about Greed Corp anew.

I've been playing Resonance of Fate, by Tri-Ace, for review over the past week and that game also uses hexagonal squares, albeit in a completely different way. I really like Settlers of Catan, and that (board) game along with these two video games have me pondering if the hexagonal space is the new square, when it comes to gaming at large.

What do you think? While you're pondering the space within a hexagon, you can check out my full review of Greed Corp (XBLA) at the following link: http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/xbox360/greed-corp

Greed Corp Initial Impressions

I'm still struggling to get the game under my thumb(s) but after playing about 4 hours yesterday and 4 hours today, I think I can write up some quick impressions for a game I would never (ever) play if it weren't for a review. That's not to say that Greed Corp isn't a fun title that has a great turn on Settlers of Catan style gaming. Speaking of which...

//The Settlers of Catan influence is moderate at best. I'm sure developer W! Games has the board game and its expansions in the office, and I'm sure they were seeing hexagons in their sleep while developing Greed Corp, but they've taken the essential board design and made a ompletely different game out of it.

//These computer players are about the most difficult assholes I've ever met, and that's including Advance Wars, and I hate the computer player in those games too. After the tutorial, which doesn't give the player any control, I had to try 4 times to beat the very first campaign level that pits me against one other opponent whose AI is set to the lowest level. You can imagine where it went as the game got harder and I progressed through the ascending levels.

//In truth, Greed Corp has you operate constantly on the side of a cliff literally, and forcing the player to learn through failure is as close to trial by fire as you're going get in video games these days. It's not as if you can't just try again, but hopefully you'll learn from how you lose, and not just throw your controller in frustration like me.

//Soundtrack, meet my friend, custom playlist. While at first I thought the 1920s-influenced soundtrack was a neat touch, it quickly got annoying and unnecessary. The sound effects also got tiring after a short time with the game. As a turn-based title, the game takes a while as your opponents moves play out. The computer also takes its sweet time while it's kicking your ass so having a custom soundtrack of your own tunes will definitely help the process overall.

I'll be sure to post here when my full review goes live at GR.