This is the second part of a two-part series. Read “Part 1: Discovery”

I started thinking about writing full length reviews of video games in late 2001. I was still at University. I was going to make a website and came up with some generic name I thought was edgy and reflective of what I wanted to accomplish. It was going to cover more than video games. I had some things to say about popular culture.

After talking to some friends at school about my vision, there was some interest in this collaborative effort. There was already a zine floating around our faculty, but it was horrible. It was a soapbox for people frustrated with school and mostly contained their annoyingly priveleged views on an “oppressive” society. Instead of being provocative or insightful it was lampooning popular culture with pedestrian observations and half-baked philosophy. I could do better.

Of course, when you rely on friends to produce something for free, it doesn’t happen unless you get on their case about it. And I wanted to keep my friends. Plus, the whole “trying to graduate from University with a degree” thing. The project died on the vine, and I gave up the dream. For the time being, anyway.

I graduated from school the next spring, and started playing video games while I looked for work. My comptuer was getting old, and at this point the most it could muster was Unreal Tournament and Civilization III. I read the issues of PC Gamer that were mailed to me to keep up with the industry and the hobby I loved. I hung out on the internet a lot, and read too many terrible reviews that people actually got paid to write. My head started filling with ideas again. I could do better.

I started thinking about another website. Something that would capture my love of video games and provide an outlet for my brand of scathing commentary. I would call it “Tales of a Scorched Earth”, because I am an insufferable Smashing Pumpkins fan. I would adopt the handle of “Gatmog”, because it sounded cool and it provided the mystery any good internet handle should have^[1].

During this time, I started playing and thinking about video games as if it were research. I built a new desktop PC after I got a job and some money. I had a new purpose: I would record my thoughts on video games, write some reviews and share them with others. The availability and ease of use of self-publishing tools made this easier than I expected. I thought I would be doing something different than the typical weblog, and I used that as inspiration.

I wrote a lot of reviews and embarrassing posts during that time^[2]. I published most of them. It was a start.

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The “Gaming Made Me” series of video game retrospectives started by Rock, Paper, Shotgun came from games industry writers, journalists and the designers that make them. It’s become a kind of collective autobiography sourcing the video games that shaped who they are.

Of course, the cynical part of me expected this community-driven effort to consist of mostly name-dropping key titles from the history of video games. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response of webloggers that have taken up the mantle where Rock, Paper, Shotgun left off^[1].

So now I feel the need to contribute, because I think it is absolutely necessary for anyone who loves to play or write about video games to recognize the ones that got them into the hobby. Or in the case of game designers and professional writers, what made them get into the industry itself.

I have been into computers since very early on in my life, and playing computer games was a natural extension of that interest. However, I had no idea that this hobby would result in me creating a website to talk about them. I’m no industry figure, weblogging personality or budding game designer – I’m just a guy that loves to play video games, and write about them. For the people that truly love video games, they are as important as the books they read or the movies they watched when growing up.

For any game weblog, I’d say that writing something like “Gaming Made Me” is more essential than an “About” page. It’s important to let readers know where the author is coming from, and what games influenced their lives and opinions of what makes a great video game. It provides context for the reviews and criticism they produce.

At this point in my life, video games are no longer just a hobby. They have made me a writer, and they have taught me to be critical of things beyond video games. Both video games and this website have become such immutable aspects of my life, that I can’t imagine it without them.

It was hard to come up with this list. So hard, that I had to split it into two. I wanted it be a list of games that shaped me as a player of video games, as well as my viewpoints on what makes a great video game, instead of simply rewording a “favorite games of all time” list. So I’m not going to list off the Zeldas, the Half-Lifes, the Thiefs, or the Rainbow Sixes. That would be too easy for me. No name dropping of the classics and pretending as if they meant something to me in my early development as a gamer. The following list of games got me started in the hobby, tempered my opinion of the medium, and introduced me to the genres I love. Most importantly these are the games that eventually led me to write about them^[2]. They are the ones that left an indelible mark. And for that, they must be recognized.

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Another extended absence, another post somewhere else. I’ve done next to no gaming in the last two months, but I made time for Introversion’s DEFCON: Everybody Dies for nostalgia’s sake. See, WarGames is probably the only movie that got computers right in making them incredibly cumbersome and boring. There are no 3D interfaces or flashy animations when you check your email. Well, unless you’re using a Mac and have no attention span. I was suprised by DEFCON, but not because the game was actually good compared to Darwinia. It’s a game that asks some important questions of the player, and does a chillingly effective job of simulating modern warfare compared with any low-level first person shooter. My article at The Cultural Gutter explains.

EA announced yesterday the upcoming first expansion to The Battle for Middle Earth II, called Rise of the Witch-King. And while I think the Witch-King is undoubtedly the most pointy and fearsome-looking character in the films to be killed by a woman, I am not sure he deserves his own game. In fact, I’d be quite happy if EA simply supplied us with some new skirmish maps for free on the official site like Blizzard does with Starcraft and Warcraft III. But that’s not how the games industry usually works.

With access to the entire Lord of the Rings canon, EA has elected to adapt The Witch-King’s ascent to power in the North in Angmar as a new “Evil” single player campaign. The subsequent war that is waged against Men, Dwarves and Elves to eradicate the Dunedain presence in the North provides an appropriate bridge with the campaigns in the main game. Though what I’d like to see is an accompanying Good campaign that culminates in the Battle of Fornost, where the forces of Angmar are defeated.

Amongst hyperbolic descriptors like “the ultimate RTS Middle-earth experience” and “innovative new units” in the press release, improvments will purportedly be made to the shortcomings in War of the Ring mode, which I described in my review. Upgraded army persistence, additional siege options and “unified territories that serve as major control points” are some of the additions to this game mode. I’ll speculate that “unified territories” implies some kind of Resource point or even free unit bonus to an army, as it follows that a combined frontal assault would be more devastating than attacking from satellite territories. But I’d settle for adding back unit veterancy and persistence between the strategy map and battle map.

I can’t say that the new faction is inspiring; anyone could have added spikes to generic looking medieval structures. How about taking advantage of the ominous appearance of Minas Morgul seen in the films? The “new” units are equally unimpressive.

I consider The Battle for Middle Earth II the greatest game of 2006, but I almost wish they would just leave the game alone. It hasn’t even been six months since the original game’s release! But this is an incredibly unrealistic sentiment, because I know very well that this is just the beginning of another multi-part franchise that will offer the bare minimum to its supporters while exploiting the most esoteric details of Tolkien’s beloved mythos.

I’m tempted to call The Battle for Middle Earth II the best game I’ve played so far this year. I have yet to experience a game that has gripped me past completing the satisfying single-player campaigns to the point where I look forward to settling down into a nice skirmish, if only to build a fortress and assemble a glorious army. Or perhaps it was the incredible War of the Ring mode, which allows players to wage war on the entirety of Middle Earth and change the outcome of the Third Age. The Battle for Middle Earth II captures the spirit of The Lord of the Rings the way the original game did not. As much style as The Battle for Middle Earth had, it felt like you were given the means to engage in a massive campaign, but the world beyond the borders of the film’s story were blocked by glass walls. It was frustratingly limited, but in its own way still managed to contribute to the genre. The Battle for Middle Earth II is the game its predecessor should have been. It has built upon the first game’s foundations and created classic real time strategy, rendered to compliment Peter Jackson’s celebrated films and the literary work that inspired them.

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