Old PC games vs. the new ones

Your opponents are a scum with funny names:

- The Rat

Real name: Duc de Puce

Biography: The Rat was raised as an only child in lands belonging to the Puce family. The duke showed his mother favour ensuring that she never paid taxes and always had enough to get by.

One day a messenger came to the door with some very surprising news. It was revealed that his father was the same Duc de Puce who his mother had once worked for as a serving wench. Due to an unfortunate accident the entire Puce family had been lost at sea whilst returning from holiday leaving the Rat as next in line to inherit the title of duke.

Lacking an education, he turned to Duc Beauregard, who governed a neighbouring province, for advice on how to best manage his lands. More than happy to advise the poor fool, Duc Beauregard sent over a handful of his most loyal staff to assist and thanks to this aid the Rat now runs a respectful, if impoverished, kingdom.

- The Snake

Real Name: Duc Beauregard

Biography: The Snake was once made governor to some of the richest provinces in the homeland where he made an extremely fruitful but less than honourable living from under declaring the taxes collected from his people.

The king was eventually made aware of this and decided to have him exiled to Britain in order to keep him at arms length whilst still making use of his talents. Execution was, unfortunately, out of the question as killing such a popular leader with his own hand could well have sparked a revolution.

During one of his first military encounters in Britain he went up against your father, losing an eye to him in a skirmish. On that day the Snake swore he would not rest until the decapitated heads of your entire family were lined-up on spikes outside of his keep.

Already back to his old tricks, the Snake has his greasy hands in the Rats back pocket, draining his coffers with help from the corrupt tax officials initially sent over to give him aid.

- The Pig

Real name: Duc Truffe

Biography: When the Pig was born it is rumored he looked so hideous that his parents abandoned him in the street.

Whatever the case, it is known that he was taken in by a group of traveling bandits who raided small towns and villages throughout the homeland. Whilst growing-up with this small army of rogues he was vastly underfed, however after developing a crude understanding of basic military tactics and being nominated as their leader, the Pig made sure that he had first call on the best foods after each raid and has overcompensated ever since.

After one of the Pigs successful raids, the Wolf paid a visit to his encampment saying he was in search of a leader to command an army and after seeing the long scar on the Pigs left arm the Wolf became insistent that he was the right man for the job.

To this day it is still unclear why the Wolf thought the Pig was the best choice or why the king himself agreed with the Wolfs proposition to grant the Pig dukedom but however this came to be, the Pig now runs an effective if over populated kingdom.

- The Wolf

Real name: Duc Volpe

Biography: The Wolfs' past is shrouded with mystery and what is known of his history is mainly patched together from stories and unreliable rumours alone. This aside, it is believed that both of his parents died from natural causes in close succession shortly after his eighteenth birthday.

After receiving his dukedom, the Wolf took it upon himself to go travelling, stating he needed some time to think things through, leaving his loyal serfs to manage the lands for him. Nobody knows for certain where he went but he returned a year later with a new companion calling himself the Pig.

After a visit to the king of the homeland himself, he began to instigate his invasion plans of Britain with the Pig in tow as his right hand man.

There have also been wild accusations flying around the kings' court that the Wolf has somehow become involved with the "Order of Black Knights", however there is only unsubstantiated and anecdotal evidence to support these claims.

Rate: 9.5/10

b) Stronghold 2

Now, this is a misery! Stronghold, that great game, shameless ruined by this junk! The game is now 3D, and probably 10x slower than Stronghold. And it’s not optimized, too. It works bad on Athlon 3000+, GF 6600GT and 1GB RAM. Pretty bad, isn’t it? And the story is somewhat stupid.

Oh, I almost forgot. Voice acting. When I heard folks talk, I had nightmares for one week. And graphic is much, much worse than in Stronghold.

Sad.

Rate: 4/10

Posted by M.S. on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 8:53 PM | Permalink