Games (Freedom-Loving) People Play
Peter Suderman: Six video games every libertarian should play.
I haven’t played any of these — but you all knew already I’m a bad libertarian. Still, I read about Bioshock ages ago and have always wanted to play. But finding the time for grownup games the kids won’t want to play is hard. Keeping them away from grownup games I don’t want them to see is impossible.
The only games I still make time for (other than some Angry Birds or whatever on the iPad) are Paradox Publishing’s massive historical/operational stray games. You can start a playing a country in the Dark Ages with Crusader Kings, and if you like, take it through to almost the present day with Europa Universalis, Victoria, and then Hearts of Iron.
But you’ll probably not want to, since the latest version of Victoria caused me to coin a new word: Funsuck. It’s really that bad.
All the others still come highly recommended, however. And as soon as he sees the screen, my seven-year-old finds himself something very else to do.
They’re dead on about Bioshock. (I’ve played most of those, and they’re very good.)
Bioshock (and Bioshock 2) were surprisingly thoughtful and insightful about the issues involved in a Libertarian-trending-to-Objectivist utopia and all that.
(In the flavor and background text, that is. The action was all “kill freakin’ drug-deranged mutants”, which is also good.)
Have you tried Civilization V? I haven’t played the Paradox games to do a legitimate comparison, but it sounds like there’s similarities there. And Civ V has had a pretty high hours-o’-fun to dollars ratio for me.
Love the Civs up through Civ 3. But Civ IV was missing something for me, so I just never bothered with V. Maybe I should rethink that.
Weird, never knew a Civ fan who didn’t like Civ IV. Although some folks didn’t like it much till the second expansion, Beyond The Sword.
There are folks who love Civ IV and hate Civ V. Civ V feels more like managing an Empire, than a collection of Cities that you happen to own together. Also, having only 1 combat unit per hex (not square), makes the combat more interesting. I hated Civ IV for the “Stack of Doom” mechanics.
It’s worth a shot if you ever liked any of the Civ games, and it’s pretty cheap now. And the Mac version has finally caught up with the latest expansion, Gods & Kings, which is fun.
I think Suderman’s list can be translated as “6 games my wife can’t kick my ass at.”
Don’t we all maintain that list?
Anyway, I’ll take your advice on V. Those “stacks of doom” did leave me cold.
I just think it’s funny to compare Suderman and McArdle game reviews.
Not sure how you have time for Hearts of Iron, but if Civ V gives you trouble, check out http://www.civfanatics.com, more advice there about the game than you can shake a stick at.
Hearts of Iron (shhh!) is the secret reason I went back to using a laptop part time. Can totally play it on the sofa.
While not in the Libertarian stream, but a great MMO game that you can either pop-in and play for 10-15 minutes, or let become a time sink, and it’s free (well sorta, upgrades cost) is World of Tanks – http://worldoftanks.com/ Tank on tank team battles.
Just about every tank in the German, British, French and American inventory from pre-WWII, WWII and post-WWII is in the game, even prototypes and those that only existed on the drawing board.
Great fun, great design, incredible graphics – paintball with tanks! What more can you ask for!?!?
I’ll second this one. World of Tanks is excellent.
Funsuck. I like it and it totally describes the Paradox games. I’ve been trying to play England in Europa Universalis III. I just keep getting sucked into a war w/ France before I’ve conquered Britain.
What I’m really looking forward to is Europa IV. From the videos I’ve seen, they’ve finally gotten the command & control to be less overwhelming. And the trade looks like it’ll make sense. Bout time!
Steve, take a look at Making History. WWII wargame starting from the same premise as Paradox (It’s X year. Pick a country. Go!). But it’s much more combat oriented and the country management isn’t so overwhelming. They are also promising a WW I game in the next few months which I’m really looking forward to. WW II is so played out.
I saw an add for Making History and immediately bought it, based on Niall Ferguson’s participation in its development.
Lousy graphics and worse gameplay… I gave it half an hour before deleting it off my hard drive.
I’ve only played the demo version. Like I said, WW II, played out. But the thing that really attracted me was the simplified country management vs Paradox. Paradox really is just like running a country only w/o all the ministers and secretaries and assistants to handle the details.
But I may have to re-evaluate purchasing when Making History: The Great War comes out after these two bad reviews.
I played the Making History demo for about a week. Can’t exactly say why I hated it, but hate it I did. It should be less overwhelming, but I often found stacks of neglected units lying around, never could keep track of all the crap I had.
Loved HOI 3, but you cannot play that game in 1/2 hour blocks I generally have available for gaming.
What part of Vicky 2 did you not like? I thought it was an immense improvement on #1 – the pop mechanics alone were about a million times better.
Stephen Green – This article actually addresses the problems of the Gamer Parent. And it’s pretty funny, fair warning the author is on the South Park right.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18819_the-4-most-important-things-to-know-as-gamer-parent.html