strategy posts

The Shogun 2 multiplayer can be a bit confusing to those unused to the Total War conventions. It even confuses us, and we love the Total War series! Thankfully, Creative Assembly has released a trailer detailing all of the functions you can perform in multiplayer, and it covers nearly everything. It has details on everything you might be confused about, from retainers to province influence to matchmaking. Despite the game having been out for a while now, this trailer is definitely appreciated.

Download the Shogun 2: Total War Multiplayer Tutorial, Part 2
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Anomaly Warzone Earth has been described as a reverse tower defense, and while this is marginally true, it misses something essential: rather than simply trudging endless waves of units towards a generic goal, you are actively dismantling the opposition. It's not so much reverse tower defense as tower attacking. It's also absolutely fantastic, and an extremely strong first showing from indie studio 11 Bit. Excellent production values, clean and concise game mechanics, and excellent replay value make it a steal at its asking price. It is probably the most highly polished $10 game you will ever play.

Download the Anomaly Warzone Earth demo right here on Big Download!

The Anno games are known for being excellent economic simulations in the same vein as Settlers, but the latest in the series is taking a decidedly different turn. Rather than being set in the era of European expansionism, Anno 2070 takes place far in the future. This trailer gives a glimpse at the new content, and hints at new play styles (consumerism versus conservationism), but it doesn't really show anything we can identify with. Besides some excellent artwork, of course!

Download the Anno 2070 Gameplay trailer
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This latest champion spotlight for the ever-expanding League of Legends puts its gaze squarely on Brand, the latest champion to worm his way into the league. It's an excellent video, if just for the fact that it shows champions getting massacred. It's always cool to see a champion steamroll, even if it's not that fun to play against in the game proper. Brand seems to be focused primarily on nuking, with his only true utility effect being a secondary effect on the sear spell.

The stoic and thoroughly difficult AI War has received three expansion packs to date: Zenith Remnant, Children of Neinzul, and Light of the Spire. Each one offers new units, scenarios, and AI types to bring to bear For this multi-part review, we'll be examining each expansion pack individually and giving them individual verdicts. After all, each expansion is independent of the others and brings new ships and Ai types unique to that particular expansion. The one thing they have in common, however, is how much the increase the difficulty compared to the original game. These expansions are for the hardest of the hardcore.

It's always nice when a highly polished indie game hits the scene, and judging by its critical reception, that's exactly what Anomaly Warzone Earth is. This launch trailer for the newly released indie title shows both cinematic and in-game footage, and it certainly looks interesting to us. There's also the standard snippets of praise that almost all launch trailers require at some point. Thankfully, it does not include the numeric scoring, but rather small fragments of quotes that make us want to read the actual reviews.

Download the Anomaly Warzone Earth Launch trailer
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Elements of War is exactly what it says on the tin: elements and war. Specifically, the natural elements mixed with modern warfare units. This trailer focuses mostly on the realistic units, such as the tanks and helicopters, but busts out some awesome weather manipulation for the finale. It's definitely got us interested, as new and innovative strategy titles are always exciting to see. So take a look and see if all the lightning strikes and thunderstorms tickle your fancy.

Download Elements of War Gameplay Trailer
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Are you excited about Scrolls? So excited? Well, if you are looking forward to Mojang's next game that doesn't end with -craft, you might get a chance to alpha test it. The newsletter field at the bottom of the Scrolls website offers an opt-in for the alpha test for those interested in the virtual CCG. It's been around for a while now, but better late to the party than skipping it entirely! As mentioned before, alpha testers for Minecraft will also be introduced into the Scrolls alpha over time.

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

This small patch for Atom Zombie Smasher updates the game to v1.71, fixing a number for bugs for the PC, Mac and Linux releases of the game. A full list of changes can be found after the jump.

Updated demos are also available. The full game can be unlocked from the demo or by visiting the official website.

Patch
Download Atom Zombie Smasher v1.71 Patch [Windows] (1 MB)
Download Atom Zombie Smasher v1.71 Patch [Mac] (306 KB)
Download Atom Zombie Smasher v1.71 Patch [Linux] (755 KB)

Demo
Download Atom Zombie Smasher Demo [Windows] (24 MB)
Download Atom Zombie Smasher Demo [Mac] (31 MB)
Download Atom Zombie Smasher Demo [Linux] (25 MB)

Going against what may be common sense, there is indeed such a thing as a single-player board game. One where the player competes more against the system and their own honesty than the machinations of other players. They are certainly not as common as competitive board games, but they can be just as fun. They also make for fairly excellent videogames as well, as letting a computer handle all the grunt number work lets the player focus on playing rather than managing the game. Fate of the World is a game like this. It would not feel out of place on somebody's kitchen table, cards spread out around the place and little tokens organized into convenient plastic baggies. Red Redemption has crafted a title that is educational and entertaining while providing us with plenty of nostalgic reminders of board gaming, and it's easily the most compelling of any remotely educational game that we have played.