Scott Tortorice
Senior Member
I’ve been really down on PC gaming of late. Heck, not just PC gaming, but video games in general. The reason why I became a gamer in the first place is because I was hooked by the wonderfully inventive and thought-provoking titles of yore - games that got you to furrow your brow in deep contemplation while you forged your own destiny in an immersive alternative reality. Alas, those days seem to be long gone. Gaming is thoroughly, if not completely, ruled by a steady diet of scripted ‘twitch’ titles that place a premium on adrenaline and little else. Not that those games can’t be fun – they most certainly are - but like an amusement park ride, once the experience ends there’s little reason to do it again. Worse, there is no reason to truly cherish the experience either because you know that what you just experienced has been repeated thousands of times before by other people in almost exactly the same way.
Such is the way of modern gaming…for most of the industry, anyway. Nonetheless there are still some brave souls out there who are fighting valiantly against this trend of “empty calorie” gaming. Paradox Interactive is certainly one such developer/publisher. Long known for their line of deep strategy titles, Paradox has just delivered a game that reminds me of what gaming, particularly PC gaming, used to be all about. That game is Crusader Kings II, a long anticipated sequel to the premier game of medieval dynastic politics. Sporting the emergent gameplay that made the original so popular, along with unrivaled depth and historical veracity, Crusader Kings II is a game that every strategy aficionado needs to check out, and here’s why….
A Game of Thrones
I suppose the best way to describe Crusader Kings II is to say that it is the video game equivalent of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones (the superb book and not the tawdry HBO series). However, unlike Martin’s book that dealt with the fantasy realm of Westeros, Crusader Kings II deals with the actual dynastic struggles of medieval Europe, a place no less vicious despite its decided lack of ‘White Walkers’.
Crusader Kings II offers the player a bewildering amount of starting choices. All of Europe is at your beckon call. Want to play the Holy Roman Emperor and have to deal with medieval geopolitics at the highest level? You can do that. Or perhaps you ambitions are more modest; perhaps you only seek to be the King of England. Again, you can do that. Or maybe you just want to play a lowly duke of some larger kingdom or empire – something I recommend for your first few games for reasons of simplicity. Again, the choice is yours. Basically, the player can select from a truly vast assortment of medieval personages that spans a 271 year period of European history, from 1066 to 1337 (actual gameplay continues until 1453). To say that there is nearly infinite replayability to Crusader Kings II is an understatement.
What is even more striking than the mammoth selection of playable characters is that many of them are well researched, complete with a fully fleshed out dynastic tree and a clickable Wikipedia button for further information. Even their in-game traits and portraits are accurately modeled to the extent that accurate historical information allows. The mind simply boggles at the amount of research that must have gone into this game.
But what is the game about? It is here that I must raise the first cautionary warning for people unfamiliar with the franchise: Crusader Kings II is old school, sandbox grand strategy gaming at its finest. That is, while the player’s primary goal is to increase the prestige and power of his family’s dynasty, just how he accomplishes that goal is entirely up to him. Don’t expect this game to lead you by the nose; rather it is all in your hands how you accomplish that goal, be it by military force, assassination, politic marriages, inheritance or merely awaiting a stroke of good fortune. The player’s goals are just that: the player’s. And with 400 years to play around with, he can take all the time he needs to see them reach fruition.
Such is the way of modern gaming…for most of the industry, anyway. Nonetheless there are still some brave souls out there who are fighting valiantly against this trend of “empty calorie” gaming. Paradox Interactive is certainly one such developer/publisher. Long known for their line of deep strategy titles, Paradox has just delivered a game that reminds me of what gaming, particularly PC gaming, used to be all about. That game is Crusader Kings II, a long anticipated sequel to the premier game of medieval dynastic politics. Sporting the emergent gameplay that made the original so popular, along with unrivaled depth and historical veracity, Crusader Kings II is a game that every strategy aficionado needs to check out, and here’s why….
A Game of Thrones
I suppose the best way to describe Crusader Kings II is to say that it is the video game equivalent of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones (the superb book and not the tawdry HBO series). However, unlike Martin’s book that dealt with the fantasy realm of Westeros, Crusader Kings II deals with the actual dynastic struggles of medieval Europe, a place no less vicious despite its decided lack of ‘White Walkers’.
Crusader Kings II offers the player a bewildering amount of starting choices. All of Europe is at your beckon call. Want to play the Holy Roman Emperor and have to deal with medieval geopolitics at the highest level? You can do that. Or perhaps you ambitions are more modest; perhaps you only seek to be the King of England. Again, you can do that. Or maybe you just want to play a lowly duke of some larger kingdom or empire – something I recommend for your first few games for reasons of simplicity. Again, the choice is yours. Basically, the player can select from a truly vast assortment of medieval personages that spans a 271 year period of European history, from 1066 to 1337 (actual gameplay continues until 1453). To say that there is nearly infinite replayability to Crusader Kings II is an understatement.
What is even more striking than the mammoth selection of playable characters is that many of them are well researched, complete with a fully fleshed out dynastic tree and a clickable Wikipedia button for further information. Even their in-game traits and portraits are accurately modeled to the extent that accurate historical information allows. The mind simply boggles at the amount of research that must have gone into this game.
But what is the game about? It is here that I must raise the first cautionary warning for people unfamiliar with the franchise: Crusader Kings II is old school, sandbox grand strategy gaming at its finest. That is, while the player’s primary goal is to increase the prestige and power of his family’s dynasty, just how he accomplishes that goal is entirely up to him. Don’t expect this game to lead you by the nose; rather it is all in your hands how you accomplish that goal, be it by military force, assassination, politic marriages, inheritance or merely awaiting a stroke of good fortune. The player’s goals are just that: the player’s. And with 400 years to play around with, he can take all the time he needs to see them reach fruition.