The Two Point series has a lot to answer for. Yes, SEGA’s brand of casual business simulations is silly and charming, and it’s fun to see what whacky schools, hospitals and museums you can cobble together. But in their desperate effort to be feel-good fun times, the Two Point series…
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I went into Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream, having not played the original, and not really followed it. That is to say, I went in entirely unprepared for the utterly surreal experience that awaited me. I started by making myself, as is fairly standard for “life sim” games like these.…
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Football Manager is in a fortunate position of having no meaningful competition. Most other sports properties have at least one contender tilting at the windmills, but for Football Manager, the biggest risk has always been that people simply get bored with it. And given that this is a series that…
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Of all the empires in all of history, the Roman Empire seems to have a unique ability to captivate. Perhaps because it was the first large-scale European empire – the one that “tamed Europe” as such, and so people look to it as the genesis of “Western civilisation.” It’s certainly…
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Of all the examples of comfort food gaming that are out there, I’d have to say that Story of Seasons is my comfiest and tastiest. Right back as far as the Game Boy – when the series was still Harvest Moon (remembering that the “Harvest Moon” titles that get released…
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One of the things about J. R. R. Tolkien’s vision of Middle-Earth that people often overlook is that he was seeking to create an entire history, right down to forgotten lore and evolving cultures, languages, storytelling traditions, and legends. We often forget that to instead fixate on the fantasy adventure…
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In The Wandering Village, you build a small community for survivors of an apocalypse to live on. The world has been ravaged and left effectively uninhabitable, but there is a giant dinosaur-like beast that has enough room and resources on its back to sustain some people. Your goal is to…
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Ever found yourself looking at the state of video games and going: “Why are so many things becoming so simplified and streamlined?” RPGs are melding into big action games with pacy combat, rather than stats crunchers, strategy and simulation games are often so simplified that it’s impossible to actually lose…
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“They don’t make them like they used to” is such a facetious comment to make at the best of times, but when it comes to simulations, it really is largely true. Over time the genre has evolved from something that aims to challenge players by punishing mistakes that they make…
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I want to get this out of the way upfront – it is genuinely silly that Farming Simulator has become an annualised franchise. It makes sense to have annual sports games because teams change from one year to the next, and having an authentic roster matters when you’re playing while…
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