Clippings: Top Gun: Maverick; Old World; back to Hades

Hi, everyone.

Since my last update I finished Triangle Strategy – very good! It more than lived up to my impressions. The grounded, low-fantasy setting was a breath of fresh air, the story was interesting, and the battles were challenging – I ended up turning down the difficulty from “hard” to “normal” for the final quarter of the game. I’ll be first in line for any DLC or sequels.

I also really liked Top Gun: Maverick, which lived up to its rave reviews. It succeeds because it tells a human story: Maverick is older, wiser, and sadder than he was in the original movie, and a much more interesting character as a result. The creators understand when to homage the original, and when to acknowledge it’s been decades since then. (They also homage the broader world of aviation books and movies – one scene feels inspired by The Right Stuff.)

Meanwhile, Old World, the 4X strategy game set in classical antiquity, launched on Steam after a stint as an Epic exclusive. Designwise, I quite like it — although I found the learning curve much steeper than Humankind‘s. Its focus on named characters, like Crusader Kings, creates memorable emergent moments, from succession crises to miraculous births.

My main complaints are technical — on my PC, the late game became sluggish and the AI turn times dragged. I think the UI could also do with some work — for instance, it’s hard identifying resources (unlike Humankind and Civ, which flag them with a little icon).

Here is a recent Three Moves Ahead interview with Old World‘s developers – Mohawk Games CEO & Creative Director Leyla Johnson and Design Director Soren Johnson (of Civ IV fame). Here is a slightly older interview with the History Respawned podcast.

Finally, I’m revisiting Hades, 2020’s surprise indie hit, which is as good as ever. The art is striking, the gameplay excellent, the writing snappy, and I love mythology. Now up to eight successful runs and counting!

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