Retro Hell

Christ on a bike. Just dragged myself away from a 2 1/2 hour binge on Age of Empires 2. I really am a sucker for these older games. Perhaps it's the heady kick of nostalgia, a dreamy reminder of my wasted youth (and I really think you can count the number of hours I pissed away in front of Civilization II as 'wasted').

Empires hasn't aged badly, in the sense that the graphics lacked ambition even at the time, while the sound is an eerily addictive loop of ambient noises coupled with the various regional languages that Microsoft appear to have sourced (well, the Byzantine Latin sounds convincing enough, and I'm buggered if I'm going to check it all). I don't play it properly, preferring some twisted version of tetris; whack the game on easy and build a pleasantly laid out medieval town. As a former history student it's strangely satisfying to rain arrow-related death on the hated French, but on proper challenge mode it shares similar levels of frustration with other games of its ilk. (Warcraft III springs to mind. How does the sodding computer build its champion units so fast?) Still, a nice trip down memory lane, though after the bloddy Koreans chose to demolish my beautiful Byzantine coastal fort this evening, I may go into a bit of a sulk with it.