The Tlog – a technology blog

Since at least the beginning of this week, Amazon.co.uk lists every PC or console game as “This item can only be delivered within the UK”. Other people are also complaining about it.

I’ve bought dozens of games from them during the last few years, and I had been mostly satisfied with their service, but if this is really a policy change (and not a temporary error in their site), it will be very annoying. There are other stores in Europe, but few have such a large catalog as Amazon.

I buy most of my games online, since I my two consoles are from Nintendo, and Portugal is an anti-Nintendo country; stores seem to think that “Nintendo is for kids”, and skip a lot of games, not to mention having them months behind the rest of Europe.

The French and German Amazons are not an option, since i don’t want games in French or German (I wouldn’t even want them in Portuguese, my native tongue. Games, like anything related to computers, should be in English, thankyouverymuch.).

Game.net may be an option. But let’s see if Amazon has really changed their policy (their “we ship to…” page still lists most of Europe as destinations for games) or not.

BTW, Amazon.com (the US one) has long shipped games to the US only. Maybe .co.uk is following suit? If so… I thought one of the great things of the Internet was that you could order products from anywhere; why is Amazon moving backwards?

On PBS: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked. A wonderful article that all the Hillary Clintons of the world should read.

Apparently, it stinks to high heaven. Who’d have guessed?

Love the reviews.

P.S. – please don’t buy it. Any money that imbecile gets will be used for more censorship and fear-mongering.

P.P.S. – apparently, Jack is now threatening to sue Amazon if they don’t remove the negative reviews!

Those 3 games have arrived, 2 days ago, but due to work (and work and work), I haven’t had almost any time to play them. Still, here are a few initial impressions:

Civilization IV

I love the new interface, presentation and music. And the new technologies narration by Leonard Nimoy is fantastic. However, I haven’t had much time to dwell into the game itself. Most of what I know about it is from reviews.

Civics come from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, though it was called “Social Engineering” there.

Religion is a new concept in the Civ series, and it basically works these way: the first civilization to get to each of 7 particular technologies (e.g. Meditation for Buddhism, Polytheism for Hinduism, and so on) has one of its cities become a “holy site” for that religion (think Mecca or Jerusalem). The religion then spreads through trade routes, including to other civilizations. Cities can have citizens of several faiths, and you can build temples. You can also build missionaries to influence other cities (especially those of other players) more directly.

Both civics and religion are used in diplomacy – civs tend to like other civs with the same state religion, or using the same civics, more – and the other way around. They may even suggest changes to yours – such as Mao asking you to change to State Property. And you can also suggest changes to them.

Religions are, in game terms, the same. Political correctness and all that. Not like Europa Universalis 2, where each religion had particular bonuses and penalties…

Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion

Looks extremely promising, but my puny PC can’t really handle R:TW decently. Although load times are better than Medieval’s, the battles are much less smooth. And I have to lower the detail a lot for it to be playable – which, oddly enough, makes it look worse than M:TW (with maximum detail).

One to “devour” when I get a newer PC. Must… get… rich…

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Only played through the first 2 missions (including the training one), so I have seen virtually nothing of the game. It’s like Final Fantasy Tactics / Shining Force – either a tactical RPG, or a tactical strategy game with heavy RPG elements. Lots and lots of classes, weapons and so on, with a nice story, and turn-based. Looks great, but I’ll only have anything to “report” after I spend some more time with it. Work, work, work…

Just ordered from Amazon.co.uk:

• Civilization IV (PC)
• Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion (expansion for R:TW) (PC)
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GameCube)

Yes, I’m in a strategy mood.
They should be here next week or so…