Hegemony: Phillip of Macedon (PC)
Platform: PC
Developer: Longbow Digital Arts
Genre: Real-time strategy
Released: November 5, 2010
Metacritic: 66
What is it: The blandest RTS ever.
0:00 – The campaign begins with a historical background. I am Phillip of Macedon. The king has been killed in battle, the heir an infant, and I’ve just been elected regent to serve in the king’s stead. The kingdom’s survival is in my hands. No pressure or anything.
0:10 – Huh. Really nothing to say about this one. It’s a rather simple, straight-forward real time strategy game with elements of city building and maintaining supply routes. There’s nothing particularly good or bad about it. Guess the camera is a bit slow repositioning when you move it use the mini-map, and the zoomed out map using models to represent units is a cute touch. That’s it so far.
0:20 – Just killed off a competitor, starting a small cut scene talking about the would-be king I just killed. It’s remarkable just how little impact everything has. The game just seems to happen, no force or definition to the events of it. It’s all just a very ordinary affair, bordering on blandness.
0:35 – Just checking in to let you know that, no, the game has not gotten more impactful, just more of the same blandness.
1:00 – Well, that’s one hour I’m not getting back. If it was at least bad I’d have something to take away from it, but this game was just bland averageness.
Conclusion: Make me happy, make me sad, make me laugh, make me angry, just evoke some kind of reaction in me. I play games to be engaged, to be entertained in one way or another, be it the triumph of victory, the compulsion to play just one more turn, reveling in a brilliantly told story, or even just the simple joy of ripping apart a terrible game. This game did none of that. I’m saying about this game the worst thing I can say about any game: it bored me.
Will I keep playing it: No.
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