GDC 09: Paradox Interactive Presentation

Earlier today, I went to a meeting with Paradox Interactive, where I was given quick 15 minute explanations and demonstrations of a few of their newer titles that are going to be released in 2009. Granted 15 minutes isn’t really enough time to see all a game has to offer, but each developer was concise enough to give a taste of what the final product will be.

Majesty 2

It’s a medieval RTS title, but it has a great twist. The hero characters are not controlled directly by the player, rather they work for bounties. Objects can be assigned bounties and the hero characters will decide on their own if they will accept or decline. Animations in-game were smooth and polished, I didn’t see any glitches or pop-ups. I only saw a little portion of the map, so I’m not sure about how diverse the environments are going to be.

East India Company

This trading based sim strategy game was interesting to watch, the trading between nations involving a lot of diplomacy actions. My first question was if there would be ship against ship conflict and thankfully it is in the game. The water effects the ships pitch which then effects the trajectory of the cannonballs that ships fire at each other. Lead Designer Kim Soares showed me a lot of the game mechanics and I think that the warfare of the game outshines the trading aspect of the game.

Mount & Blade: Warband

An action RPG style game. Most of what I saw was the multiplayer skirmish system. The horseback combat appeared solid, but there was a lack of full animation with the full swing. On foot, the combat changes depending on the direction of the attack from an enemy. To block, your character has to block from the direction that the enemy is attacking from. I only saw a couple minutes of the single player and I’m not sure how extensive the campaign is, but with a coming expansion things could get better.

Hearts of Iron III

A World War II strategy game. This was the game I was most impressed with the scope of detail that is contained in each aspect. There is a wealth of information concerning world leaders, parts of machinery, and other random facts that all correspond to the game. I wasn’t able to see any combat since the date of the game was a couple years before the start of WWII, but imagine Risk backed by an encyclopedia. There are so many sub levels of text information and I can imagine players being stuck with just reading for hours.

Elven Legacy

This game is a turn-based strategy game using hexagon squares for defined combat. I didn’t get to see much of this title either, but it looks solid with animations all in place and what appears to be a deep strategy system. Along with the different character classes, there are also air units for combat. I saw what could be described as a bomber attack a pack of wolves. The attack was a success, but failed to kill the entire pack.

Every game I saw is solid for the genre that it’s in. Some of the graphics look dated and could use some polish, but many of them were in early builds with mainly the gameplay intact, but not the flourishes. Paradox Interactive should have a solid lineup for the rest of 2009.