As you could determine from the game reviews on this web site, I'm not that much of a "twitch" gamer.  I don't care for first-person shooters as a general rule, unless they deliver something more than a "shooting gallery" experience.  Half-Life 2 did that, in its challenging puzzles and interesting story line.  Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse did that with humor and interesting twists on weapons and strategy.  Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (not twitch games but not really strategy games) deliver in a sort of "wish I could do this in real life without hurting anyone or going to jail" kind of vein.  To a lesser extent, even the "Battlefield" and "Star Wars: Battlefront" games provided a strategy experience in that you have the chance to play cooperatively with someone else to achieve your mission goals.  Unfortunately, the gaming industry seems to want to deliver more and more "twitch" gaming and less strategy/simulation gaming (aside from the latest, greatest Microsoft Flight Simulator release).  I miss good strategy/simulation games.

The last really addictive strategy game for me was Capitalism II.  There were a ton of opportunities to play the game from different perspectives and in different scenarios.  I could try to corner the market on a raw material and gouge the computer players out of business.  I could focus on research and deliver products that were far better and much cheaper than my competition.  I could buy them out in the stock market.  There are seemingly endless ways to attack the problem of dominating the business world in that game.  True, there were arbitrary limits on the size of shopping centers and factories, but that became a part of the strategic problem (how to maximize space).  It's such a good game, in fact, that I still dust it off occasionally and play it - over four years after its release date.

The only strategy games I see coming out anymore are the "Tycoon" series, and they all pretty much suck.  It's kind of like "strategy for dummies" or "strategy for the short-attention-span crowd".  I tried playing the Mall of America Tycoon game and found its interface confusing.  Once I figured out the interface, I had to figure out why it would only let me place certain kinds of businesses in certain places, facing a specific direction.  It only took about an hour to decide I didn't need any more of the hassles.  I've tried other "Tycoon" games since then and had about the same reaction.

Some of the real-time-strategy (RTS) games that come out are decent.  I found some enjoyment, for example, in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War but not enough to bother playing the sequel (at least, not yet).  To tell the truth, I'm getting bored with the whole RTS category.

Civilization IV was a decent challenge, but it also felt like "more of the same".  A pattern of "build up an army, build up technology, attack, repeat" pretty much won the game.  When you play something like that, you more or less feel like a flesh robot, going through the same motions over and over without really thinking or reacting.

Just to give you a feel for how I see the gaming industry right now, below is a list of the "new releases" on GameSpot for the past week and what my initial impression of each game is (without necessarily having played it):

• Bowl Bound College Football:  The fact that it's a management simulation might get my attention, but the fact that it's sports related takes it right away.  Interest level: 0 out of 10.
  
  
• Jewel of Atlantis: Described as an action puzzle game.  Doesn't sound like anything I'll be spending any money on.  Interest level: maybe 1 out of 10.
  
  
• Gems Cubed: Another puzzle game. Interest level: 0.
  
  
• Real Deal Vegas Casino Experience: The name alone turns me off. I enjoyed my last trip to Vegas but I have no desire to try to replicate that experience on a PC, even if I could.  Interest level: 0.
  
  
• The Mastermind:  You assume the role of a criminal mastermind, creating a criminal empire.  Based on the number of typos I see in the screenshots and the rather strange concept of a mastermind getting smarter by reading comic books, my interest level drops from maybe a 6 to 1 on this game.
  
  
• Diner Dash: Sounds like "restaurant strategy for kids" and holds no interest for me.
  
  
• Strike Ball 2: Described as an Arkanoid clone, and I never cared for that game, so call it another zero.
  
  

A good business simulation (and I'm not talking that "Tycoon" crap for kiddies) needs only reasonable graphics (like Capitalism II had) and sound.  What's more important in strategy gaming isn't a splashy set of visual effects and a top-40-studded music track, but a solid intellectual experience that challenges the mind.  Compared to a Half-Life 2 style game, you could crank out a dozen great simulation games for the same amount of money and satisfy the needs of a market that's being sadly neglected.

Related Links:

• Games Quarterly Magazine