So, as you’ve no doubt gathered if you’ve been reading this blog for a length of time, I’m a fairly big fan of Paradox’s grand strategy games such as Europa Universalis. My favorite however is probably Hearts of Iron II: something about it just really, really appeals to me, and I’ve had weeks where I play nothing but that game or one of its innumerate mods.

So you’d have thought Hearts of Iron III would be a pretty big thing for me, right? So did I. Then I played it.

I really can’t put my finger on what it is. It’s not a bad game, though it had the usual panoply of Paradox bugs on release. It does a lot of interesting things and objectively looks like an improvement over its predecessor. I don’t want to be some kind of old stick-in-the-mud but at the base of it, it’s not enough like II for my tastes. It took a long time to get into II, and now that I’ve got it all figured out I’m somewhat reluctant to move on.

But I can see the appeal of III. So I’m giving it another try! This time I’ve said screw the base game though, I’m going to dive straight into a mod that does stuff I like, so I’m rolling with the Historical Plausibility Project, which seeks to allow plausible in-game outcomes based on what happens without being either too sandboxy or hewing too closely to reality. Exactly how I like my Paradox.

So let’s see how this goes! Have you guys ever had a game which you know you should like, but don’t? Have there been games which you’ve had to try several times before you get into them? Are there some you’ve just given up on, and retreated to a preferred predecessor?

(Ponies are here)