Royce Brainard, GiN Staff

Royce is an incurable gamer. Games of all types. He started many moons ago with chess and checkers (harmless enough) then progressed to board strategy wargames, pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons and the early console games. His love of games has grown through the years. His only wish was to find others to game with as solitaire gaming has its drawbacks; and to this end became involved with several play by mail games. While in high school Royce was busy developing his own wargames that played on hand made eight foot by four foot maps with tons of hand made counters to represent the various units involved.|It was a natural progression that he evolved into a computer game nut, since now the computer could handle the job previously performed by lots of charts, tables and die rolls. Then finally came the Internet games. WooHoo! Now he could play with other real live gamers in real time. He has literally died and gone to heaven!|An Electronics Engineer by education, Royce is now a Software engineer working with the Comanche Helicopter program ) and spends all day as well as all night and weekends on the computer ( much to his wife's chagrin at times ).

Recent Posts

High Seas Adventure Awaits

Ahoy mates – we close with the enemy – bring all guns to bear! Prepare to engage! Covering the period from the Seven Year’s War through the Napoleonic Era, Age of Sail II brings to you the heart of the Age of Sail. You can do battle as the British High Seas Commander against those upstart Americans in 1776 or fight for the Americans against the Imperialistic British in the War of 1812. You can play from the decks of a Ship of War or the decks of a Privateer just out for the booty. The choice is yours. My … Continue reading High Seas Adventure Awaits

Heavily Scripted Space Opera!

The year is 2014. The humans have spread out among the solar system driven by the need for resources. As the Martian Diplomatic Convoy approaches the moon for an historic meeting with diplomats from Earth to settle their differences, it is suddenly blown out of space by unidentified armed ships. Needless to say war ensued. And this is where you enter, as either the Martian Colonists out to avenge the slaughter of their Diplomats, or the Earth forces out to get those upstart colonists back in line. Hegemonia: Legions of Steel is a space-based real time strategy depiction of the … Continue reading Heavily Scripted Space Opera!

New Ultima is More of the Same

Bringing Ultima Online out of the shadows? Don’t think so. Let me start by saying that I am not a fan of PvP (player vs player) games. I avoided the previous Ultima Online releases due to their lousy reputation for being a PK (player killer’s) paradise. I did not even consider playing the game so I could do this review until I read that there was a 40 hour ‘young’ status during which you could not get Pked AND you get a free month (I can play 40 hours in a month no sweat!). Imagine my surprise when I found … Continue reading New Ultima is More of the Same

A Classic reborn

The DUKE is back and in rare form indeed. For any that have played a Duke Nukem game before, this will be familiar territory. For any that have not had the pleasure of meeting Duke yet, do not expect a complex story line and intricate plot – this is Duke Nukem. The guy tells all that will listen that he has the best job in the world. He loves saving the world. It is what he was born for. He also loves big bosomed scantily clad women and plenty of them flock around him yet again (ok so they are … Continue reading A Classic reborn

Follow the Call

All I can say is – WOW! If all of the next generation of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, popularly called MMORPGs, are as good as this then we are indeed in for a real treat. Asheron’s Call 2: Fallen Kings (herein after called AC2) takes place in a land called Dereth which is comprised of three Islands. Osteth is ancestral home of the Humans. Omishan is the ancestral home of the magic using Tumeroks. Linvak Massif is the ancestral home of the lumbering Lugians. You start your life, after choosing race, sex and how your character will look; … Continue reading Follow the Call

Real Time D-Day

A real time simulation of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 sounds VERY interesting. Too bad Matrix Games and Lamb Software did not end up with a product fitting of the intended scope, possibly due to the scope itself being too large. Problems start right at installation. No manual came with the game so there is no immediate help in getting started. I installed the game and no icon came up on the desktop. No problem, just open and close the CD door to get the CD to run. Hmmm, seems like the only option is to install the … Continue reading Real Time D-Day

An RTS with a Twist!

I can hear the cries already "Jeesh, not yet ANOTHER RTS with a twist!" But wait until you have tried this new offering from Microsoft Games and Ensemble Studios before ye judge to harshly. Anyone remember that old classic – Populous? Remember how you had god powers granted based on the number of followers you had? Well, Ensemble Studios has worked this into Age of Mythology quite nicely! What you have is a world dominated by three cultures – Egyptian – Norse – Greek. Each is quite unique and each has their own pantheon of gods with their own ways … Continue reading An RTS with a Twist!

A Great, but Difficult, War

So close, yet they missed the mark. Hopefully the review that follows will make this statement clear. Iron Storm begins in March of 1964 and World War I (yep that is not a typo) is still in full swing. You play the part of Second Lieutenant James Anderson, who has grown up with this war being all he knows, and he knows it VERY WELL. Anderson is called on to undertake a series of missions that will stop the leader of the opposition from unleashing a terrible weapon on the good guys. And YOU are responsible to make sure he … Continue reading A Great, but Difficult, War

Content is King in Camelot

You asked for it and now you have it – more content for Dark Age of Camelot. I do not know how many articles I have read that listed the biggest drawback of Dark Age of Camelot as the lack of content and then go on to base this on a comparison to a game that has been on the market nearly four years with four expansions under its belt! So, hopefully Shrouded Isles may quiet these critics for awhile. What do you get? Shrouded Isles brings an upgraded graphics engine, with the down side being you need a relatively … Continue reading Content is King in Camelot

Battlegrounds Makes Combat Fun

Ever play a Real Time Strategy game? Red Alert? Empire Earth? Age of Empires? Starcraft? Warcraft? GOOD! Then you are ready to take controls of Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds – Lucas Arts’ new real time strategy game based in the world of Star Wars. If not then you will need to go through the whole tutorial before you are ready rather than just the last few missions. Is it a ground breaking new game? Not in the least. Does that really matter? Not to me in the slightest. If a game is fun to play I will play it no … Continue reading Battlegrounds Makes Combat Fun