
If you were to tell me that this music was recorded for Bill & Ted?s Excellent Adventure (itself, now more than 30-years-old!), I would 100% believe it.Īnd yet, combine these different elements, and you have a game that?s a remarkable achievement. While it sounds great, it?s also a sound that could?ve been created at any time in the last 55 years or so. It?s all about a kid who dreams of breaking free from his folkie heritage (more on that in a moment) and unleashing his inner Hendrix. There are occasionally sequences where you need to press a few more buttons, but they?re more like a game of memory than what you?d associate with most music games.įor that matter, as a game about music, The Artful Escape doesn?t do anything groundbreaking. For the most part, you just run across the landscape, holding down the Y button, while your character coaxes all kinds of crazy sounds out of his guitar. Likewise, as a music game, it?s nothing noteworthy.

You occasionally bounce or slide, which is neat, but if you judged The Artful Escape by any kind of platformer standards, it wouldn?t be very impressive. Take, for example, the fact that it?s kind of a platformer ? except you really only ever move forward, and the jumps aren?t very difficult. If you were to look at any of its component pieces individually, they wouldn?t seem like much, but somehow, when you add them all together, the end result is magic.

The Artful Escape is a perfect example of a whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It also has nice graphics and a great variety of missions, characters and buildings for you to enjoy.Also on: PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X Rise of Kingdoms is an entertaining strategy game that borrows some concepts from the Civilization saga, while also offering a much closer gaming experience to most of the titles in this genre on Android. So, you'll need to recruit a handful of generals to eventually level up and teach new skills to. To combat barbarians and other civilizations you're going to need both troops and generals. Your three main jobs in Rise of Kingdoms are the following: build new buildings to improve your empire, explore neighboring territories, and of course, fend your city off from any external threats. Your job is to convert this tiny allowance into a thriving metropolis capable of withstanding the test of time. Once you've selected your civilization, you start out with just a few huts, farms and a lumber mill. When you start a new round, you can choose between eight different civilizations including China, Spain, Korea, France, Japan and Germany.

Rise of Kingdoms (Rise of Civilizations) is a management strategy game where you get to guide a civilization from the Stone Age to feudal times, while fighting against endless enemies and expanding the borders of your budding empire.
