Banished

Sean Dibble

So in my last post "Gamers on a Budget" I mentioned this game and there is a reason why...IT IS AMAZING. It is one of those games that is easy to learn and hard to master. I have found myself logging endless hours into this game and have yet to have a successful city.

The basis of the game is you control the fate of roughly five to six families as they were banished from their home land and sent to an area to set up a new city and build a new community. Depending on what difficulty level you start out on determines what you start with.

·         Easy- You will start with a storage barn, stock pile, 5 homes, a type of animal (chickens, cows or sheep), some type of seeds for crop fields and orchards.

·         Moderate- You will start with a barn, stock pile, and one set of seeds for orchards and crop fields

·         Hard- Yeah you start with people....thats it.

Ok so let us dive into game play. Usually the first thing I do in game is quick build a Fishing dock or Hunting Cabin and five or six homes. Reason being YOU NEED FOOD AND SHELTER....DUH. Next you should look into a woodcutter and maybe a crop farm up to you at this point. Though out the game you will need to manage how many logs you cut down (or build a forester who will replant trees and cut them down) and manage your iron and stone, for these are important to survival. Also you need to manage your population, build to many homes to quick your population will boom and you will have a mass death on your hands because food will run out. Take too long and people won't have children and you will lose your entire population to old age. This micro managing system that the game has is amazing and just makes you keep playing.

Graphically the game is top notch better than its counterpart SimCity the game is beautiful from spring to winter. You will see trees grow leaves and see the leaves fall off, you can watch people as they work with their pickaxes and so much more. The change between spring to winter simply gorgeous to watch. Since I became a PC gamer I tended to lean towards indie games....even though graphically they sometimes don't add up to high end big name games, but this one broke that trend no wait DESTROYED that trend.

With all that being said I love the game its cheap, hard, and fun to play and with games lately not knocking it out of the park lately for me anyway this game will keep me busy and entertained for a long time to come. I have logged over 30 hours into the game and hope to log in 100 more. Banished is a game that any serious city builder or strategy gamer should have in their steam library. But why are you sitting here reading this go out banish some people and build the city of dreams.

Good:

-Graphics simply amazing

-Easy to learn hard to master

-Simplicity is key

Bad:

-Some may say too hard to complete, or at least too hard to seem worthwhile.

Rating 9.7 out of 10