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You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Generation of Chaos does not make a good first impression, does not help players uncover the deep game inside, and worst of all its rewards aren't consistent with the excessive time spent trying to figure it out.
At the core, Generation of Chaos is a deeply layered strategy game that puts you in control of generals leading armies across a vast landscape against the rest of the world. You have to defend against attacks while simultaneously expand your empire. It starts simply enough with a nicely done cutscene that provides the backdrop and motivation for the rest of the game. It has the makings of a good game. You can control nearly everything from commerce to building to terrain improvements in order to favor your strategy and more. The basic game is simple enough. You get five moves per turn to spread between economics, building, population management, moving your commanders and battle. As you build and fortify, you collect more income to continue building. You can also capture or execute commanders you defeat in battle, and even turn then to your cause. The variety of options and opportunities is truly staggering. Unfortunately the developers seemed to find pleasure in making every step of the game more difficult than it needs to be. The problems with this game are legion and ingrained throughout the experience. It's hard to know where to begin describing them. The game is cryptic enough to easily be called user-hostile. One of the first things you see is a character customization screen without context. Then you get to choose which campaign you want to play, but the game defaults to the ﾑnormal' rather than ﾑbeginner's' campaign. If you choose the ﾑnormal' campaign, you are treated with a nice introduction that provides some tactical information before dumping you into the game. The ﾑbeginner's campaign' provides a completely different introduction and a promise of a tutorial (that you never get) before dumping you into the game.  The lack of a tutorial in a game this complex is inexcusable, made even more frustrating by that promise. I played blind through the first few days waiting for a tutorial to kick in, and even restarted in both game modes in case I failed to trigger the tutorial. Once I finally started to figure out how to play, I found significant depth and flexibility, but was dismayed at how the gameplay wasn't structured for portable gaming. One good design decision is that you can save anywhere, which means that you can make some moves, save, suspend, and come back later. However the glacial pace of the battles and the fact that you have minimal control over them makes portable gaming sessions sometimes amount to trying to discern what is going on and then watching battles slowly unfold. The battle system actually makes you feel detached from the action. It's doubly disappointing that it takes you away from the more interesting part of building your empire. I'm not sure which is more frustrating? Having to work really hard to uncover what this game has to offer, or discovering that what was hidden wasn't that great? Many dedicated gamers would put in the time and effort if the game and manual provided some help. They'd find a reasonably good strategy game with loads of control options waiting for them. But the good game is just too hard to uncover, there is too little support available, and there are enough annoyances present in the game itself that I can't recommend it to any but the most die-hard of strategy gamers.  
The content in Generation of Chaos is generally acceptable for kids 10+, but there are enough occasional language and thematic elements that it earns a T rating, and pushed it over the edge to a 14+ recommendation.
But the mildly questionable content is the least of the problems that younger players will encounter. Most gamers under 30 will be hard pressed to remember such truly unfriendly and unwieldy interfaces, where you are forced to remember three letter mnemonics to accomplish tasks. Most gamers in general will find it irritating and annoying to have to wade through endless cryptic menus to accomplish tasks. Some so-called ﾑold school' gamers would be able to appreciate this if the manual provided a decent resource. However, even the manual is lacking. There are lists of commands with meanings listed, but nothing contextual at all. There is a block diagram of the game structure, but nothing that even tells you how to go about structuring a turn. I think this game is an instant turn-off for most everyone. A game like Generation of Chaos is a loser because it is next to impossible to just pick up and play, and the available resources are of little help. This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "psp generation of chaos" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Generation of Chaos |
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