I’ve never been a good strategy game player. It doesn’t take long for Master of Orion 2 to eliminate my empire on Normal difficulty. Yet ever since I was a kid I watched my brother play a varied assortment of games from the genre. From Nobunaga’s Ambition on the NES to Lords of the Realm 2 on the PC, and even to watching him play the recent Total War series. I’ve always found it a shame that such strategy games have been wiped out by the RTS genre, focusing on the more simplified combat aspects instead of economy and diplomacy of the older turn-based games.

So sitting down with Muzzy Lane, developers of Making History II, I was pretty excited that they were not only developing the classic style of strategy game. They were trying to evolve it as well. It’s certainly not flashy with the world map resembling a game board more than a luscious bombastic display of color and wildlife. Yet this doesn’t hurt the game’s presentation. All the units and installations on the map are clear and easy to identify, as are the borders and types of terrain. Everything appears in full 3-D, and any object on the board can be destroyed. This means you can drop into enemy territory and eliminate their factories first to hinder their production line. In addition, there are various views available for the map that quickly present other forms of information, such as a trade view.

The interface may seem a bit surprising at first, resembling a folder from Windows Explorer more than a typical game display. This presentation also works to the game’s advantage. All of the necessary data is displayed for the player in great detail in a simple and clean interface without being cluttered. Simultaneously, the game actually runs in a web browser. This may seem like an odd decision for an in-depth strategy title, but it allows Muzzy Lane to develop a multiplayer title that runs on their servers with friends lists, invites and chat and many other tools resembling the Xbox Live service. This also helps keep the game running on a variety of machines, from the technologically archaic to the sleek new models that just hit the market. One of the key mentalities in this design is that while you’re waiting for other players to finish their turn you can go and multitask into other projects. You no longer have to just sit and wait but can play games while working on homework or simply browsing the web.