Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
With Stronghold: Warlords recently announced at E3, now seems as good a moment as any to look back on the game that kicked off Firefly s seemingly endless series of castle em ups back in 2001. In fact, I m genuinely astonished to learn that Warlords will be the ninth game in the series, as despite loving the first instalment, I ve managed to play precisely none of the rest. Stronghold was a very literal tower defence game, with some light-yet-satisfying citybuilding and management elements. It also had the vague feeling of being a 14th century take on Home Alone, as you would build up your castle, then surround it with concentric layers of horrid traps in order to thwart waves of pikemen, macelads, swordboys and horseblokes.