What games are you playing now?

I'm still playing the demo for the TB strat title Dominions 3 by Ilwinter Games. I was up til the wee hours last night with the "just one more turn" thing.:) It's a very generous demo--I played my faction for about 5 or 6 hours on a medium map, but just as I was about to wipe out the vile presence of the R"yleh(H. P. Lovecraftian Cthulu types) the demo informed me I had reached it's limits :(

It looks like I'm going to have to come up with the cash for the full version.

that actually looks pretty interesting. Love the quote in your sig!


Playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out lately and loving every minute!

About to jump back into Overlord right now, might end up finishing it today
 
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Well, your sig trumps, imo...though I liked the Oblivion statistics one as well.

I'm still wading through the D3 demo. Graphically it's ...basic, but it really doesn't matter because you don't play chess any better with hand-carved ivory chessmen. The playable races are nice and varied. I imagine a multiplayer game with twenty players would be mindboggling o_O

Let us know the final word on Overlords.
 
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I've been playing Risk on the PC for a little while now, but not the classic game. The one that comes with Risk : The Game of Global Domination by Hasbro. It's called Ultimate Risk, there are rebels, generals, battle tactics, terrain, forts...
Nice game and a bit more tactical than normal Risk.
 
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Tropico 2 (Special Edition).

It's ... different, and lacks the lighthearted thing of Tropico 1 somehow. Also, the music isn't so ... refreshing.

All in all, everything fits quite nicely into the theme of Piracy in the Carribean, and I think that's why this game failed. It just doesn't feel so much like fun as Tropico 1 did.
 
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Finished several games of Risk and just started with Arx Fatalis. I certainly like the atmosphere of the game, very nice. I just got to Arx and talked to the king. I also visited the library there and I certainly like the whole 'lore' of the game. It ads a lot to the feel of the game. The seems a bit easy though... I know I'm just starting out, but except for some giant spider which kills me in two shots I had no challenging combat. The combat isn't really fun either and I'm happy there isn't too much of it.
I talked to Greu and I really liked him: "Me have new friend! Greu so happy." :)
This was kind of funny. The crashes didn't help me a lot, but it's still a nice game. I think I'll restart since I created some ****** up character with only some combat skills and since I'm going away tomorrow I'll probably forget most of the game anyway so I'll continue when I come back.
Just one question : Is lockpicking worth it ? In this game I can't lockpick anything because I only have about twenty points invested in the skill for lockpicking, but is it worth investing more there?
 
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Finally finished Prey last night and now I'm trying to decide what I'm going to play next. Prey was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, and was also a lot longer than I expected. For some reason a lot of reviews claimed it to be on the short side which makes me wonder if those people even played it all the way through. Of course I usually take a little longer than most to finish FPS games because I refuse to save anywhere other than the beginning of a level. I also always go back to my last save if I am killed rather than using an option to continue.

I think I'm going to try to play through both System Shock 1&2 before Bioshock is released at the end of the month. I've been wanting to try "System Shock portable" which allows you to play SS1 on WindowsXP without the hassle of having to use DosBox, etc.
 
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I decided to dig out Europa Universalis II and give it another go. Last time I tried it, I just couldn't get into it so I'm trying again, and I think I've got a bit better grasp on it, so it's going ok so far. I'm just playing the "fantasia" scenario as Ireland for a low-key introduction.
Lots of neat ideas in the game, and I think once it gets going it'll be pretty solid.
 
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Just one question : Is lockpicking worth it ? In this game I can't lockpick anything because I only have about twenty points invested in the skill for lockpicking, but is it worth investing more there?


It's been a couple of years since I finished Arx, but I remember there were a lot of doors that I never opened because I didn't have a high enough lockpicking skill. I was only level 7 when I finished the game so I didn't have enough points to get some of my skills as high as I wanted them. The max level you can achieve in Arx is 10 but you can only reach level 8 normally. You have to make use of some exploits to actually reach 10th level.
 
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Should be of no surprise that I have now continued my Final Fantasy summer with Final Fantasy X-2. It's a huge change to the rest of the series for sure. First of all, the game feels like it was made for teenage girls, which would make this a girl rpg? It seem to borrow bits and pieces from Charlies Angels when it comes to cutscenes and artstyle. Our pilot is in love with one of my characters, who herself is seeking for her lost love (main plot, rescue captured BOYFRIEND). I have also just met the first pregnant ex-adventurer ever. The rpg system consists of clothes that I can change on my girls who have a large wardrobe, one of them is popstar who stand next to the fight and sings and dance? Minigames so far have included walking around in a large mascot costume giving people baloons... Unlike FFX, FFX-2 is completely open, with every area in the game open from the beginning of the game.

Still, I find the game funny and adoreable. The FF series really get in touch with what it means to be human in a way that no other RPG series ever done.
 
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I seem to have exhausted the Dominions 3 demo so while waiting for the full version, I loaded up another game from the TB Strat recommendations thread, Age of Wonders II. I've had this game since release and never played it, but thought I would give it one more chance since so many spoke well of it.

I made it past the rather awkward tutorial and am enjoying it a lot. Definitely a decent game. Thanks all. :)
 
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The fourth one is called Double Agent and was released last year. Personally I consider Chaos Theory to be the best in the series but Double Agent is decent.

All the Splinter Cell games are quite good with political storylines and fun gameplay that allows you to do lots of stuff.

Thanks I'm probably going to buy the fourth one too..when I've finished all 3 :) Speaking of it, just about fifteen minutes ago I finished the first splinter cell game. I really enjoyed it, great atmosphere, good storyline, intresting gameplay. I was afraid first that sneaking would get old fast, but clever mission design, great locations, rapidly changing situations, good a.i and awesome gameplay kept me on my toes and I was never bored. What really separates sc from other stealth games is the realistic gameplay. For once you can't just blast your way through. While the game may feel at times very unforgiving, it ain't unfair if you use your brain a bit :)

Some of those cool moments:
-sneaking through CIA-headquarters undetected.
-chasing the computer guy in the oil rig while Nato airforce was attacking
-all the presidental palace levels

Next pandora tomorrow...
 
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I seem to have exhausted the Dominions 3 demo so while waiting for the full version [...]

Glad to see you're enjoying the game. Be sure to grab the latest patch, besides some bug fixes Illwinter as also added two new nations. One, the Tir na n'Og, is quickly becoming a favourite of mine.
 
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A local store has Splinter Cell Chaos Theory in the bargain bin for $10. Is it worth that? I remember trying a demo for a SC game at one point and not being all that taken by the game. I think it may have been one of the first two, and I pretty much wrote off the series from that point.
Does the gameplay allow you a variety of methods to achieve goals, like Deus Ex? Or is it more on rails and you're very bound by your environment?

Magerette, glad you're liking AOW!
 
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Cormac wrote:
One, the Tir na n'Og, is quickly becoming a favourite of mine.

Land of the Ever Young, eh? Probably best not to tell Corwin.

I really like the diversity of races(even though you can't play very many in the demo) and also the way the devs have made an effort to give each one it's own identity, not just a different color flag and some units weighted in a racial favor. I'm really looking forward to that 300 page manual. ;)

@Gallifrey--having a lot of fun with it. Nice hybrid between HoMMs and Lords of Magic with a few rpg flavors thrown in. Glad I loaded it up. :)
 
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A local store has Splinter Cell Chaos Theory in the bargain bin for $10. Is it worth that?

Can't comment on the quality of the game but you might want to be careful with that one since it very likely has Starforce copy protection which a) doesn't deserve any support due to more than shady business practices b) might cause trouble with your system and c) will definitely not work if you're running Vista. I think that Chaos Theory was re-released as part of some game bundles/collections though and those newer ones should be Starforce-free so maybe you should rather look for a different version.
 
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I think I've found a small clue why Tropico 2 failed that much.

Odd - the ovberall sounds of the game - the soundtracks, the sound effects, the music, everything are optimized towards the lower range of the scale.

The sound engineer of Frog City (that's the name of the dveloping company; Tropico 1 cwas made by Top Pop Software, make4rs of the later Railroad Tycoon games) must've been a real huge fan of low-range sounds !

The overall sound experience is that everything sounds low (or "dumpf" as we would say in German language - whereas the normal German "u" is pronounced like an English-language combination of two "o" - like in "Moonraker", for example), and high sounds (like the sound of a fiddle in an in-game song) are quite scarce.

This lack of high-range sounds is imho at least partly responsible for the lack of the "lighthearted" feel the game has. In contrast, in Tropico 1, everything sounds very "lighthearted", truly carribean.
In Tropico 2, it also sounds carribean, but the emotional impression made through the sound is that everything feels a bit dull, low and "dumpf".

If that is true - and my instinct says that I'm quite right - then this is an perfect example on how much the sound quality, and especially the sound-range of a game effects the "emotional image" a game generates - and therefore affects sales.
 
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There was a tropico 2?? well I think it is a case of failed marketing! never even heard there was a second one!
 
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Thanks for the Starforce warning on Chaos Theory, Moriendor! I'll be sure to save my ten dollars and leave the game in the bin.
 
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