What games are you playing now?

I cant give it a fair review in any earnest yet, Ive still got a ways to go, and things to do so i prolly wont even be able to game till tomorrow. The dino thing just hit my joy buzzer and I had to blab about it. My impression thus far however on the general gameplay is that yes, it is a "harvest-build-attack" type game. That's fine with me purrsonally, it's what Ive come to pretty much expect with this type of game. Just dress it up with lots of cool units, some awesome heroes leading the charge, a little town to build, and make things bleed and/or and blow up real good. If youre averse to this type of gameplay, then dont even slow down to look at this one.

They did go for a little bit of a unique approach on some things, such as unit xp and leveling. You gain a skull for every unit you kill, be it hostile or otherwise. These skulls are used as xp basically to level up units of any type. That's all well and good in a way, but it does introduce a small problem to the actual formation of an army at times. One is only allowed to have so many units and/or so many levels of experience, so you cant just hit the field with 50ea level five units and destroy everything. So the result is that youll have say 30 of 45 population cap filled, yet you wont be able to build any more units because youve got a bunch of ranked units eating up space. There's no indicator really (or maybe I'm not seeing it) of when you hit this max, so it's hard to plan ahead on making an army of specific type. You end up teching up via "Epochs" much like the Age of Empires games to some cool stuff that can potentially be built, but cant build anything because youve got too many ranks taking up pop/rank max count. So you can suicide a bunch of units I guess, but resources are not infinite.

This is all of one day of play tho, I might just be being an idiot and not seeing something obvious.

Thought I was going to wrap up (or at least get to the final stage) of Tomb Raider Anniversary tonight, it doesnt look like it's in the cards after all. That damocles room and the few other tricky jumps earlier in the game were nothing compared to this timed pole to rings jumps halfway up the Great Pyramid. They could have done better with the camera angles on this section, it's not helping matters. And having to re-fight those demons every time is annoying too!

It's tough, another one of those 15x deaths. Back to the old drawing board I guess, gonna have to give this one another shot tomorrow.

Gallifrey said:

So why do you think it'll be a much sought-after game in the future? Was it really good? The demo suggested to me that it was bargain-bin quality at best...

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I have recently come to the conclusion that what sells lousy in the beginning might become sought several years after that - just because it's rare. Nothing else, perhaps.

I might be wrong, though.

Well, I had to go and pick up Medal of Honor Airborne despite not nearly being done with Two Worlds (or my backlog of reviews). I did finish up Destination Treasure Island, which was a decent (not great) adventure, though. MoH:A is pretty good so far but definitely has a 'console first' feel to the design that I inherently bristle at ...

Oh, still playing the same stuff on portables , Jeanne D'Arc and D&D Tactics and GRAW2 and Crazy Taxi on PSP, and Operation Vietnam on DS.

As for the PSP, it is this:

What's a Daxter?

I'm currently not really playing anything. Puttering around with Mafia still, but my interest is flagging dramatically.
Ideally I'd like to find a good strategy game, but nothing has really caught my fancy as being a must-get, and there are no RPGs currently of any interest to me.

Kind of in a dead zone of gaming for the most part.

Gallifrey said:

What's a Daxter?

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Daxter is one of the top-rated PSP games, based on the Jak & Daxter characters from the PS2 (no, I've never played them either). In fact, I skipped Daxter entirely since someone else had it for GamerDad review.

But the 'news' is that the package is the 'PSP-2000', aka the 'PSP Slim', supposedly out early next week but some stores broke street date and they are popping up everywhere. I'll have something in the GameSanityBlog next week about it.

Ah, I see.

I have no idea what you kids are into these days!

Gallifrey, just curious who is your new avatar?

txa1265 said:

Well, I had to go and pick up Medal of Honor Airborne despite not nearly being done with Two Worlds (or my backlog of reviews). I did finish up Destination Treasure Island, which was a decent (not great) adventure, though. MoH:A is pretty good so far but definitely has a 'console first' feel to the design that I inherently bristle at ...

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I was extremely pissed off at what they did to MOH. It doesn't just have a "console first" feel to it, it actually has an "arcade" feel to it.

You just magically level up with weapons??

Also, the crosshair is huge and annoying with no apparent way to disable it, and what's up with the little red x's appearing on enemies when you shoot them?

I was really looking forward to that game.

JDR13 said:

Gallifrey, just curious who is your new avatar?

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It's Patrick Troughton, the second actor to play the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who. The shot is from the filming of the episode Fury From The Deep.

The quote in my signature is from the same actor in the same role.

Of course, I remember him. Didn't recognize him in that pic.

New episode tonight....

Yeah, the picture is a bit small.

And no new episodes here until next week, stupid CBC pre-empting Doctor Who for some idiotic awards show.
Bah!

I've seen all the third season and am eagerly awaiting Torchwood season 2.

I've begun playing a bit with Ultima 7. It runs a bit slow (in terms of animations) in DOSBOX, but otherwise really smoothly.
The handling is something I still need to get used to, but is quite interesting. It reminds me of the "object system", as I call it, of Nox: You can move inprinciple anything, although in Nox you can't combine anything, only very few items.
Divinity is far better in that respect.

Given the fact that I don't know that many C-RPGs, I must say that the ROA series and the Divinitys are the games which come most closely to Ultima 7 in terms of object interactions - and Gothic 1 (didn't play the other Gothics this far).

Very, very nice is that everything is actually translated. That gives a nice bonus in my own reputation system.
But as I read, only the very first and basic part of all Ultima 7 games (and add-ons) is translated into German - which actually cancels this reputation-bonus in part out again.

I've also looked into Ultima 8, but foumnd the screen a bit too small. And Ultima Underworld 1 is even worse. I need to closely work through the handbooks once again.

Corwin said:

I've seen all the third season and am eagerly awaiting Torchwood season 2.

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Did you know that there's no Doctor Who series in 2009? They're only doing 3 "specials" for that year, with 2010 being the next full season.

Regarding Ultima, I want to someday go back and play through the entire series. I can't remember which ones I've played, the first few, I think, and none to completion (a trend with me and video games).
Ultima I - VI are on Gametap, so I may pick up a subscription there and play them that way, then no futzing about with DOSBOX or anything.

hey Gallifrey have you tried battlestations:midway. its not really a strategy game persay, but it is an extremely fun game as there is a lot of highly important management to do, in addition to letting you control ships and planes in the 1st/3rd person which very few rts's actually employ. yes its a bit "arcadey" but you can probably get a decent price on it though if you are expecting an in depth flight or naval similutar look elsewhere. i don't normally play historic "war games" but squad/team based ww2 games i quite enjoy. the first 2 commando games and hidden and dangerous 2 and its expansion to be precise. which speaking of you playing mafia have you played hidden and dangerous 2. it uses the same engine pretty much (it was made after mafia) but to me they are better games that even though mission based have far more of an rpg-lite feel than mafia had. surving characters stats can be increased by usage of skills as well as a very nice inventory system.

oh and h&2 is one of the finest looking games that will run on an older card. it ran with no problems on the lousy 5200 i had a few years back.

curiously undead said:

hey Gallifrey have you tried battlestations:midway. its not really a strategy game persay, but it is an extremely fun game as there is a lot of highly important management to do, in addition to letting you control ships and planes in the 1st/3rd person which very few rts's actually employ. yes its a bit "arcadey" but you can probably get a decent price on it though if you are expecting an in depth flight or naval similutar look elsewhere. i don't normally play historic "war games" but squad/team based ww2 games i quite enjoy. the first 2 commando games and hidden and dangerous 2 and its expansion to be precise.

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I don't usually gravitate towards WWII games (although I really enjoyed Call Of Duty). Generally, I don't care for the subject matter, and with strategy games I like to be immersed in the entire world, to have a feel for it, and my preferences lead me to ancient world through to medieval strategy games.
I'm always willing to check out recommended strategy titles though, regardless of period, so I'll take a look at your recommendations!

which speaking of you playing mafia have you played hidden and dangerous 2. it uses the same engine pretty much (it was made after mafia) but to me they are better games that even though mission based have far more of an rpg-lite feel than mafia had. surving characters stats can be increased by usage of skills as well as a very nice inventory system.

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Never heard of it, though it sounds interesting. I like that skills and such can be improved, and a good inventory system is always appreciated.

oh and h&2 is one of the finest looking games that will run on an older card. it ran with no problems on the lousy 5200 i had a few years back.

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Excellent! Being able to run on an old card is vitally important!

demos for H & D 2
http://www.gamershell.com/download_5073.shtml
addon
http://www.gamershell.com/download_7486.shtml

Hadn't heard about Dr. Who and 2009, thanks. Wonder who'll be playing the Doctor that year!!

txa1265,

How is the full version of MOH:Airborne? Is it any better than the demo, or pretty much the same?