What games are you playing now?

i guess you don't play your games long enough to reach corporations?
also there was no great general before warlords and that unit is fairly important, especially it would seem for you.
also as i said the mods add total new experiences like the one in space which is similar to galactic civilizations, and there's an interesting tactical squad one, as well as a pretty well done 'rpg' fantasy one as well, something "winter" or "frost" if i recall correctly. you should give them a whirl thy noble prince.

also i never tired of hearing mr. nemoy : corporation (n.) An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility
 
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After finishing Ravenhearst, I flailed around a bit (have my Galactrix pre-order in place, and still keeping the decks clear) and settled in on a run thru UFO:ET. I didn't pull out my copy of the tech tree and it's been too long to remember what leads to what, so research is a little more like opening Christmas presents. Was having a good time.

And then...went to the big city for a Target run Saturday and what should my wondering eyes appear but an end cap display with half a dozen copies of Return to Ravenhearst. $20 and the addiction is back on. I think Big Fish Games is stalking me. I think I'm about 2/3 thru already, but it's hard telling. They've tweaked the gameplay a bit from the first one, and the improvements are quite good.

You know, RPG designers could use some of these casual games as a good wake-up call. It's all about the gameplay, and it always has been. Wiz8 wasn't a pretty game and the story wasn't going to win any prizes, but it was a blast to play because there was a ton of complex gameplay hiding underneath the simple mechanics. The M&M series was the same. For that matter, even though I didn't catch the addiction like most, Diablo followed the same formula. Civ2, same. Pirates!, same. It's gameplay that keeps you coming back to a game a decade later.
 
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i guess you don't play your games long enough to reach corporations?

I have, at Noble difficulty. They appear to work a lot like religions, except with even more money involved. I haven't gotten that far at Prince difficulty yet, though.
 
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dte wrote
I think Big Fish Games is stalking me.
Me, too--still playing way too much Virtual Villagers 3.
You know, RPG designers could use some of these casual games as a good wake-up call. It's all about the gameplay, and it always has been.
That's something Soldak's done with their games, not to mention I2 and Puzzle Quest. A good concept, imo.
 
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It's much slower than Lost Children, but good puzzles.
 
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They appear to work a lot like religions, except with even more money involved.

Sounds to me like a real life encounter/experience ... ;)
 
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I have had a few weeks with FPS games recently, but with the upcoming Resident Evil 5 I decided to run some horrorgames. One series that I always thought I should try but always was scared off by bad reviews, were the ObsCure series. Well, I finished ObsCure 1 today and went right into ObsCure 2. And yeah, I have to say that they aren't that great. They aren't bad engine-wise or mechanically and as ports they are rather well made... but they aren't really that exciting to play either.
 
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I'm in trouble.
I'm playing Persona 4 in my PS3, which is really good. But also, in a moment of curiosity I restarted NWN2 after I abandoned it like 2 years ago (also ordered the 2 expansions). And now, Drakensang could come any day now. Yikes.
 
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I grabbed the new Fire Emblem DS yesterday, and am loving it ... cool stuff.
 
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Getting really hooked on Eschalon--I may have to recycle some aluminum cans or something for spare change since I've already bought my February game. I'm about at the end of the demo, but I still have a little juice left for another replay since I haven't been able to make a character that can kill the last two zombies in the cemetery. I must need a bigger stick.( And bows just really do not work when you have to have a torch in one hand.)
 
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OK, got back to Civ IV and found two new ways to lose.

Played as the Ethiopians. Went for a peaceful strategy. Finally figured out how to manage the economy, so I could keep my Research at 100% most of the time. Things were going swimmingly until about 1600 -- I was alternating at the top spot with Peter the Great, my northern neighbor; was roughly on par technologically with him and a way ahead of everyone else. I'd reached Nationhood and figured that my tech advantage (gunpowder, basically) would be enough to hold off the barbarians so I could skip Military Science and Rifling and go straight to Infantry.

Wrong.

Montezuma showed up with about 40 Knights and Catapults and took one of my major cities (and research centers), with the rest left unprotected. Dropped straight to the bottom of the pack, behind in tech (again), and deeply in the red economically. My only consolation was that I persuaded Peter to declare war on that pesky Aztec, and since I had decimated the bulk of his army, he had an easy victory.

I now know how to manage the economy reasonably well. I made two mistakes: getting too comfortable with my tech lead, and not expanding enough even though I had the space. Peter pulled ahead of me in research power simply because he had more cities, whereas I had so few that I couldn't draft or recruit enough forces for a defensive war, nor afford to lose even a single major city without suffering a fatal setback.

My second loss was much less interesting: I started on an island as the Carthagineans, with nobody else on it and ocean all around. Despite my best efforts at expanding, building, and research, without the possibility to trade resources and tech with neighbors, by the time my neighbors discovered me, I had just discovered gunpowder whereas they were already running on steam power and rifling. So, yet again, I resigned.
 
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Well I'm finally starting a game of Vampire TM:Bloodlines. I'm playing as a male Ventrue. Also using the new 6.0 patch (Basic install).


*Edit* Wow, this game is still quite buggy even after all these patches. I'd hate to have played it back when it was first released.


*Edit #2* Ok, I just had to edit a config file to fix the main issue I was having. This game is great so far.
 
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A buddy of mine convinced me to start playing Left 4 Dead with him online.
It sure is fun. In a barbaric-zombie-mass-murdering-coop kinda way. :D

There's a free expansion pack coming and the SDK... so good times ahead!
 
Good Lord of the Tigers...

I just suffered thru what was arguably one of the longest, most torturous two hours of gaming Ive had since my migraine-tinged pixel search-fest in "Scratches" nearly made me scratch my own eyes out in frustration. Why do I do this to myself?

I'll tell you why - because I liked Stronghold, it's in my personal top ten. It's Crusader expansion was great too. They had great 2d graphics, it was a fun and deceptively immersive castle sim, and while the combat was somewhat lackluster - it just worked. It was great even when it kinda sucked. I always wanted to see what was gonna happen next. It was hilarious at times, nothing like lighting up a legion of the enemy w/ burning pitch. Good times.

Even for being a bit dodgy, it was loaded w/ charm and at least the combat was passable.

"Stronghold Legends", I'm sorry, is not passable. I couldnt tolerate the cam-pain for more than a couple missions (i know that doesnt seem like a very valiant effort but it was literally agonizing) and the skirmish mode is pathetic. Unit control blows, paper-thin units just stand there and die, micro is nigh impossible. The "castle sim" portion of the game which was actually a big part of what hooked me on the original stronghold just doesnt seem to work very well. Then there's the castle building aspect, again, one of the biggest draws of the original game - there's just really no reason to do it here. The enemy AI is anything but intelligent. Two skirmish games down, and im fidgeting forever w/ an economical model the speed of molasses to rustle up a mess of retarded troops who die in the blink of the eye when hit by an arrow or two from behind the walls of the enemy stronghold. Which is where the enemy stays, by the way.

Well, between Lords of Everquest and this train wreck, Im about ready to play something worth my time.... need to fire up L4D, KB (if i can stay awake!) or Sacred II
 
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Since we don't have a general chat thread, I'm putting this into this thread here:

I just read the German-language PC Games review about a new game called "X-Blades".

I will not buy it. Not if 10 horses pull me towards it. It just seems to be so ... "un-intellectual", according to that review, that it would be an insult to my IQ.

Yet the first reviews on Amazon Germany reveal that there must be a slight fan base for this kind of games. The writers are praising it yet, I think, although it isn't even out now.

Most interesting are the remarks about a "good story", which reads totally different in that review of PC Games.

If that review is true, then this is the best example of what I'd call a "dumbed down game". Please note that my personal definition of that term is a bit different from that which is common.

I wonder whether this might become a new trend or even sub-genre ? Action Hack & Slay with Anime-shaped figures ?
 
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Finished yet another Civ IV game. Still at Prince. My best so far.

Started on a continent with my old friend from the last game, Montezuma. Started kicking his ass the minute I saw him -- captured his worker, then his second settlement, and kept hammering him all through the ages, while expanding aggressively everywhere on my continent. Eventually pushed him past the Arctic circle and got him to capitulate. Revenge is sweet.

And that was the only serious war I fought. A few people tried naval invasions, but only one of them actually managed to make a landing; I repelled the others with ease. So I switched to research mode. I did a lot of catching up and tech trading, and eventually clawed my way to the most advanced position.

Then Gandhi won a cultural victory. He was on the other side of the map, and I can't think of anything I could've done to stop him. I came in ranked third, after him and Mansa Musa.

I now know how the war weariness mechanic works, and what can be done about it. I think.
 
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Cant believe how much I'm enjoying Sacred II, been playing it for like 4 hours now. Between the combat styles, powers, and whatever all the other stuff is called lol you can really personalize your toon unlike any action-rpg Ive ever seen before. Usually action rpgs start boring me fairly soon, but I'm havin great fun w/ my voodoo-mama dryad. That said, the first hour is quite boring, and they almost lost me... you really need to stick w/ it and it gets better in my opinion.


So my voodoo dryad is all ranged, just like i like my arpgs, but Ive decided to not just max out damage like I always do and go for some of the more spectacular spells n stuff. There's a pretty wide array of stuff to use that's really fun to use like pets, poison dart shooting totem poles, damage buffs, personal windstorms, etc. Typical to Sacred lineage im freakin drowning in loot, thankfully the inventory system is fairly good, w/ an option to cash in items from the field for a reduced profit. A carry over from Sacred unfortunately is that theyre constantly heaping the other classes items on you. You can of course sell them off, but it's just a ridiculous amount of stuff you cant use that youre constantly having to sort, thankfully it's all colored red so you can fire thru everything of that color fairly quickly. Why they didnt include the now-standard interface perk of being able to see what you have equipped side by side w/ whatever item youre checking out is beyond me. This leads to you having to constantly be going back and forth from items youre wearing to items in your pack, seein whats best. Cmon, this is the year 2009, theres certain things we come to expect, especially when im freakin drowning in loot.

Some other downsides are camera angle problems (others who play it zoomed out at all times wont have these problems) and the game runs kinda choppy at times. Ok, it doesnt really run totally smooth at ANY time, but it's playable. You start to get used to these things when youre using a 4 year old pc. Top down/iso'ish camera angle is fine, but w/ the option to zoom down pretty much OTS i find myself liking that angle a lot when exploring. Unfortunately, unless the plane before you is level or downhill you wont see very far at all. Some kinda option to adjust view level (ie "look up") would be most welcome. Maybe I'm missing something, ill have to scour the info and cfg files a little.

Just like the first one, it has it's problems but despite them overall I'm having a good time w/ it.

Mags, are you playing this game? If not, it's callin your name!
 
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I'm currently trying to play the imhop far best cutom map for Star Wars Battlefront I I ever saw: "Kashyyyk: Shores", but it crashes far too often for my taste.

Unfortunately every bigger map tends to crash more often the more maps the game has in is "Addon" folder anyway ...
 
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