Re: OT - your fav games
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So sad. You must not be very good at this sort of thing. Only took me a few minutes. You really should have paid closer attention to your instructors at the Jedi academy ...

Re: OT - your fav games
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And miss out on some perfectly good wanton and indiscriminate carnage at the very end of the game? I don't think so!

Re: OT - your fav games
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Inventor of the beefswelling. Nonetheless, point taken. Dune just never springs to mind when I think of SciFi. Personal bias, coupled with repressed trauma. Both Herbert and Tolkien took a real dive in writing quality after they changed their first names.

Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke (as has been mentioned by Leif) were full of interesting ideas that they wrapped into stories.

And how! Though Asimov did have a tendency to repeat himself, hence my assertion that much of his stuff wasn't all that good, conceptually. His best was brilliant, though.
Clarke had this distressing tendency to occasionally try and focus on the narrative, which really wasn't his forte. His nonfiction is usually much better than his fiction.

Heinlein, I must disagree, did write decent novels.

Actually agreed. For some reason, I felt it'd be splitting hairs to digress any more than I already was. My bad.

I know people (who I think are culturally blind) who don't care for G.R.R. Martin

Heh. The only author who kills off major characters in footnotes and appendices. What's not to like?

Re: OT - your fav games
 

Getting back on topic, again, how's everyone here feel about Dungeon Keeper and Giants: Citizen Kabuto?

Update: Also, what's everyone's favorite Ultima? I dug The Black Gate, personally, and my left eye still twitches when anyone mentions Ascension.

[ July 22, 2004, 04:18: Message edited by: Vicious Love ]

Re: OT - your fav games
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Utter piece of crap. Another one of those moronic games, inspired by early consoles, where you could not save in mid-mission. Given how hard this game is, it makes it impossible to play for anyone who's not a total twitch-game fanatic. I could never even complete the first level. Shame, given that it had great graphics for its time. Which only strengthens my earlier point that graphics alone do not make for a good game. Some attention must be paid to the UI as well (not to mention the even more important elements of plot, etc.).

Re: OT - your fav games
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, stylistically I'd say that Dune is really more of a fantasy epic than science fiction - but Herbert did write other books than Dune (good luck in finding any, though.) Personally, I'm rather fond of "Whipping Star" - but I'll admit that I'm not sure if it's a guilty pleasure or not. It's a rather quirky little book.

Re: OT - your fav games
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Quirky, yes. The Bureau of Sabotage, charged with slowing down the wheels of government. Nevermind the intriguing alien race "Caleban". The book is well worth digging around in used bookstores (or better yet, Online) to find an old copy.

Not as amusing or quite as well-written is his Last full-length novel, The White Plague, whose plot was scary in '82, and even more scary today.

Also recommended is "The Dosadi Experiment", which is in reprint BTW. Go to Amazon or B&N to read synopsis and reviews on it.

The above 3 books, plus of course Dune, are IMO his best works. I pretty much have all his books (I've been reading Herbert and other classic SF/fantasy authors since the early 70s) but these are the ones I most enjoyed.

[ July 22, 2004, 09:38: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Re: OT - your fav games
 

Is this just for computer games?

RPG: Morrowind (it has it's flaws though)

TBS: Jagged Alliance 2, Dominions 2, Master of Orion, Emperor of the Fading Suns

Wargames: Close Combat Series is simply the best, and really changed the way I thought about combat in general.

RTS: Warcraft 3, TA gets an honorable mention but I'd rather play Close Combat then wade through 16-20 hours for one game on a metal world because my flash tank rush didn't work. And the sea battles? Yeeech!

FPS: Quake 3. Still the best for straight up Deathmatch. I love UT200* as well, but...

Management games: Patrician 3, King of Dragon Pass

Fighting Games: Guilty Gear XX:reload, Last Blade 2 (still the best), Tobal 2, King of Fighters 2003.

MMORPG: What a waste of time.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I liked the Jesus Incident, but could barely plod through Hellstrom's Hive. It was just so cheesy like a very bad Xfiles show (were there any good ones that weren't totaly derivative?). Some of the other Dune books were of questionable merit, though good fun all 'round.

One thing you MUST read in sci fi is "Roadside Picnic." I think it could be the best sci fi story I've ever read and it follows the law of sci fi that the better it is the more difficult it is to find in print...

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You'll find in reading old SF/fantasy books (from 30+ years ago) that many of them will appear "cheesy" in light of our "more sophisticated" modern viewpoint, just as you would watching TV shows from the same decades. Also, there are very few authors (Feist immediately comes to mind) whose every book is a masterpiece. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

BTW, you'll note that I did not mention Hive when I listed my recommendations. heh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif