2006 Games Poll (poll is up - see link)
 

Edit: The poll is now posted!

What games do you plan to buy in 2006? It would be interesting to see the thoughts of Shrapnel forumers, so before I make a poll, please add the names of games you want included... games released in late 2005 are OK too. Links to homepages, good fansites, and good (p)reviews are welcome!

I have various reasons for posting this, but most importantly, it is so that everyone can see what games other people (with similar interests) are anticipating - and thus, discover excellent games of which they were ignorant. Therefore, posting indy games, debuts from small developers, and small niche games are encouraged... along with links to information. GameRankings.com might give Grand Theft Auto a 95% average and Resident Evil 4 a stunning 96% average, but I'd never consider buying either game, and the opinions of Shrapnel fans would be much more useful.

If any Shrapnel developers want me to add or remove their games, please send me a pm or just mention it in the thread; and feel free to link to this thread in your forum. I don't track all the games here so I don't know which ones are new or upcoming...


~ The list so far ~


Strategy:

All American: The 82nd Airborne in Normandy
Armed Assault - developer
Battle for Middle Earth II
Battle for Wesnoth 1.0 - home
Civilization 4 - home fansite fansite
Combat Mission: Shock Force - home fansite
Combat Mission Campaigns home
Dominions III - homeless developer
Galley Battles
Galactic Civilizations 2 - home
Hammer and Sickle
Heroes of Might and Magic V - home fansite
Jagged Alliance 3/3D/Disciples III (same sketchy-seeming developer) - developer screenshots
Land of Legends - home
Space Empires V - developer home
Starships Unlimited 3 - developer/forums
Supreme Commander (Total Annihilation sequel) - preview home
Sword of the Stars - wiki
Tigers on the Prowl III home



RPG:

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana 2 - media
Dragon Quest VIII - gamerankings review
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - home MUST-SEE TRAILERS media
Gothic III - home preview media
Neverwinter Nights 2
Psychonauts (by the Monkey Island series designer) - gamerankings
The Guild II - home
The Witcher - preview
Valkyrie Profile (original, remake, or sequel) - media
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - home preview


Hybrid / Action / Other:

Deadly Rooms Of Death: The City Beneath (puzzle) - home
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (Tactical Action) - image image
Hellgate: London (FPS/RPG) - home preview
King Kong (Action)
Lugaru (indy) home gamerankings
netKarPRO - home forum screens
Megaman X Collection (action)
Prey (action) - movies
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea (sim) - home
Roma Victor (MMORPG) home
Spore - home
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Gamecube Action/RPG) - media
Unreal Tournament 2007 (Action)
Weird Worlds - home
XMen Legends II


Analog Games:

D20 Future wiki
Hero System RPG fansite?

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

My list.


I already have:

Civilization 4 (I regret buying it - it was released at late alpha / early beta.)
Valkyrie Profile (did not have time to play it last semester; rerelease & sequel will be out this year)
Battle for Wesnoth (v1.0 released recently)


I will probably buy:

Dominions 3
Dragon Quest 8 (highest JRPG review score in quite a while...)
Galactic Civilizations 2
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (I'd settle for Elder Scrolls 3 bug-free http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)


I might buy:

Land of Legends
Wierd Worlds
Space Empires V (if micromanagement is vastly reduced, the population model becomes realistic, and the AI is much better)


I watching, with fingers crossed:

Heroes of Might and Magic V (unknown developer, but screenshots look awesome!)
Supreme Commander (Total Annihilation sequel, by Chris Taylor)
The Witcher
Gothic III
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana 2 (Super cute!!!!)
Valkyrie Profile: Silmaria
Jagged Alliance 3/3D/Disciples III (all same developer)


I will not buy (but others might):

World of Warcraft Expansion (too much wasted time on base game...)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (no Gamecube, but it looks like the first good Zelda since Zelda III, IMO.)


Edit: Removed "Hellgate: London" from my buy list after further information was revealed.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

On the list of things I want to at least check out: Space Empires V, Elder Scrolls IV, Hero (RPG) System, Homeworld 2, D20 Future, I've heard a rumour of an Honorverse computer game (Liscensing problems apparently got a HW2 mod shut down, forgot to bookmark link), hope Heroes of Might and Magic V is good, maybe get HOMM IV, Civilization 4 (Demo was fun, but seemed light to me).

And keep an eye on Shrapnel products, of course.

That's all I can remember now.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Most likely buy:
Dom 3
Oblivion
Sword of the Stars (wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_the_Stars) (developer site * forums currently undergoing a server upgrade till Tues. I believe and may be unreachable)
Armed Assualt (AKA Opereration Flashpoint 2, actually OFP2 is ALSO in development so AA is a separate game, screwey publisher issue) - http://www.bistudio.com/index.php

watchlist:
Gothic 3
Hellgate London
Space Empires V
Spore - http://spore.ea.com/
Supreme Commander
Roma Victor - http://www.roma-victor.com/
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea - http://www.pt-boats.net/
The Guild II - http://www.the-guild.com/
Pirates of the Burning Sea (MMORPG) - http://www.burningsea.com/
netKarPRO - http://www.netkar-pro.com/ (most active discussion forum - http://forum.rscnet.org/forumdisplay.php?f=244 (screenshots - http://www.bhmotorsports.com/NKPRO/screenshots

And I would buy Zelda if I had a cube still heheh.
Yes, I passed on Civ 4 for now. Some good mods might surface someday though. Like Alpha Centuari mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Well, my list is short, and seems less... nichey than other people's, but here goes:
Heroes of Might and Magic V - This one is almost a 100% sure purchase, even if it won't be too good.
Gothic 3 - Will have to check this out, I heard the previous ones were great but never got a chance to play them.
Supreme Commander - This one is a pretty sure purchase as well.
Unreal Tournament 2007 - I really liked the previous ones, a very good game for playing casualy because its just a mindless shooting game.
Dominions III - This one is obvious, so I put it in the end.

EDIT: Not that anyone will notice this, but I'm also looking forward to Spore.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

I really enjoyed Beyond Good & Evil, so I might buy the King Kong game made by the same team. It's only been promised 10 hours of game-time though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Some of the games mentioned here I'll probably want to read more about. The Witcher is the one I'm most interested in ATM. On the other hand, I've never played any of the Gothic games, and if a collection is released I might buy that.
Besides those, Dominions III.

I don't play many games, and generally won't bother to read about upcoming games. I might buy independent Lugaru, which has an intriguing concept. There probably are better ways to spend that money, but few people deserve it as much as its programmer. Ragdoll, physics, self-made 3d models, variation created by clever skinning, and a huge amount of combat animations...

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Interested in a lot of the games you mentioned, Cherry. Others :

Just bought (in 2006) :

Starships Unlimited 3 Dev Site / Forums - The Weird Worlds demo didn't do it for me, but got me in the mood for a MOO-type game.
Neverwinter Nights Diamond (big, well regarded, PC RPG)
XMen Legends II : Console Superhero Goodness

Also looking out for Elder Scrolls IV, GalCiv II, HellGate London, Valkyrie Profile (if it's new, not just a re-release).

May get Civ IV, once they patch it enough and the price goes down. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Most games i await for 2006 have already been posted. Surprisingly though one of my favourite Developers is missing:
Paradox Interactive.

Early 2006 they will release Hoi 2 Doomsday.
http://www.paradoxplaza.com/


Promising Indy Games:
Soldiers of Empires, a mix between Panzer General and War in Russia.
http://www.igorlab.com/index.htm
2006 they might finish SoE 2 which will include the western theater as well.

Freeware, gets constantly further developed, so new Versions every few months:
Megamek, turn based tactic game based on the Battletech-Boardgames.
http://megamek.sourceforge.net/idx.php?pg=main

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Y'know, I've yet to read a single remotely persuasive non-indie game review. The norm seems to be for reviewers to have absolutely nothing to say, but persist in blathering on for pages on end about all sorts of revolutionary, never-before-seen features like, y'know, elves, potions, graphics, keyboards, mice. From a recent Gamespy preview of TeS IV: Oblivion -

"There's definitely a lot to like about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but one element stands out more than anything else. This is truly a sandbox game, where every action will result in some sort of reaction. During the demo, our hero accidentally set an innocent villager on fire, prompting a local guard to rush up to us. Our demoer said that he usually paid the requested fine, but he actually listened to me when I said, "Screw that guy, kill him!" After battling for a few moments, we ducked into the local mage's union. According to the guy manning the controller, in every previous demo, the hero was able to join the union.

This time, however, the union's leader refused to let us join because our hero was now "a wanted criminal." Even better, the guard miraculously didn't forget about our trangressions, actually following us into the building, slashing at us until we killed him. This turn of events caused the demoer to proclaim, "Oh wow, I've never seen that happen" a number of times, which is always a good sign that a game will have a lot of surprises (and even better, replay value) for those players who enjoy unpredictability. After seeing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in action, we want it more than ever."

A criminal flag, and triggers conditioned on that flag. Wow. Whatever will they think of next? Some sorta non-boolean criminal status indicator, possibly a numerical one? These are the days of miracle and wonder.

Getting back on topic, I've also already purchased Civ IV and, for my part, don't regret it in the slightest. Sure, certain aspects of the game were rushed, but a few major issues have already been patched, and the end product is still nothing short of sublime.

I've also very recently already registered Escape Velocity Nova, and already regret it. My instinctive urge to support indie and semi-indie developers got the better of me. Fine, all the flavor text in the game is exceedingly well-written, and the main plotlines, although irredeemably cliched, are actually fairly compelling, but the gameplay is dull, dull, dull. Then again, that might just be my abhorrence of repetition and compulsive leveling. If you could tolerate the mere mention of Dungeon Siege, you'll love EV Nova.

The only other game I've been considering which isn't already on the list is Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, and it'll likely end up being another mindless, soulless, pointless by-the-numbers RTS. I miss Shadow of the Horned Rat.

Speaking of soulless...

Wait, so Armed Assault and OFP 2 are both back in BIS' hands? Purchased. I might bother to read a review or two beforehand, but nothing short of a half-dozen game-stopping bugs will deter me.

There's going to be a JA III?! Oh please, please, please let it not be yet another MoO III.

Can you imagine it? The elimination of micromanagement in our lifetime. A game that actually lets you focus on what interests you and/or demands creative thought, and handles the rest for you. Also, big 'splosions. I'm hanging all my hopes on this one.

Looking forwards to this, as well.



Steering clear of this one. I buy RPGs for one of two reasons:
A) A proper, non-linear, interactive storyline
B) A really compellingly told, original, linear storyline

Dragon Quest 8 seems to have neither, and endless levelling can only tide me over for so long.

Incidentally, if you haven't picked up Planescape: Torment yet, do so. I can't stress this enough.

No real progress since Daggerfall, but I'll gladly settle for more of the same. Still, it would be nice to see some genuine innovation.

Ditto, replacing "Daggerfall" with "Gothic".

Ooh. Didn't realize they were making a sequel. The original seemed a tad one-sided, though. One way or another, unless you made some truly monumental errors, you would eventually win, if only by sheer XP(well, AP)-induced inertia.

Darklands 3D, eh? Promising...

Huh... Well, that's unusual. Worth a look.

Realism is nice, but an MMORPG is still an MMORPG. So far, I've only seen two MMOGs with proper, engaging gameplay, beyond the leveling treadmill. I'm pretty sure both are defunct, probably as a result of crippling latency issues. Did JumpGate even make it past the beta phase?

Ah, Spore. In all likelihood, it'll just be a design tool disguised as a game. But what a design tool! It'll take some truly catastrophic design decisions to dissuade me from picking this thing up. The Movies-style catastrophic design decisions.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Megaman X Collection
Gotta love the super fighting robot who is fighting to save the world for everlasting peace http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

I'm looking forward to Combat Mission: Shock Force (battlefront.com; no page yet, just a forum), due spring 2006. It's a rewrite of the engine for the Combat Mission WWII tactical game, with this first release being set in the near future Middle East.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Enemy Territory:Quake Wars
The quake part may sound repulsive, but the game is said to be very tactical, with emphasis on teamplay, and will look like this: (modified Doom3 engine) http://www.etqw.at/images/quakewars/...review_006.jpg
http://www.splashdamage.com/images/image_01.jpg
It's a multiplayer-only PC-only game. The people who are developing it have a great record of making really playable games: Quake 3 Fortress mod, Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory (not just free - remarkable for it's innovative features and unprecedensed level of teamplay), and now this. One last thing: games based on ID Software's engines are known for their multiplatform support.

Neverwinter Nights 2
Very nice rpg game. One of biggest advantages is that multiplayer is geared towards small amount of players (parties; no massive thingy) and has support for Game Masters. That and very good modding tools. There are many player-made modules made for Nwn1 already and they are said to work in nwn2, too. The way multiplayer is made is (nwn1) the reason why it's still one of most popular multiplayer games.
NWN1 has been known as pretty much only real commercial RPG game for linux. Unfortunately, so far only DirectX9 version of Nwn2 is confirmed. While publisher and developer (forum moderators) say there's a possibility of linux and mac ports (they were very popular for NWN1), and there's a biig petition for nwn2 multiplatform support, we can never be sure.

DROD:TCB (Deadly Rooms Of Death: The City Beneath)
3.0 version of DROD, arguably the best puzzle game ever created. Drod 2.0 already has cult-like following and lots of high quality usermade levels.
DROD 2.0 (JTRH) is available for Linux, Mac, Windows, and apparently FreeBSD, too. Other than official level set and extra graphics, demo has full functionality, including ability to fool around with level editor.
http://caravelgames.com

Prey (2006)
Another game on Doom3 engine. It's being made by Human Head - people who made Rune (kicks ***). It it doesn't ring any bells for you, they're also the people that made Heretic/Hexen serries and left Raven Software around release of Soldier of Fortune2.
Prey will be a story-centered action game, and there are some really crazy things going on. See for yourself (gameplay video): http://www.prey.com/movies-view.html
It will be mostly a single player game.
What's more, if Prey is at least moderately successful profit-wise, Human Head people will get funding for Rune2. And B0rsuk really loved the original Rune ! Not to mention it worked on Linux, too.

I'd rather stay away from Witcher. It's based on serries of polish fantasy novels. They're very popular here in Poland, but the movie is a disaster.
My observations about The Witcher (game):
- uses new Aurora engine, the one Neverwinter Nights will use
- will be most probably single player only game. Not only that, but it looks to me like just another hack&slash game with fancy graphics. (at least graphics are quite realistic, even if models are somewhat lacking). Dialogue found on some of screenshots only strenghten the impresion. You meet a king's concubine and can choose from 2 dialogue options:
- where's the king
- time to die.
It may seem unpatriotic of me, but Poland has very few successful games which become known outside the country. Last such a game in several years (!) is Painkiller. I hope it makes it clear that CD Projekt (I think they're the developers) are not known for successful releases.
=================================
Something very on topic
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/07/th...me_journalism/

To Be Edited

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Bah, figures. To be honest, the first thing that came to mind upon reading the game's description was Rutger Hauer walking around delivering wooden dialogue and fighting topless witches with bad makeup and huge, fake hair. Or possibly Christopher Lambert. That paragraph can be interpreted several ways, and I wholly endorse all of them.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Dominions 3 and... that's about it, though I'm insanely curious about CivIV, I'm afraid my dinosaur can't cut it, especially with the performance issues.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Do you know if they will be available for Mac? You got a Mac, right Djo?

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Oh cool... another game available for Mac. (There aren't many... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ...which is better for my bank account anyway. ) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

I do have a Mac. Battlefront has been very careful about announcing Mac support. They very much want to (the devs use Macs), but they are afraid the Mac to Intel chip transition may screw them if Apple changes key APIs or something. Apparently something of that kind happened during the OS 9 to OS X transition, which is why no Combat Mission 1 for OS X. However, they seem very optimistic; various posts in the forum seem to have almost all but announced Mac support. One wonders if announcements at this week's Macworld Expo may clarify the situation enough to make an official announcement possible.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Battle for Middleearth 2 might also be cool.
BfME 1 was very good, i liked it almost as much as Starcraft.
BfME 2 could very well become the king of RTS http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Space Empires V
Dominions 3
Wierd Worlds
All American: The 82nd Airborne in Normandy
Galley Battles

Combat Mission Campaigns (http://www.battlefront.com/products/cmc/index.html)

Hammer & Sickle

Tigers on the Prowl III (hpssims.com)

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Most of these games everyone here has listed sound good... yet when in search of buying a new game I search for specific game features which I've listed below:

1) Random Game Generator
2) Game/Map Editor
3) Multiplayer capability (4 or more gamers)
4) Developer/Publisher communications/updates with gamers
5) Adjusting/Improving Artificial Intelligence


---all of these are not needed but two of the top three are definitely needed.--

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Unless anyone adds anything in the next few hours, I'll go ahead and post the poll.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Rise of Legends link - I haven't had time to get any good at an RTS since Starcraft, but I keep buying them. Rise of Nations and the Kohan games have been my favorites. Rise of Legends certainly wins the "looks interesting" award in my book.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Kohan 2 - was that good? I had / have Kohan 1 somewhere, rts ain't my cuppa whiskey, but it was fairly fun.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

im waiting on rise of legends too and of course for dom III

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

WARNING:
Heroes5 will be protected by Starforce. The mechanism is infamous for disabling your software, installing itself without your knowledge, staying on your computer even when you uninstall the game, REinstalling itself after removal (there's no official removal tool, mind you), breaking your hardware, causing crashes and performance hit. It's effectively a trojan.
Also keep in mind that while Starforce may not damage your computer, it may make work easier for other viruses. Just like there are viruses that cause no harm by itself, but attack your body's defence systems and let other bacteria/viruses in. Oh, and did I mention it's windows-only , so if you have dual boot system and buy Starforced game, you vote with your money against multiplatform support for games ?

Criticism by Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/01/th...tes/index.html

List of games using Starforce:
http://www.similarities.org/starforce.html

Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starforce

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

You missed my earlier post.

At least Hoi 2 Doomsday deserves to be added to the list definitely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Played the demo; "generic" doesn't begin to cover it. The game just exuded mediocrity. No clue what all the fuss was about.
Either the demo was a truly abysmal attempt at showcasing the brilliant, revolutionary game Kohan 2 is supposed to be, or the game itself is just another RTS distinguished only by a gimmicky logistics model.
That, and the complete absence of any hint of personality. Honestly, must I be thwacked in the face with a cliche every time I click an undead hero?

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

How many RTS games have been "revolutionary"? I enjoy the Kohan series because I despise having to click on some specific peon and tell him to go chop that specific tree. Kohan did away with peons entirely, so all you have to build are the buildings and the troops. The depth (and, for me, the interest) in an RTS comes from the interaction between the kinds of units you choose to build vs the kind of units your opponents choose to build. The Kohan series has lots of depth.

For Cainehill - Kohan 2 is both simplified and different from 1, and there are enough differences that you can't claim it to be just dumbed-down (though some of the hard-core players who were still refining Kohan 1 strategies after 3 years of play were quite bitter about the simplification). Unfortunately, it suffered the same basic problem as #1 - not enough players.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

Well...
The only known issues in the latest version of Starforce are disabling Alcohol 120% and the Nero burning tools.
I've heard about disabling certaing CD-Burners, but I'm not sure with which version that is.
As far as Reinstalling - that only happens if you try to run the program it came with after you uninstalled the Starforce drivers.
Also, there is on official removal tool on their website.
And as far as being installed without your knowledge, being a trojan and causing performance hits... The rest of the copy protections do that as well.
Yep, like I said, this vulenrability applies to other copy protection methods.
Yeah, that's true.

I'm not trying to say that Starforce is good, it isn't.
I'm just trying to show the (true) arguements of the opposite side.

And by the way, I played several (well, two) games that came with Starforce, and neither adversly affected my computer in any way.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

I bought one game with Starforce (silent hunter 3) I was not able to play for almost a week after I purchased it because the activation code they gave me was wrong. Finally tech support got back with me and gave me a working code. During that time I was wondering, "Is it my DVD drive? Is it a compatability issue? Should I buy a new drive? Should I take the game back and demand a refund even though technically they don't offer cash refunds on opened software?"

Now that it's over, the hassle wasen't worth it. I should have attempted to take the game back. Starforce, nevermore.

Re: 2006 Games Poll (please add suggestions)
 

This is ridiculous. Most games are Windows only because Windows, unlike the *nix world, has actual support for the hardware needed to play games. You aren't voting against multiplatform support, since no major manufacturer cares about a market that will always be only a fraction of the size of the already small Macintosh market.