OT, what games r u wating 4 now?

[RedRover]

Vicious Love said:
You're waiting for a lot of games that aren't going to happen, ain'tcha?

I do seem to pick up the stray puppies, don't I?

The early online buzz on Civ 4 indicates teething problems not solved by the first patch, possible directx problems, and heavy system overload in the late game, as well as its exceptionally high ratings. I've spent the last week trying unsuccessfully to download the demo, only to have it show up today on the PC Gamer Jan issue demo disk. That saves a deal of time, though I haven't actually fired it up yet.

Hadn't been tracking Mark of Chaos (I like Skaven more than Warhammer as such), but checking it out put StarWars: Empire War on my radar screen, so thanks.

((I still play the old Rebellion game, which always seems to find its way back onto my computer. After MOO2, it's probably the most persistant returnee--although Birth of the Federation keeps getting back on each time I forget why I took it off, maybe once every 18-24 months or so). By comparison, Dom2 has never been off my system.))

I looked at the new Shrapnel demos: Weird Worlds, Lands of Legend. Been, done, gone; not my cup 'o tea, but both feel like good lunchtime games for casual play.

I have not been able to get excited about Galactic Civ II. The first game had an exceptional AI, but the game universe had all the immersion value of pushing LEGO blocks around on a Chess board. My suspension of disbelief was totally trashed by the arcade-style powerup mechanic. Following MOO3 as it did (MOO3, the last time I bought a computer game before waiting for the reviews), it was a crushing disappointment. If I want an abstract strategy game that rewards metagaming, I will play chess. If I hear that GCII is substantially different from GCI in its approach, I will be more than pleased. For now, I remain skeptical.

Endoperez: Thanks for the WildFire reference. I have a friend who I think would be most interested in this.

[Vicious Love]

RedRover said:
I do seem to pick up the stray puppies, don't I?

Which would be a good thing, if you were a major game developer... you're not, are you? You're pretty much my last hope.

Hadn't been tracking Mark of Chaos (I like Skaven more than Warhammer as such), but checking it out put StarWars: Empire War on my radar screen, so thanks.

We've got much in common. I really can't stand Warhammer, but I bloody adore the Skaven. I suppose other aspects of the gameworld are decent. The Empire, Tzeench's Lords of Change, there's some cute stuff in there. But none of it compares to the Skaven.

I have not been able to get excited about Galactic Civ II. The first game had an exceptional AI, but the game universe had all the immersion value of pushing LEGO blocks around on a Chess board. My suspension of disbelief was totally trashed by the arcade-style powerup mechanic.

Couldn't agree more. Bland, bland, bland! Although I discovered it a good while after MoO III, so I was amply equipped to handle the disappointment. I assume you also bought MoO III circa the day it hit stores? I was giddy, giddy, I tell you. Quicksilver Games, from Hell's heart I stab at thee.

[RedRover]

Vicious Love said:
...if you were a major game developer... you're not, are you?

'Fraid not. Sorry. Wish I could help. But no.

...from Hell's heart I stab at thee.

I'd like to save a little of that for the PC Gamer demo disk with Civ 4 on it. Can't even get my system to acknowledge there's anything in the drive. Tried everything I could think of--currently waiting to hear from their tech support. (It's only been a day or so.)

[Vicious Love]

RedRover said:
The early online buzz on Civ 4 indicates teething problems not solved by the first patch, possible directx problems, and heavy system overload in the late game, as well as its exceptionally high ratings.

Huh. I thought the patch had remedied the DirectX-related problems, at least. It definitely fixed them for my system, as well as for a bunch of other forum users. To the furthest of my knowledge, there's only one major complaint making the online rounds: the lategame memory leak issue. Which can be a bit of a showstopper, of course. I haven't run into it, myself, but I can imagine how it could totally ruin a game.

If you give up on trying to get either demo to work, I suppose you should wait for the next patch before deciding on whether or not to pick up a copy. It's difficult to imagine Firaxis not fixing this in the near future, but you never know.

[Morkilus]

Performance issues? Memory leaks? Well that seals it away for me. My compy P4 is running about 3 1/2 years old now... Great for running Dominions, though.

[RedRover]

Morkilus: I wouldn't be so quick to write off Civ4 for now. Over at CivFanatic, there is a fanpatch that reportedly fixes the late-game memory issues.

And I could just have a bad demo disk. If the PC Gamer tech support runs business hours, then a reply from them can't really be called overdue at this point (I wrote late Friday night/early Saturday morning, so if nobody's there on the weekends, it's really only been one working day).

[alexti]

RedRover said:
Morkilus: I wouldn't be so quick to write off Civ4 for now. Over at CivFanatic, there is a fanpatch that reportedly fixes the late-game memory issues.

Isn't it ironic that one guy without access to the source code has fixed memory problems faster than Firaxis team?

I've played Civ4 for quite a while. It has pretty decent single player mode, in my opinion, better than any previous Civ, but their coding is pretty poor: people have all kind of problems, the game is resource hog and there're plenty of minor problems nobody pays attention now.

Hats off to big Dom2 team who manages to produce stable code despite (maybe due?) to their small numbers