What games are you waiting for in 2006?

[PrinzMegaherz]

Endoperez said:

That reminds me, I have to see if I can get my hands on Silent Storm. Same genre, did the same thing, and IIRC no one really had much to complain besides the plot.

I can't recommend Silent Storm. Being a huge fan of JA and the XCom series I bought it instantly after it's release... and stopped playing after the first few missions. Aside from the strange plot, the game itself plays rather slow, both due to game play and game performance. There are some true highlights, one being the physics engine. You can damage most objects in a very detailed way. I once had a machine gunner defending the entrance of a house against the enemy. His shots ripped small parts out of the walls surrounding the door, allowing him to see enemies he did not see before shooting. However, imho those highlights do not outweight the overall boredom of the game

[OG_Gleep]

Dark Omen is one of my favorite games of all time. MP was a complete blast, once we implemented tournament rules. Without them it was super easy to cheese out your army. It was unfortunate that it didn't sell well enough and the plans for expansions were dropped (happened with every single warhammer game until DoW).

I loved Silent Storm. My only gripe is I didn't appriciate the Sci-Fi elements towards the end. I spent hours just doing Random missions. IMHO its the best game of its type (and one of the only of its type) since JA.

As for the pigs, during the period that the game covered, if I'm not mistaken, they were only used once. The best counter to Elephants were vets who had faced them before and lots of pointy sticks. And even if they were the only counter the Romans used, I still don't think it should be a unit. Flaming pig smashes into the flank of the Barbarian line....Barbarian line crumbles. The day is won thanks to the Flaming pigs. Same reason I dislike the dogs being a unit.

[PrinzMegaherz]

OG_Gleep said:

I loved Silent Storm. My only gripe is I didn't appriciate the Sci-Fi elements towards the end. I spent hours just doing Random missions. IMHO its the best game of its type (and one of the only of its type) since JA.

I'm not sure about this one, but have you seen screenshots of Hammer & Sickle? They look exactly like Silent Storm to me... you might whish to take a look

[DominionsFan]

PrinzMegaherz said:

I'm not sure about this one, but have you seen screenshots of Hammer & Sickle? They look exactly like Silent Storm to me... you might whish to take a look

Yeah that game gonna use the old SS engine indeed.

[OG_Gleep]

I ran out and bought H&S, hoping to get more Silent Storm action. But, its a totally different game. Its a RPG built on the Silent Storm Engine. It started off as a Mod, and for some reason they made it into a stand alone product.

A few people really liked it, I thought it was terrible. It is technically well done, it just wasn't thought through well. Its hard to explain, most games pace you and give you the nessisary information to figure out what you need to do in any given area. This one doesn't. The forum community sorta muddled through it and figured it out collectivley shareing info.

On to other news: I just got in my monthly magazines, and PC Gamer had a preview for Warhammer Online. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with this title, but it was in the hands of another developer and was canned. Games Workshop had some ex-employees working at Mythic and called them up, and they took over in 2004, starting from scratch. They built it as the spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot.

It looks really cool, and I always thought Dark Age of Camelots Realm vs Realm system would be perfect for a Warhammer MMO. The Graphics look very similar to World of Warcraft, which is good. There are 2 overall sides, 6 races, and 3 individual wars going on in Warhammer Online.

1. Empire vs Hordes of Chaos (Mortals)
2. Dwarves vs Orcs and Gobbos
3. High Elves vs Dark Elves

There will be 3 different types of PvP engagements, from small skirmishes to full blown wars. Though each race will be seperate from the others, your guild of dwarves can backup an elven guild on a raid.

And you will be able to recognize high level players, each race will have a "characteristic" that indicates player level. As orcs grow in power, they will also grow in size (warhammer lore, orc warbosses tower over regular units), and you can tell how powerful a dwarf is by the length of his beard (Longbeards are dwarven vets in the tabletop).

Anyhow, check it out.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/home/index.php

[PrinzMegaherz]

I got my Oblivion yesterday and so far, I'm not overly impressed. Much of the atmosphere succumbs to the very bad german translation. Most texts are either half english half german or just without any grammar. For example, a strong healing potion would be read like st.ng pt. of hlng.. The tutorial refers to the XBox controller (move the right bumber to activate the item) even though I own the PC version. The graphics are nice, but the people running around don't look very much like people, if you ask me. There is a character generator you can use to create your characters appereance. However, I found it hard to make something that does not look like a monster or plain ugly. The story is more involving than in the earlier games of the series, but still far away from the likes of Final Fantasy (which I personally found very involving). It's a decent game though, and I think I'm gonna spend much time searching the hundreds of dungeons that can be found in the wilderness.

[Vicious Love]

Re: Silent Storm, the demo was enough to persuade me not to buy it.

Picture this: My scout, armed with an SMG and throwing knives, standing directly(one tile) behind a regular, utterly oblivious German soldier. Having experienced The Fury of the game's RNG, I pass her turn, to ensure she has all of her APs to spare. I also save*, for reasons which presently elude me.
The turn thereafter, I fire a burst into the back of the enemy grunt's head. I think two of the three rounds hit. He grunts, gets an interrupt, turns around, and fires a burst into my scout, critically injuring her.

Load. Aim for his back. All three rounds hit, he grunts, turns, brings my scout within a few HP of death. Load. Throw knife at head. Knife hits, grunt, turn, critically injure scout. Load and try a dozen variations, doing things with the rest of my squad to abuse the RNG. No dice.

Now, I like a challenge as much as the next gamer. In fact, I like a challenge much more than the next gamer. I like challenges so much I'm even willing to overlook the fact that my scout had absolutely zero chance of killing that grunt in a single action, as well as the screaming lack of realism this entails.
But when I get an elite squad member in the best conceivable position, offense-wise, to take out a mere mook, that mook should die, quickly and cleanly, without my having to rely on sniper support.

* Meaning the game was set to easy difficulty, right? Or did the demo allow saving during combat under hard difficulty, as well?