OT-New Computer needs new games

dumbluck · #1 December 7th, 2001, 12:23 PM

Puke probably is refering to Independance War 2. Which is supposed to be a KICK ___ game. However, it is also supposed to have a rather steep learning curve. Oh well. I wish I had a system that would play it.....

Saxon · #2 December 7th, 2001, 12:52 PM

If you really want to test out your machine, I hear Max Payne is the way to go. Sure, it is a first person shooter, but you don't buy a machine like you have to play strategy games.

If you are getting Shogun Total War (good game, but crashed on my machine unless I did the full instilation) you should get the Mongal Horde add on. I think they lifted the graphics up a step or two, as well as adding lots of units. However, it isn't going to push your machine, my old 450 handled it with ease.

I am jealous of your machine, but I made my choice. Instead of getting one great new machine, I bought two older ones for about the same price and now have a three machine network in the house. Living in Kenya places any form of network play besides LAN out of reach, so I chose to do it at home.

Have fun!

Lemmy · #3 December 7th, 2001, 01:15 PM

"return to castle woflenstein" is one of the newest 3d shooter, that's probably a good game to test your computer with.
or starfleet command 2, wasn't that 3d also?

mac5732 · #4 December 7th, 2001, 05:56 PM

Shogun Warlord Eddition, this is the upgraded Version, excellent game system, tactical is fun and it can be played on line, also Universalis I & II, also excellent. I have both, but II is my xmas present and wife won't let me touch it. If you get them be sure to download patches (as with all games out there) Civ III is supposed to be good to, don't have it yet but some on the forums stated Universalis is better, but that's up to each indiviual's tastes. I plan on getting it,

just some ideas mac

capnq · #5 December 7th, 2001, 06:01 PM

quote:
If you really want to test out your machine, I hear Max Payne is the way to go. Sure, it is a first person shooter, but you don't buy a machine like you have to play strategy games.

Nitpick: Max Payne is third person, not first person. There was an opinion column about it in the December 2001 issue of PC Gamer.

Puke · #6 December 7th, 2001, 07:04 PM

thanks dumbluck, independance war 2 is what i was thinking of. my that game looks nice.

guess i should go get it..

while battlecruiser milenium sounds good in principal, i too had the misfortune of playing Derek Smart's first game, and was somewhat underwhelmed. it does not look like he has learned any lessons for the second one, so i will stay clear of it. besides, Interplay's Anestus Rising looks to be the better carrier-command remake.

(anybody remember carrier command?)

Taqwus · #7 December 7th, 2001, 08:15 PM

A 5000-point assault in _Combat Mission_, with hi-res mods and all graphical features maxxed (resolution, smoke, weather, et al) might be visually impressive. At least if you forget that the beautifully camoed Panthers (I use a lot of Fernando's and GEM mods, for instance) and so forth are killing machines... Good gameplay, too.

EU I was decent, but a) it's not for nothing that people joke that it's *real-time* strategy gaming over 300 years, and b) it has a variety of AI cheats (most notably, AI fleets suffer zero attrition -- a huge advantage for AI colonial powers, which can explore the world much faster that way; especially Portugal, as all their ships can explore) and AI weirdness (highly asymmetrical diplomacy in which bribes are expected to be a one-way street, for instance). The manual is also more of a short history book than, say, a game manual (e.g. there are screenshots, sure... but not a single one is actually labelled with respect to parts of the game interface.) There are other quirks as well, such as outrageously unrealistic missions (for instance, getting something like "Make sure there is no Spanish presence in the Caribbean"... as Russia... in 1500...) EU II may or may not have resolved these; I wouldn't know, since I don't own it.

My main beef w/ Shogun:TW is that the old publisher basically broke repeated promises and bailed on supporting it, leaving behind a number of known issues such as units routing far more easily than they should; a complete lack of configurability (no way to disable the wildly ahistorical T-1000 Geisha/Terminators); and a rather blatant AI cheat (it's a "simultaneous" move game, but the AI tends to take into account your moves when choosing its). Activision may be better than EA when it comes to support, but that remains to be seen.

Do not underestimate the processing power required by Shogun:TW when doing Civil War battles (8 sides, 16 squads ea., 120 musketeers per => 15,360 musketeeres => LOTS of smoke and hideous frame rate on many systems). Of course, that's not exactly a normal battle...

Illwinter's _Dominions_ is good, but it won't come even close to stressing your system. Priorities are similar to SE:IV (scope, depth, micromanagement, and most of all, gameplay).