OT-New Computer needs new games

Lemmy · #1 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 · #2 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 · #3 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 · #4 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 · #5 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).

dmm · #6 December 8th, 2001, 01:21 AM

Well, mind you this isn't war, but I'd be curious to see how a game like SimLife would play on a really crankin' machine. I could never get a stable 3-level ecosystem going because my machine at the time couldn't handle huge worlds with enormous pops, which of course you need if you are going to have predators eating herbivores eating plants. But probably too much like school for most people.

capnq · #7 December 8th, 2001, 02:03 AM

quote:
EU I['s] 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.

I bought Europa Universalis II as a Christmas gift to myself, based on friends' recommendations of EU I. The manual is pretty much the same as you've described it, but there is a very good string of tutorials that walk you through the entire interface. Weird missions are still somewhat of a problem; I'm playing Ukraine and as of 1529 have seen three easy ones (hold Jedisan and Crimea, both north of the Black Sea; discover Smyrna in Asia Minor), one medium one (keep the the Marmelukes [IIRC] out of someplace I think was also near or in Asia Minor), and one absurd one (discover someplace in South America).