Red Alert!

Skulky · #1 January 31st, 2002, 05:58 PM

So are we all banding together to fight of the SUII menace or something? I think SE4 is much better even if only for the community. As a game it is much better and will continue to be so, no worries.

Emperor's Child · #2 January 31st, 2002, 06:15 PM

The game looks like junk to me, I don't think anybody who plays SE4 has a worry. They describe an "average" game as having about 6 ships, which is peanuts for your SE crowd. Not much depth to the tech, no mod ability by players... Naahhhh, it will never really be a threat.

geoschmo · #3 January 31st, 2002, 06:28 PM

The graphics look cool I guess. This is not a new game though. It's been around probably as long as Space Empires as a shareware game IIRC. This is just a new Version with publisher support.

Am I so hopelessly out of step with the whole gaming world? What's the deal with all these "Real Time", strategy games. Why does everybody want their games to be real time? I like turn based. I like being able to plan and plot at my own pace, and even do other things away from the computer without worrying about coming back to the charred remains of my empire.

The features say you can pause it at any time. So what's the point with making it real time to begin with if you can pause it at any time?

One of my favorite shareware games was a little World War II game called WinWar. They updated it while back and made a bunch of cool graphics and added some very nice fog of war features. But they made it real time. ARRGGHGHGH!

I guess I just don't get it.

If SEV is gonna be real time, I don't want it.

Geoschmo

Puke · #4 January 31st, 2002, 07:47 PM

i tried to play the demo, and i found the interface dificult to use. i didnt have the control over my ships that i wanted, and the research seemed very linear. complex structures could be built on planets, but i had no feeling for what they did (aside from guessing based on their name) or what limitations were. i was able to build ships and blow things up, but it was more like shooting in the dark.

maybe with the manual or if someone who was smarter than me took a look at it.. i just didnt find it very fun.

mottlee · #5 January 31st, 2002, 08:35 PM

I looked at the web site and the screen shots...SE4 is IMO much better the graphics are different but SE4 can be played on a 200MHZ system and this one takes min of 300 (tho is there a way to get SE4 to run off CD? can't load onto laptop

) I think I'll keep SE4 and drool till I get my copy of Gold

Richard · #6 January 31st, 2002, 09:25 PM

I wouldn't worry guys about this game, while quality, is completely different than SE:IV. Pre-sales of SE:IV continue to be strong, this game has been out for about two months now.

Aub · #7 January 31st, 2002, 09:38 PM

quote:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
Am I so hopelessly out of step with the whole gaming world? What's the deal with all these "Real Time", strategy games. Why does everybody want their games to be real time? I like turn based. I like being able to plan and plot at my own pace, ...

I agree completely - I am the same kind of guy. I wasted too much tiem and money already trying to start liking any of the "real time strategy" games out there, and I gave up. My only problem now is that the "real time strategy" and "real startegy" games usually get the same space on all gaming sites. So I have to filter out all real time ones myself. It's like if someone decided that strategy games and first-person shooters are similar kinds of games and started putting their reviews into the same column...

Having said all that, there is some sense in the way "real time" is implemented in SU. Suppose they made it completely turn-based. Because you don't have too many things going on (only 6 ships, a bunch of planets slooowly building expensive structures), often you would get no events when you hit end-turn. So the only logical thing you can do really is to hit the end-turn buttin again and again, until something happens (or you are blue in the face

). Their real-time simply means that they press that button for you. The game goes on until something happens, and then it pauses and waits for your actions.

Now I am not claiming SU has executed that policy 100% accurately (e.g. they DONT pause when you spot an enemy ship on your radar!). And, independently of that, there are too many things it is missing (starting with multiplayer

). But being real-time is not the weakest point here. It's one of the rare cases when real-time does not hurt much.

Aub