Dominions II - Low Budget and Overpriced? I think not.

Campy,

Has any game you ever played been worth more than you paid for it? Say for example a game that you couldn't stop playing, or that gave you more fun than you ever thought it would?

A game is only worth what you price your enjoyment at. Gambling is a Version of this and gambling to some costs more than you'd ever want to imagine. Yet people have fun doing it.

This game is more than worth it's $50.00 pricetag. If you are the type of player who is intrigued (or let alone even made it to this forum from any other review/guide/internet gossip ) then you should take it for what it is and not what others opinions of it might be.

The genre that this game is apart of is generally bargin bin. The reason is not because they are all lackluster, unimaginative, lowbrow, unfriendly or bad graphically. But because this entire genre does not appeal to the greater market. Those who play and enjoy these types of game are *accustomed* to paying less for them because of that reason. I don't feel any developer should get less money in order to meet a storefront or company chain's profit margin. The same type of people who are accustomed to paying $10.00 for a fun TBS game are accustomed to paying $200.00+ for minitature armies, outlandish amounts of money for historically accurate armors and helms, wads of money for Collectable Card games, and so on. It's a matter of perspective and becoming comfortable, not about what the game is worth.

If you are interested, liked the Demo, enjoyed what it had to offered and want more, you'll get your money's worth.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Zen:
Has any game you ever played been worth more than you paid for it? Say for example a game that you couldn't stop playing, or that gave you more fun than you ever thought it would?

There's a few games that I would classify as falling into the Category of my alltime favourites. These are games that I can remember playing for hours on end, for days or weeks, and that I would still check out from time to time. This is around a dozen out of the well over 150 that I own in CD format, not counting the really old ones from my DOS days.

A quick rundown of those games would be:
Betrayal at Krondor - One of my favourite RPGs ever produced.(The instrumental track from Old Deuteronomy from Cats is a perfect soundtrack for some parts of this game.)

Star Control II - A serious contender for the best game I have ever played. The only complaint I can make about it now is that the ship combat AI is predictable once you've played against it a few thousand times. I special ordered it, and paid $80 CDN for this game when I was only 12, but never regretted it.

VGA Planets 3.X - This game ate up huge amounts of my time a decade ago.

Baldur's Gate II - Any game that will make me play it not once, but at least twice through a hundred hours is going to be right up there on the list.

Pirates! - The Amiga Version is one of the greatest classic games of all times.

Dominions 2 - The sheer amount of stuff you can do with this game, combined with my need to optimize everything about playing each race has put it in one of the top contender spots for a time sink.

There are a number of other games that approach these ones in terms of their greatness, but not that many.

[Gandalf Parker]

You can compare Dom2 to alot of games and it will seem that you "arent getting all you paid for" But it will come down to this. If Dom2 Lasts on your machine longer than any other game of close price, then it was worth the money. Dom1 Lasted 3 years on my machine (basically it stayed till Dom2). And I dont see anything that says Dom2 wont Last till Dom3

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
A quick rundown of those games would be:
Betrayal at Krondor - One of my favourite RPGs ever produced.(The instrumental track from Old Deuteronomy from Cats is a perfect soundtrack for some parts of this game.)

Star Control II - A serious contender for the best game I have ever played. The only complaint I can make about it now is that the ship combat AI is predictable once you've played against it a few thousand times. I special ordered it, and paid $80 CDN for this game when I was only 12, but never regretted it.

I played Starcon II and thought it was incredible (my #2 computer game of all time, after System Shock). And I played Wizardry 8 and thought it was quite good... but other than Quest for Glory I, II, and maybe IV, those were the only computer RPGs I ever liked much. And I've played a lot. Do you recommend Betrayal at Krondor, today? I mean... can it stand up to modern competition? ...is it like Civilization 1, "Fun when it came out, but outdated now" or like XCOM, "Fun when it came out, and is still its genre's reigning champion"?

And by the way, if you really like good games, you should check out Xenogears. It is the best game I've ever played (I think - certainly amongst RPGs), and it's hard to imagine it being beaten anytime soon. Console RPG, though, so much more linear than you may be used to.

-Cherry

P.S. As for the linear part: I view that as a good design decision, that let them build a strong plot and allowed for a well-developed narrative.

[ January 24, 2004, 05:47: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[ceremony]

Originally posted by pole_shift:
If you enjoy the game what the hell is 10$ more or less. You can easily spend 20$ on night out at the movies. 1 Night. A few hours.

Exactly. You can easily spend $100 just going out to dinner. The idea that a game costs $7 more than some other game and thus isn't worth buying seems kind of strange.

[ January 24, 2004, 05:55: Message edited by: ceremony ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Do you recommend Betrayal at Krondor, today? I mean... can it stand up to modern competition? ...is it like Civilization 1, "Fun when it came out, but outdated now" or like XCOM, "Fun when it came out, and is still its genre's reigning champion"?

I think that BaK can probably stand up fairly well to modern competition, and it might still be available for free from Sierra, so you can always try it out.

[Karacan]

BaK still is freely (and legally) avaiable out there.

It stands out not exactly due to technology or elegance of implementation (while I still think the combat system very clever and well done, apart from the fact that it gets too easy once you got mass freezing spells - or too hard, once your opponents do -, there's a lot of things I really hate about it... chests and traps mostly), but primarily due to the great storytelling.

It's much more of an interactive story with a lot of interesting things happening to various interesting characters you control. Unfortunately, it's bloody hard to get to run, and if you do, there's a high chance that it'll crash at the end of the chapter where you venture into the Elven Hold...

Definitely a "you could still play it today" game, though.

[PvK]

Dominions II is very definitely well worth $50, or more, if it's the sort of game you'd enjoy. It's unique and wonderful and has years of fresh gameplay for players who appreciate it. For volume and quality of gameplay, I can think of very few other games that offer as much as Dominions, and none that offer more (though that's of course subjective, and based on my own tastes).

This is from a gamer who's extensively played well over a thousand games, since the first ones, though that also means my tastes are rather rare, snobby, gameplay-oriented and glitz-apathetic.

They don't get much better than this, except when the next patches come out for the best games. If you think you can do better saving $15 and getting some other corporate drivel, either you're very wrong, or your tastes are simply a lot different than mine, which is fair and true in many cases. So, play the demo - if it seems really fun, unique, and well-done, then I'm confident that if you buy it, you'll probably still be hooked months or years later.

PvK