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After reading all these posts, I agree with Tom that there is no clear answer.
To talk apples and oranges, which soda pop is the best? Is it the one that dominates market share, or is it the most palatable?
By certain criteria, The Sims has outsold many a GREAT game by sheer numbers, so I prefer the choices that are geared for the gamer, the game conneisuer.
But as Tom so wisely aludes to, for every rule there is an exception, and a great game like Tetris pulls in even the casual and non-gamers in a way reminisient to Pac-Man.
But to expand a bit, I loved all the posts, especially the ones with multiple categories.
But in defense of my pride and joy, Starcraft, I too agree that at face value (much like chess) anyone can learn the basics and start to play. But to play well is to master all three races and to defend against the stereotypical rushes. What this brings this discussion to are the characteristics that make a game great: In this case, it is balance and gameplay. Starcraft is SO SO balanced. I too welcome a chance to fry a zealot rush, and I can think of at least a couple ways to do it. That is the beauty of Starcraft, Deus Ex, and other great games.
P.S. My $0.02 is in the mail.
P.P.S Anyone remember Lunatic Fringe that came with the After Dark screen saver software for Macintosh? That was a fun little game...
P.P.P.S I would like WCIII with more than an 80 unit cap. Maybe 150? 200?
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Civ3 just didn't grab me the way Civ2 did originally. It's almost as fun, but even though I own both, I play Civ2 more.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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War3 has a 100 unit cap with the expansion and a 90 unit cap without. Any more than that would completely ruin the game...
As far as I'm concerned, one of SC's most glaring flaws was the high unit cap combined with the low group size. Same goes for War2. Playing Myth II was like a breath of fresh air... War3 draws on Myth just enough, IMO. Individual unit XP would be too much for War3, though it works fantastically well in Myth.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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The small group size always annoyed me in Starcraft, but it did make you think about your groups, so I dealt with it. SC really made you feel like an army marching to battle, where WC3 is more like small unit tactics - fun, but a different focus.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Sorry! I haven't played WCIII at all this year. What drove me away from the game was the unit cap. I always enjoy a 2-3 hour game while I counter offensive after offensive, all the while preparing my Uber Strikeforce.
WCIII forced me to use my heroes wisely and to "blitzkreig" my attacks, and I always felt as though my defense was lacking during offensives:
-Sort of a pattern of massing units and sending them in, wave after wave, until the enemy defenses are saturated and broken.
Heck I probably tried to play WCIII like SC and messed it all up. **Must think about this**
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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As far as the emotions generated from SC and WCIII, I always felt a pang as my bases were overrun by the enemy and death was always a painful one as I watched building after building fall.
Defeating a base and having a base defeated in WCIII seemed to occur in slow-motion after being used to SC on "fastest" setting. For me, I was not emotionally involved in the kill or be killed nature of the game (WCIII).
Just another reason why I like SC better, however each game is glorius in its own way. As I said before though, if SC 2 is anything like WCIII, I will die.
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Actually, from some reports from televised competitions of professional StarCraft players in Korea, the games largely boil down to map memorization and and hotkey sequence memorization.
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What Tick said. I just happen to prefer small squadrons to big armies. That's why I think Myth II is the best RTS design ever, though I like War3 more.
War3 is completely different from SC. You can't play War3 like SC – partly because map memorization isn't as important in War3. There are no obvious choke points (not narrow ones like SC where you can wall in easily), creep camps are labeled on the minimap, and gold mines are shown on the minimap.
Hit-and-run tactics are much more important in War3 than in SC, too, because there are no über air units that don't get demolished by static defenses, and because of the Scroll of Town Portal (which has a five-second charge time now, so plan your use wisely).
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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CivIII is obviously better than CivII...except for the fact that, until you buy the expansion packs, you have such a limited choice of civilizations. If I want to rule the world as the Canadian Empire, I should be able to.
But CivII had more of an impact when it came out because it made so many improvements over the competition (not to mention its predecessor). CivIII was too much of the same.
I've got more bones to pick with CivIII. I love it and all, but it should have taken these great ideas that Call To Power II used...
1. First of all, CtPII's timeline lasted far further into the future. Personally, it made the game more enjoyable near the end. I liked reading about these new technologies...advancing into the diamond age was interesting, and building undersea cities couldn't have been a bad thing.
2. CtPII allowed you to group units together right from the beginning. You didn't need a leader to start armies. You could make them right away, it made sense. For example, combining archers with warriors was a good idea. The warriors acted as meat shields in a way, allowing the archers to do their damage. The same could be done with marines and tanks later. You also get to see the battles play out. You might eventually get bored of watching them, but there's always have the option to skip it.
3. Theocracy, Technocracy and Ecotopia are all government options!
I could list more but this post is already long enough considering what its about.
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Let me state that, as far as I'm concerned, Civ III blows chunks.
Alpha Centauri is a vastly superior game to Civ III, as it featured most of the innovative ideas of that game without some of the useless, downright painful baggage -- like the insanely restrictive corruption at higher levels of difficulty -- that cripple Civ III.
Civ III's special units aren't nearly as well-balanced, the governors still require outrageous amounts of micromanagement, and the combat was actually even more abstracted. (Note: "leaders" and "armies" are agonizing in actual use, particularly insofar as "leaders" are intended to replace caravans.)
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BEST ACTION: Halo [PC] Geoff said that he liked the X-Box version. The PC version is everything that the X-Box version wasn't, and plus it comes with an SDK (software development kit) for mad modding. Not only that, but some of the features that were going to be included originally have been readded, namely the RPG-Warthog and the Fuel Rod gun (aka Hunter Cannon of Doom).
BEST RPG: Fallout/Fallout II [PC] Fallout has a fond place in my memory. It's been compared to so many other works--movies, books, TV shows, whatever--but it really is it's own story. The game had memorable characters, it had tests of morality, and it had some of the best humor I've seen in a long time (I fell out of my chair laughing while being beaten at chess by an ultrasmart radscorpion). It was also a welcome departure from the massive market of fantasy RPGs out there (as if we need another Tolkien-esque epic storyline about one (wo)man standing up to ultimate evil). Fallout III is in the works, or so says the rumor mill. A desktop screengrab of a Black Isle employee had a link to something called "F3 Project Server". I can only hope.
BEST STRATEGY: Total War series [PC] This series of games is incredible. I've reeducated at least two people on this game who thought they were better than the generals of old. The units in both games behave exactly as they would in real life, and real tactics can be applied. I have been repeatedly impressed at how authentically units react when flanked, broken, or charging. I'm anxiously awaiting Rome: Total War.
REVOLUTIONARY: Half-Life [PC] A lot of people talk about Half-Life with a certain reverence, but they don't exactly know why. They know the game was great, but they can't pin down why it was any different than the other FPS games they played that year. It's not about the mods, since the game has to be good in the first place in order to be worthy of modding. It's not about the graphics, they looked kinda dated when Half-Life first appeared. It's not even really about the story, which was somewhat amorphous and lacking a lot of background. It was how Valve told the story that was groundbreaking. They never once pulled you out of the action to give you orders. You hardly stared at a loading/mission breefing screen through the entire game. They didn't even give you a commanding officer. The story was told in-game by characters who were doing exactly what you were doing--getting by.
MOST ANTICIPATED: Vampire: Bloodlines [PC] Half-Life 2 engine. Vampire: The Masquerade lisence. Developed by Troika (developers of Arcanum). The cover story in last month's PC Gamer made the game look very promising. The focus, like the focus of the PnP version, is very much on social interaction. Your actions have a big impact on how you're interacted with in the world. With the Source (HL2) Engine's on-the-fly lip-synching technology, I expect that more often than not you'll be listening to the NPC's rather than staring at text on a screen.
BEST OVERALL: X-Com: UFO Defense / Enemy Unknown / Terror from the Deep [PC] Okay, so Terror from the Deep is actually a whole other game, but ignore that for now. They play very similarly. X-Com epitomizes everything that a game should be: fun, intuitive, strategic, and different. I have yet to see a single game come close to what X-Com does. It's the only game I know that combines global stragegy, politics, economic managment, soldier experience and ranking, reasearch, construction, and squad-level tactics in a successful way. Sadly, all following X-Com games were mediocre at best, and certainly a smudge on the X-Com name. The good news, however, is that the rights to X-Com now lie in the hands of Sid Meier and Firaxis. Not only is there a chance that a new X-Com game will be made--one that restores the once-glorious X-Com name--but also that Eagle Games, a board game manufacturer, will buy the liscence to turn it into a board game (Eagle Games was the company that turned Cid Meier's Civilization into a boad game. There is NO releation to the Avalon Hill game).
SECOND MOST ANTICIPATED: Advent Rising [X-Box] X-Box graphics. Halo-like. Orson Scott Card writing. The only way my excitement for this game could be dampened would be if 43 flaming, crack-addicted monkies were on the development team. On second thought...
[EDIT] I blatantly stole Geoff's template. What can I say, I'm lazy.
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I have to second Wheat's nomination of Bloodlines for Most Anticipated, since it's pretty high in my own list. Troika was started by the core team from Fallout, so it's no wonder their games show the same level of innovation, open-endedness, and moral relevance. The two things about Bloodlines that attract me the most are:
(1) the use of Source to make an RPG ... that lip-synching and facial animation technology is cool and cinematic in a shooter like Half-life 2, but it could really turn an RPG into the stuff of legend. Not to mention the open-ended play options that a fully-realized physics engine could offer.
(2) their intense focus on the differentiation of the vampire Clans. Most RPGs are really just hack-and-slashers at heart, because when you get down to it, it rarely FEELS like you're playing one particular "role" or another. A bowman shooting arrows feels pretty much like a wizrd chucking fire bolts. In Bloodlines, the developers are apparently devoting a lot of their attention to making the various clan personalities really MEAN something to the way you play the game.
Vampire isn't a combat game, it's a social, storytelling game, and it seems as though Troika really GETS it. If they do everything with it that they seem to be planning, then it could well be the best RPG of next year.
Posts: 2048 | Registered: Jul 2000
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An example to illustrate the lack I see in a lot of RPGs. I'm playing a self-absorbed necromancer named Qualm in Lionheart. Well, I'm trying to, anyway, but the nonresponsiveness of the world is a real barrier. Apparently, the Inquisitors on the ground floor of the Chambers don't mind if my skeletons hack up all their buddies on the floor below ... and their leader doesn't care if I kill his personal bodyguard right outside his open bedroom door, then rifle through his shelves for free scrolls.
The funniest example, though was when this dude told me to go save his brother from some rampaging water demons. When I got there, the brother was already dead. So what would any good necromancer do? I raised him into a zombie, and led him back to the dude. Did anyone in the game notice how cool and clever I was? Nope. The conversation with the dude went exactly as though I didn't have the walking, stinking corpse of his brother standing right next to me.
Now, AS a designer, I can tell you that responding to situations like this would have been mind-numbingly hard and tedious for the developers. Lionheart is the kind of game it is — a straightforward isometric RPG, and a well-made, well-balanced one at that. I'm not asking for Lionheart to be any different.
But I AM anxious for someone to make an RPG that truly takes things like the bizarre behavior of a necromancer into account. Certainly, such an RPG would only be able to offer a narrow range of character options. But if those options were really well-realized and exciting to explore within the context of the story, I would forgive the lack of variety. As long as they give me a few numbers to minmax with, I'll be fine
Starcraft is superior to all forms of gaming, it just is. The specialty maps are my favorite: in particular, Half Life Team Fortress. I have played it soo many times.
Does anyone know why the protoss units say such messed up things?
SC is definantly the best RTS. If you only played it two weeks you never played anyone good. (Bats and Medics eat zealots and Dark templars for snacks)
I am glad somone finally mentioned the Fallout series. Few people pay attetion to my favorite genre of fiction, Post apocalyptic mayhem. Good premise. Good character and role playing system. Good humor. Good fun.
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WheatPuppet--I couldn't agree with you more about the original X-COM game. If I had to pick a single game as the best of all time, this would be it. Alpha Centauri or one Civ or another would be a close second, but really, I've never played a game as fantastic on as many levels as X-COM is. I've stopped paying a lot of attention to the gaming world over the last year or two, so it was news to me that Firaxis had aquired the rights to X-COM. That's fantastic news! I would love to see something with the flavor of X-COM (and hopefully retaining at least the option of turn based tactical combat) that takes full advantage of the latest graphics cards. The original X-COM was what finally motivated me to break down and get a PC back in '94, and an equally good new X-COM game would probably be enough to convince me to either perform a major system upgrade or buy a new PC again.
Tom, it's interesting that you feel so vehemently about Civ III. While there are a few things that I find annoying about it, including the corruption problem and the fact that the tech tree stops before getting into interesting future technologies (why not just port over Alpha Centauri's tech tree, and go from there?), and their failure to implement the modular approach to unit design that was created for Alpha Centauri, I nonetheless enjoy the game quite a bit. It is probably a reflection of me rather than of the game, but Civ III has grabbed me more completely than Civ II did; I've been playing it, more or less consistently, for over a year now. Probably two years, come to think of it. I've never played a game for such a long period of time.
One of the things that I really like about Civ III is the new way that territory works; I always hated that in Civ II an ememy civ could just walk up and plant a city in what was clearly my territory.
Honestly, though, I don't remember the mechanics of Civ II all that well (which is surprising, given that I loved it at the time). You say that leaders in Civ III replace caravans in Civ II. How so? could you use caravans to rush construction?
Civ III isn't perfect--I agree that Alpha Centauri is a better game (I've never played against an AI that had as distinct a personality as those in Alpha Centauri)--but its flaws haven't kept me from enjoying it.
By the way, did you know that you can use the rules editor to tone down the corruption? You can tag a structure like the courthouse with the corruption reducing properties of a palace, for example. Not a perfect solution, but it makes the game more enjoyable.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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On Civ2 - caravans could be used to hurry construction.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more mention of MMO games on these lists, despite the vast amount of time people pour into them.
Also, Halo for PC looks good, but I wouldn't put it on a list until It's been played. The only new stuff is the multiplayer - they went out of their way to make single player exactly the same - so that is what Halo for PC should be judged by. (I'm excited - the distributor I work for has Halo sku'd ready to go...shipping to our warehouses on Oct 28! We have HL2 also, just no ship date)
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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That's a feature that I wish they'd left in then; it just makes sense. I also wish that it were possible to ship food around your empire.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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From the buzz, they are 'trying' to get Co-op in to Halo as a patch, but it definitely looks like it will not be a release day thing.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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If Halo has the same mostly-excellent single player and approximately the same multiplayer then it beats out Halo for X-Box simply for the fact that it has an SDK and is moddable.
My only worry is that Halo for PC v1.0 will have lousy netcode. I'm not too worried, though, Gearbox is a good developer (they developed Half-Life: Opposing Forces).
EDIT: I got to stop writing my posts at 2:30 in the morning. Please excuse the terrible writing in the above post.
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OK the units in Starcraft say some wierd things, expecially the Protoss units, but most of the sayings are from movies.
Correction: I believe the Terran scout says: Locus acknowledged (position is verified).
As far as the Protoss Arbiter, who knows? I do know that the flame-tossing wizard-demons in Diablo II say something strange, and it is the last name of one of the developers. You catually fight a unique monster of the same name in Baal's throneroom.
**Must think on this as well**
Ahhh yes the name is "Rolento".
Hopefully all of you have done this, but units in Starcraft and Warcraft have multiple sayings for each unit. Just keep clicking on them repeatedly and they just keep saying more interesting things...
P.S. My favorite quote from a unit in Starcraft is:
"We Burn." -Archon
2 points for anyone can name the movie with the following quote:
"Time is the fire in which we burn."
(My 7 year old has ben required to memorize this)! Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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My favorite quote from Warcraft IIII (or two quotes, exactly) is from the Troll Shadow Hunter added in Frozen Throne:
"Wha' kind of accent is 'dis? A troll accent!" "I swear, Jamaican me crazy."
For those who don't know, the Trolls in WarIII come from a tropical island off the coast of Kalimdor. They all have thick Jamaican accents.
Posts: 903 | Registered: May 2003
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Seems like I'm in the RTS minority around here, seeing as how I've only played SC once since War3 came out.
But then, a lot of people whined that War3 wasn't SC2 when it came out, or at least that it wasn't SC2 in the WarCraft universe. Those people really irritate me. WarCraft universe fans have been waiting for War3 way longer than SC fans have been waiting for SC2.
I happen to think that War3 leaves SC in the dust, but I'm prepared to accept that most people disagree. I'm also a Mac user. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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twinky, I still think SC is leaps better than W3, because of the online specialty games, like Kings & Knights, Hostage Negociations and Half Life Team Fortress. Even IF w3 was better, it should be! it was released years after with lots of time to BE better. However, I think we all know that SC2 will blow away anything in existant. I am hoping that the terrans will have something incredibly cool, like a nuclear submarine. It would be so cool, even if you could only use it once or twice in the entire game. At least give them a nuclear bomber.
Posts: 622 | Registered: Dec 2001
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>> twinky, I still think SC is leaps better than W3, because of the online specialty games, like Kings & Knights, Hostage Negociations and Half Life Team Fortress. <<
Wait, you think SC is better than War3 because of mods? War3's campaign editor is lightyears ahead of SC's, and it shows in the mods.
>> Even IF w3 was better, it should be! it was released years after with lots of time to BE better. However, I think we all know that SC2 will blow away anything in existant. <<
Your last sentence has to be true if the first one is, so that's not really much of an argument
The first sentence, though, is not true. Civ3 is a perfect example of a sequel that many people thought was a step back from SMAC and even Civ2.
SC2 won't blow anything out of the water simply by being SC2. It'll probably be good, because it's Blizzard, but if they pander to the SC fanboys who whined about War3, it'll make the game worse than it could be. Blizzard needs to remember that War3 sold exceedingly well, meaning that they can do whatever they want with the SC frandchise (including releasing StarCraft: Ghost) and it'll sell if it's good. I certainly don't think that SC2 should be like War3, but the argument that it's going to be better just because it's an SC game smacks of fanboyism
I am hoping that the terrans will have something incredibly cool, like a nuclear submarine. It would be so cool, even if you could only use it once or twice in the entire game. At least give them a nuclear bomber. <<
Nuclear units would be pretty seriously overpowered. An air unit that could call down nuclear strikes might be workable, though... we shall see.
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I just happen to prefer small squadrons to big armies. That's why I think Myth II is the best RTS design ever, though I like War3 more.![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
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SC is definantly the best RTS. If you only played it two weeks you never played anyone good. (Bats and Medics eat zealots and Dark templars for snacks)![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)
I am glad somone finally mentioned the Fallout series. Few people pay attetion to my favorite genre of fiction, Post apocalyptic mayhem. Good premise. Good character and role playing system. Good humor. Good fun.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Half Life 2 will be the best FPS.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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War3's campaign editor is lightyears ahead of SC's, and it shows in the mods. 
