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Argh! I thought UT 2004 came out today, but it doesn't! It's not out 'till Thursday! What am I going to do this week now, *work*????? Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I just started playing Worms World Party again. Hilarious and fun. I always make sure my team is using the Angry Scots soundbank, it's the greatest.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Morrowind (XBOX) Counter Strike (PC and XBOX, mostly XBOX, there is no lag) Civ 3 (it is impossible to beat the single player mode on the easiest level)
Posts: 1094 | Registered: Mar 2004
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What's the problem with Morrowind on the X-Box?
Civ III, in my experience, is pretty easy to beat on the easier difficulty levels, and not all that tough to beat on the higher levels, once you've learned the game fairly thoroughly.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Yeah, CivIII's not really all that hard once you figure out how they broke the game with Corruption and change your strategies accordingly.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tried a search, and didn't find a thread so I'll just bump this one...
Anyone here partaking in Dawn of War (Warhammer 40k)? I bought it because I needed a cheap break from WoW, and was undergoing strategy withdrawl, and had had my eye on this game for awhile. I must say even with some high expectations, this game exceeds them. Though since Relic was on board I'm not entirely shocked.
My first impression of the game was that it was a fine cross between Total Anhiliation and Warcraft III. Second impression was that there isn't any way to not compare the game to Starcraft (The Protoss appearantly have some long lost cousins named the Eldar in DoW).
The Negatives: Well, the most glaring negative is that the single-player missions / storyline is weak. Very much so, to the point of 10 missions as one race (of four), which takes about 8 hours to bash through. Since Relic had a pretty heavy hand in the Homeworld games, this is somewhat shocking that the story is so weak while the Warhammer 40k universe is overflowing with content. The interface is a little more cumbersome than my favorite strategy games. Much scrolling and map clicking is needed to navagate around the battlefield. I also found the sound to be somewhat weak. The character cues have their moments, but most sound like someone was ordered at gunpoint to read from a card, but charismatically if you please. The music on rare occasions gets out of synch with the action, and just sounds wrong, but only rarely.
Alright, enough about the negatives. The upside to the lack of single-player missions is that it quickly becomes obvious that this game was planned for skirmish and multiplayer modes, and was designed with that in mind. One half of the resources can be located in your base (power), but the other half has to be obtained by capturing and holding strategic points through out the map. Games can even be set up where the game will end if one person controls enough points for more than 7 minutes. Other game win conditions that can be set are anhiliation (typical) leader assassination, and a plethora of others I haven't tried yet.
Another strong plus is the four races in the game. I've played three of them thus far, and using even similar strategies for each race is a sure way to lose. And Quickly. The units are widely varied, and combat is spread across melee, short range, long range, technological/magical (chaotic actually), and so on. Each race of course excels at one, with the others working to balance the general power out. Vehicles are present in the game, but in a very minimal way. In my largest games I never had more than four or five vehicles, and they really are that powerful. Each side has "Hero" units that act as commanders. Not a new idea, but DoW has placed it well in context. Infantry units are a bit different than typical however. Control of infantry happens in squads rather than as individual units. This helps with some of the micromanagement since you click once, and then move 6-12 people at once. Another micromanagement elimination comes from the ability to "link" support units with squads (such as healers, artillery, scouts, etc). Their default abilities follow around and activate when needed. Lastly on this point, static defenses are... well, they are weak. I was a fond proponent of the Terran Turtle technique in Starcraft, and that isn't much of an option in DoW. But this also means that games tend to be shorter, more fluid, and more desperate. That's fun in itself. Another nice, though not earth-shattering, change is the use of cover / negative cover. Units in trees of a crater recieve bonuses to mitigate damage done to them, units in a river have damage added to them from being slowed and exposed.
The graphics are almost cutting edge for RTS, and seem to be a bit easier on the hardware than most. My meager machine hasn't chugged a single time running the game. Unit colors, emblems, and banners can be customized in several thousand (or million) different ways, which is a nice change from the typically choice of 8 colors. Unit details are exceedingly high, should you choose to look. I swear my infantry units had different numbers of ribbons on their armor, but they kept dying before I could confirm. A caution on the detail, the game may not have deserved an M rating for gore, but it's close. The first time you see someone stuck on the horn of one of the battle creatures (think Oiliphant, with more charisma), that becomes pretty obvious. Well, I haven't seen any individual limbs yet, so like I said it's debatable.
Alright, that's gotta be a good enough description. Anyone else been playing this game and enjoying it? Anyone plan to?
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(PC and XBOX, mostly XBOX, there is no lag)![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
(it is impossible to beat the single player mode on the easiest level)
