StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Well, with a little bit of extra money burning my pocket, I'm going to buy a new game soon, but I can't really make up my mind on what to get. So, denizens of G&C, I turn to you!

The candidates:

1. Half Life 2
2. Joint Ops
3. Other (Specify, dammit!)

The one who picks the winning game gets a cyber cookie*

*Offer will not be honored

You seem to like first person shooters, I recommend (assuming that you have a decent computer and a broadband connection) Half Life 2.

If you like turn based strategy games and especially if you liked the old classic Master of Magic, get Dominions II: The Ascension Wars. You need to buyt it online from Shrapnel Games, though, but I assure you it is good.

Edi

I loooove TBS games, Civilization, SMAC, MoO, all that stuff. Thanks for the tip Edi, I'll check it out.

Melchior wrote:You seem to like first person shooters, I recommend (assuming that you have a decent computer and a broadband connection) Half Life 2.

I do, but I'm hardly fanatical about them. I got to play HL2 deathmatch briefly, and it was fun as hell, but I'm not sure about the single player portion of it. Nor CS:S, but I'm told its great.

Captain tycho wrote:

Melchior wrote:You seem to like first person shooters, I recommend (assuming that you have a decent computer and a broadband connection) Half Life 2.

I do, but I'm hardly fanatical about them. I got to play HL2 deathmatch briefly, and it was fun as hell, but I'm not sure about the single player portion of it. Nor CS:S, but I'm told its great.

Well, I liked the single player, the only problem is the linearity.
If you like turn based strategy games, try Age of Wonders 2 Shadow Magic, it is a bit old, but you can probably find it cheap, and it is really good in his genre.

Captain tycho wrote:I loooove TBS games, Civilization, SMAC, MoO, all that stuff. Thanks for the tip Edi, I'll check it out.

You're welcome.

Just a word of warning about Dominions: Do not expect spectacular graphics, the devs, whose game development is done on the side in addition to their normal jobs, focused on getting the playability right at the expense of eye-candy. The learning curve for the game is also pretty steep. Try the demo first, you can get that from the Shrapnel Games site for free, but it has a 40 turn limit, magic research limit and only some of the 17 nations in it. Dominions - Priests, Prophets and Pretenders (the first one) is fully playable with the demo, with all nations (just 14), they only have a research cap and the better units frozen out. Maps don't look as good either, ebcause the mechanisms for handling maps were completely revamped between the games. Dom - PPP demo can be had from www.illwinter.com.

If you haven't tried them, the Age of Wonders series is also great, especially the first one. Should be available as a bargain bin game, though you might need to hunt somewhat for it. Very MoM-like, and it has literally hundreds of maps available for it, a lot of them very good and some absolute masterpieces.

AoW2 is basically only a beta demo of AoW: Shadow Magic, so it's not worth getting unless you can get it for around $5. It just sucks that the AoW2 campaign is not included in AoW:SM and its header format is incompatible (economic reasons, as AoW2 was still selling when AoW:SM came out), so you miss out on that one, but it is the only real reason anyone could possibly want AoW2. All AoW2 maps work fully with AoW:SM, but ones made with the SM editor (far more powerful than the basic AoW2 one) don't work in AoW2. For a shitload of more info, visit this site and the attendant forums.

Edi

Half-Life 2 does not dissapoint, and you only need a decent rig to play it, once your finished with your "RTS" games and get back to the real business of gaming, that being shooting people in the fact with high cailber weaponry. You'll remeber this game.

I've been playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the PC. It is excellent!

Don't play HL2 if the 'endless corridor' level design annoys you, because that's all there is.

Don't play Dominions if you expect an interface designed by, y'know, and interface designer. Don't post on their forums suggesting streamlining either, because they'll scream PLAY BY EMAIL at you and deny it needs fixing.

I personally hate HL2 (nice engine though) and enjoy DOM2, regardless of it's broken interface. It's alot of fun, and massively, measurably better than Civ, Master of Magic, etc.

EDIT - And don't play JO unless you have heaps of friends: the online servers are almost exclusively full of morons, so much so that four people working as a team can determine who wins. Good game, though.

Stark, is there any game you don't hate?

Joint Ops has excellent multiplayer (last time I played anyway) but no singleplayer.

Half Life 2 wasnt bad. I just expected a lot more of the singleplayer. Multiplayer wasnt very original either.

GTA San Andreas is ton of fun also

as a bleed-off from the underappreciated games thread, I'm going to recommend Outcast

Good characters
Good soundtrack (can't go wrong with Moscow's Philharmonic)
Good gameplay

plus, since it's old. you can get it cheap (e-bay) so there's minimal risk to you should you not like it.

Jaepheth wrote:as a bleed-off from the underappreciated games thread, I'm going to recommend Outcast

Good characters
Good soundtrack (can't go wrong with Moscow's Philharmonic)
Good gameplay

plus, since it's old. you can get it cheap (e-bay) so there's minimal risk to you should you not like it.

True, it is also an late, historically interesting, application of the voxel engine.

Is San Andreas out for PC yet?

Captain tycho wrote:Is San Andreas out for PC yet?

Yes.

[monty burns] Excellent.

Half Life 2 is the best game ever made and i´m not even a FPS fan.

Just a quick note...A game called destroy all humans is coming out soon for PS2 and the box. Looks to be much fun.

Well, just bought GTA:SA, currently installing. Game looks fucking sweet.

Woo! GTA:SA is piles and piles of fun! Don't be in too much of a hurry to finish the LA stuff, though!

Ace Pace wrote:Stark, is there any game you don't hate?

LOL Hey, I *like* Dominions 2, its the best TBS I've ever played. Its just got a shit interface. HL2 is just one long corridor, but the engine is nice. I 'like' all kindsa games, but that doesn't mean they don't have flaws.

@Chardok: Destroy All Humans looks super-cool. It also looks like a game I saw previews for ages ago: I wonder if its the same? You flew around kidnapping scientists and killing aliens... so I guess it isn't, since you ARE the aliens! *sigh*

Captain tycho wrote:Well, just bought GTA:SA, currently installing. Game looks fucking sweet.

It is sweet as far as I can tell, only 9% complete myself, Already almost maxed my stamina and strength, finaly started taking over gang territory, finaly, I got all the guns I need(Which I was seriously lacking in up till this point )

I've only gotten to play for about a half hour so far, too damn busy.

San Andreas is enormous in scope beyond the wildest fantasies of Gabe Newell.