Drowsy Emperor

PC gamers finally have a few games to look forward to, even if they're mostly sequels of something or other.

Elaborate on that please ^

WANT

Reading up on Homeworld 2. Apparently a semi complete first version of the game was made by Relic, but then Sierra intervened and forced them to ditch it and make another - and what we got was HW2. That actually explains everything.

Why not pick up a cheap joystick?

It would really be a wonder if they couldn't make a decent Hitman game now after four attempts. Of course it will take them at least four more attempts to realize that making a game about planned assassinations that relies on purely trial and error gameplay is by itself a contradiction.

What a no-lifer. Arguing with imaginary people over the virtual status of a virtual product that no one is going to remember in a few years. Reeling from the irony, here. It was intentional.

What a no-lifer. Arguing with imaginary people over the virtual status of a virtual product that no one is going to remember in a few years. Now that I've seen what that looks like, I think I'll never argue over Infinity engine and Bioware games ever again.

I'm watching my gf play Odin's Sphere. She's playing it on easy and the even the reguiar mooks kill her in 3-4 strikes, minibosses with 1-2 and she has gone through a lot of effort to bump her hp and level. I've never seen a game so stupidly and unnecessarily difficult. If enemies stun you and one shot you (on easy?) with 30 minute boss fights (that you're going to play at least 5 times on average), that's not a game being hard that's just bad design. It has a completely inverse RPG logic the farther you go the weaker you get in relation to the opposition. In short it has all the retarded gameplay traits of japanese games: too much grind, stereotyped characters, 2 decades old gameplay etc. etc. Too bad its so splendidly drawn and animated.

Half way through Homeworld 1. Left the best part of the saga for the end. After that I'm going to persuade a friend to play Icewind Dale 2 with me and toy around with HW2's skirmish. That's where the game really shines. Pity its hard to find people who still play it. PS Running around in Morrowind. The game is not exactly sucking me in to be honest. First time I saw a main quest where the introductory part is: "piss off until you level up".

I find that these days I know more about the games the reviewers are talking about than they do - especially the older titles. With retro reviews its particularly easy to see who has actually been in this hobby for a while and who is talking out of his bum. Maybe its time for retirement.

I have maybe fifteen counting the free ones. I only bought the classics I don't own.

Yeah game prices drop like a rock after only a couple of months. And as a late buyer you get the patches too. Unless you're Blizzard or something. They keep their prices up for much longer. I think these days it only pays to be the first to the party for predominantly multiplayer games so you don't get stuck with l33t jerkoffs a year later when no one else is playing. On a totally unrelated note, GoG allowed me to redeem a copy of Witcher EE for my old serial no. No more fiddling around with the discs and patches on reinstall, yay.

How is that an RPG? It looks like a stealth action game

I just found out about Prey 2 and before I could get properly excited I found out it was practically cancelled. God damn it. Strange they'd do that, it looked like serious cash had already been spent on the game.

Yeah GTA IV had the best story by far, but the missions, especially the latter ones are just plain boring.

With the 1.1 patch (although the changelog doesn't mention changes to Soban's mission 12) I used a full fleet as a single strike group and steamrolled all over them losing 2 destroyers and a full set of frigates which I rebuilt by the end of the mission. It wasn't all that hard because they tended to come in waves and I always had my full force against each one, usually outnumbering them severely. Regardless, you definitely have to pay attention in HW2, while in Starcraft II it was possible to play the campaign on autopilot.

Apparently, the reason I'm not pulling my hair out while playing HW2's campaign is that they reduced the difficulty with the last patch. I shudder to think what it was like before they did that, because the missions are still far harder then in an average RTS

Just got Dawn of War: Dark Crusade for 1.74 euros. Sweet

Homeworld 2 campaign. Back in the day everyone was saying how horribly difficult HW2's single player was but, coming fresh from Cataclysm I finished 10 out of 15 missions in 2 days without repeating a single one. If i wasn't a "vet" though, it would probably be unfairly difficult. Playing through the game I'm starting to remember why the story was so forgettable.

I'm shocked at how excited a lot of those people in the BSN thread about the release are. I could understand perhaps if it was another SP DLC or even the announcement of a new ME game. But some of them are going nuts over what is essentially a few new maps? Star Wars syndrome methinks.

I finally understood what was wrong with Homeworld 2 (apart from the crappy single player campaign). I had to play both the original and the sequel at the same time to refresh my memory. Homeworld 2's ships are made of cardboard. In the original it takes a few minutes for even the lowly frigates to murder each other. This gives the player time to think and makes the ship feel substantial - they are after all made of thousands of tons of steel and crewed by hundreds. In the sequel everything dies to a few shots and vaporizes in seconds. I couldn't believe that my battlecruiser would destroy a mothership with something like three hits. This results in everything happening so fast that you can't even watch the action - you have to stay on the radar screen most of the time. In short, to make the game quick like Starcraft they made the units extremely expendable, faster and the maps smaller thereby butchering the whole grandiose space combat feel. Its plain sad considering HW2 had probably the best art direction ever seen in a strategy game: http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/display.htm?demo_091303_20.jpg http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/display.htm?demo_091303_02.jpg http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/display.htm?Trailerhw201.jpg

More Morrowind lunacy. I found a place called Hlomaren or something. It has a portal I can't use and a Keep. Upon entering the keep I found that everyone in it, humans, elves etc. wants to murder me, but only on the two middle floors! The roof and the basement are full of people standing around that say nothing important when you talk to them. None of this makes any sense at all - this game needs some context badly. I can live with random dungeons (very uninspiring so far, exactly like Oblivion) but major locations need at least a little explanation. In fact this game is pretty much Oblivion except with superior art direction.

That's true. Also sad. Its hardly "fantasy" if its always the same. P&P systems aren't much better themselves either, but with them you can pick and choose. That's why I'm pretty sick of fantasy in general and Tolkien copycats in particular. The fact that Project Eternity is sticking to these notions (even though there is no reason to, they got the cash without revealing anything at all) is a major minus in my book. As for this kickstarter I wouldn't support it if I had the money because the games they consider classics - like Wizardry are obsolete for me. There is a reason the demand for Infinity engine type RPG's is so high and low to non existent for pre-infinity games. They're bloody outdated.

But, considering your stance that "new and innovative" is the benchmark for "cool", I don't see Kickstarter delivering the goods for you. As it stands, the most successful/hyped games to come out of kickstarter have been tributes to the old days.... which is the opposite of innovation, yes? Innovation doesn't have to be just a gameplay element or a new milestone in graphics, it can just as well be a unique story - like PST did. Kickstarter games could do that and I have high expectations of Project Eternity in that regard seeing as how the dev team can now do what they please.