Drowsy Emperor

I played through all the single player Dawn of War 2 stuff and it was the most boring gameplay I've played in a long time. The original campaign was just a series of generic battles that shuffled a few similar locations and enemies every few missions. The expansions had better stories, but the overall game was too easy and the whole concept of sorta having a base in multiplayer but not really coupled with only a handful of units didn't stick with me. For no reason at all Relic tinkered with what wasn't broken, instead of improving the core gameplay of DoW. But then, they generally have a problem with sequels. Homeworld 2 wasn't very good overall, even though it had some great ideas and jaw dropping visual design.

No it doesnt. It means that I haven't heard of any of their games make a splash which considering how much time I spend on this hobby means that they're either garbage or not featured in any of the more popular publications. OK, it probably means that you regard CoD/ BF or MoW/ CoH as wargames if you think you like them but have never heard of Matrix/ Slitherine. They'd be the biggest maker/ publisher of computer wargames (as opposed to fps/ rts using war as a setting) by a fair margin. I know what wargames are, its just that they used to be featured alongside other turn based games in reviews until the genre became so obscure and low budget compared to the games that make serious money that many websites and magazines stopped covering them. RTS and the standard pc turn based games appeal to me more. Wargames are too much (or exactly like) board games for my tastes.

Not to rain on your parade but the website of said company doesn't exactly feature a selection of top notch games. Which translates to "I don't like wargames" basically, as their games are niche, but they are quality niche in the vast majority of cases. It'll be expensive, it won't go on sale much- and it won't be on Steam unless GW specified it had to be. But it will, very likely, be good. They know what they're doing, and it isn't just making ludicrous SS Panzergrenadier vs Roman Legionnaire, who would win and why??? Discuss! simulations for SpoikeTV No it doesnt. It means that I haven't heard of any of their games make a splash which considering how much time I spend on this hobby means that they're either garbage or not featured in any of the more popular publications. If you say they're good I'll take your word for it.

Goddamn it Serrano don't intrude on a man's attempt to be a know-it-all.

I don't know what the idea is but I can tell you who its "stolen" from. This is a prime example of HR Giger's biomechanical style from over 30 years ago - the most famous representative being the Xenomorph from the Alien movies and the ship and its captain from the first film in particular. Its exactly the same only Giger preferred a different color palette.

Not to rain on your parade but the website of said company doesn't exactly feature a selection of top notch games.

Sweet. The list of PC games I want to play grows by the day.

It entirely depends on what they mean by "You will be able to trade and sell your Xbox games online." MS looks to be pushing heavily into digital, and have effectively resorted physical media to be simply a delivery device, not what is necessary to play the game. I'm curious if people are still as upset if they can do the things they want, but digitially. Want to lend a game to a friend, "trade" it with him for free (or some game you want to play). Licenses are swapped and people have access to the other game. It sounds like you just won't be able to lend with physical media anymore. But if it works that way then you can theoretically go back and forth between your entire collections and play all his games for free and then exchange everything back to what it was. A dozen people would buy one game that way and play twelve. I don't think that's going to happen.

Spend money. Would't we all like his job

And since he left, Civ V improved considerably. Or so I heard with the release of the first expansion pack. From what I understand his major "failing" was that he implemented the hex system without enough foresight as to how difficult AI is to program in that system (supposedly very difficult) and the scope of changes that system would bring to Civ even in trivial things like map size (necessity of having many more hexes to strategize with single unit armies than square grids in Civ stacks), leading to permanent congestion of the world map. I like the single unit per hex idea but most fanatical players argue that the implementation was poor. There is a new upcoming expansion (most likely the last one) and that will probably be the last version of the game and better opportunity to see what the final product is like.

He was leading up some Kickstarter project relatively recently: At the Gates Developer churn is still a fairly regular thing. It doesn't mean that there's bad blood or anything. Would be strange not to have the lead designer around for the expansion packs? Rumor is that he was fired (but this may just be wishful thinking on CivFanatics forums)

Yes, it's a plain old Steam key generally. Amazon only do a check against the billing address by the way, so if you put in a fake one you can buy it yourself. Though "legally" yeah, safer to get someone in the US to buy from you - and yeah, it's trivial to send cash to other people through PayPal. A fake US address did it! You're a genius Humanoid Of course, now I have both a physical copy of Civ IV and a steam one but I think the package was too good to pass up at that price.

US only sale of XCOM, CIV IV complete and CIV V gold for 20$. (steam codes) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CPBZDPE/ref=s9_newr_gw_d55_g367_ir03?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0YX4VJM24EJKWF7S442E&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846 If I can get someone from the US to buy this for me will I be able to activate these games over steam? I'd obviously send the 20 bucks to someone (can I send money to regular people through paypal?).

Old news but still interesting: two months after Civ V was released, lead designer Jon Shafer "left" Firaxis. http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/12/21/jon-shafer-leaves-firaxis/

Burn the heretic!

/

I see the changing taste thing. Of course we change. But for me personally I think that while my tastes have changed, Between Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm they probably haven't changed all that much. Then again, I never thought that the original Starcraft had any worthwhile story to begin with It didn't, but by RTS standards it was pretty good. Not in the same league as Homeworld though.

Eh, I hate when that happens, it makes me feel old and jaded. I grew up on Myth, Homeworld, Wing Commander, Baldur's Gate and Broken Sword. For years now, I didn't have anything to take me back to those years. Now I'm waiting for PE and Wasteland, the new BS, Star Citizen and hoping I'm not too burnt out to enjoy them for what they are.

You seem to care enough to keep writing walls of text how crappy Blizzard games are. Diablo 3 is so far the best Diablo clone I've played since Diablo 2. Probably sunk 100 hours of time into it. The last time I bothered to spend so much time on a game was F:NV I think. HoTS is excellent. God bless Blizzard for still making big PC games. They're not crappy but they're not as good as they once were. I played D3 for a little while (watched people play more at an internet cafe) and I think the game is complete ass. None of the horror atmosphere of the original and the SP is so short as to be non existent. I completed Wings of Liberty and while the gameplay is pretty good, the campaign was overproduced crap which I blew through in two sittings on the hardest difficulty level without repeating a single mission. And the missions themselves were training sessions for the unit they give you in that mission. And everyone says HoS is even shorter and the story is weaker so you'll forgive me if I take your words with a grain of salt. The original SC could be crushingly difficult particularly towards the end and it actually had a decent story. BW was even better.

Meh who cares anyway. ARPG junkies have Grim Dawn to look forward to - D3 is old news now. I don't even play that genre, I was just curious how Blizz is doing. Obviously they're still a money printing press, but I think they spent some of their reputation with D3 and Heart of the Swarm. Even the major gaming sites, all paid advertising by default, struggled not to comment on how silly the HoS campaign is and how poor D3 single player was and the rest of the changes don't bring much to the table either. A lot went into the promotion of SCII as an e-sport but the game's staying power is surely not going to be like SC. WoW isn't going anywhere any time soon but its on an expected decline. Legacy of the Void is a single player disaster in the making. I'm willing to bet good money that its going to be the recycled endgame of Warcraft III where all the races band together against the hybrids/big bad. I expect that exact outcome, and even the same/similar last mission. All the plot threads are pointing in that direction, with the Zerg becoming the good guys now, much like the Orcs did in WCIII. If that happens I'll be majorly disappointed that they lack even that ounce of creativity to make a truly new product. After all, they once had the balls to end Brood War with zerg victory. From that to the cartoon Zerg of SCII is facepalm worthy. The new casual MMO is an unknown so that might shake things up a little.

Because the PC has an overall larger catalog of games? I'm not arguing, just saying. A major damper on my console buying enthusiasm is that I have to buy an LCD/Plasma/LED TV. So I can't fork over a couple of hundred euros for a console and have piece of mind - it'll end up close to a 1000. When you put it like that its either a 1000 for a top of the line PC or a 1000 for TV+console. Console might last longer on account of not needing to upgrade, but is harder to fix overall when something goes bad. Also console games are more expensive. And apart from playing games I wouldn't watch that expensive TV much.

Bombed after release obviously. As in - multiplayer abandoned by players. I know a few people who have it and no one plays it. I'm don't believe Blizz numbers.

I don't think the US/NATO should have the right to intervene halfway across the world (that's what the UN was created for after all, and its the only collective entity that has legitimacy for those type of actions). That's what the post WWII world agreed, everything else is abuse. However, I don't think leaving will change anything regarding terrorism. As a phenomenon it has grown into a sort of self justified crusade in the eyes of those who commit it - regardless of the actions of US/NATO forces, where they actually are and what they actually do. So, I don't think its going to magically stop even after Afghanistan is empty of foregin troops. Its bigger than Afghanistan - and certain other conflicts (the impending one with Iran, the "forever war" between Israel and Plaestine etc.) will keep the justifications for terrorism fresh for years to come.

You think you're special or what? People from my country were being carved up for spare parts and sold on the black market by the dozen by these same types - and are still murdered and harassed on a daily basis for over a decade - men, women and children. All the deaths from terrorists acts in the UK in the last decade are a drop in the bucket compared to all the misery those people have inflicted in these parts. Just because it goes unreported, and in the long run its just some people you don't give a toss about - doesn't give you even the faintest right that you can go about accusing people of "agendas" ,because you have no idea what it means not to have the luxury of playing progressive democrat because your choices in life boil down to either leaving your house and your land and saving your skin or staying and likely suffering a fate worse than death. When your life comes down to that, then we can speak of "agendas".

Lol, its practically the same thing in two different boxes. Just found out by skimming through Zavvi - preorders for XBOne have turned up - priced at 400 pounds. Likely to be 400 euros then. Guess the PS4 could be around 500 then.