Most Anticipated Games of 2005

[squire]

Dark and Light supposedly 4/30/05.

Anyone have any news on this game beyond their poorly maintained website?

[Signe]

I have talked to several people in the DnL beta test and the consensus is that they're not doing well at all.  From what I understand the localised weather system that the developers bragged about and everyone was looking forward to seeing, doesn't work.  If you are very clever and good at messing around with your settings, you can sometimes keep the game from continuously crashing... but you can't really do anything.  I've been told the game is completely unstable in every way imaginable.  

The devs answer no questions and give no guidance so what few testers are left are mostly confused.  Some people have said they're in the 3rd phase of beta but I don't see how that is possible.  It sounds to me as if they are in early Alpha... but who knows?  I don't beleive that release date and I'm not even convinced this game is viable.  Not good signs for a game that's been in development for about 4 years, I think.   There is a nice list of games, this one included, that no one really cares about anymore.

This is all speculation gathered from people I've never met.  Maybe schild could attempt to talk to a developer, if he has any interest left in this game at all.

[Sky]

Rise of Nations is a great RTS, but seriously, the lure and appeal of RTS gaming just doesn't pull me in anymore

I have a loathing of rts. I like to take my time and ponder moves, the genre is far too spastic imo. Brian Reynolds making RTS makes me curl up and cry myself to sleep every night. So much time wasted on the idiosyncrasies of AI units and other garbage like that.

[Riggswolfe]

I enjoyed RTS at one time but now I can't think of an RTS I have finished in the last few years. Even the highly rated ones (Warcraft 3) just bore me eventually and I put them away.

I'm longing for a true, turn-based strategy game. I used to play alot of wargames (of the boardgame variety) and would love to see some of these.

Is Dominion 2 a turnbased game?

[sidereal]

I'm longing for a true, turn-based strategy game. I used to play alot of wargames (of the boardgame variety) and would love to see some of these.

Depending on what you mean by 'strategy', you may enjoy Massive Assault.  I did.  It's at RTS scale but turn-based.

[schild]

This is all speculation gathered from people I've never met.  Maybe schild could attempt to talk to a developer, if he has any interest left in this game at all.

The game looks like a disaster. Once I hear good word I may garner up interest to chuck an email their way. Until good word, it seems like a big waste of time and manpower.

[naum]

I'm longing for a true, turn-based strategy game. I used to play alot of wargames (of the boardgame variety) and would love to see some of these.

Is Dominion 2 a turnbased game?

Yes.

One of these days (been playing it over a year now...) I will writeup a full review, but here's one that gives it high marks, though not as glowing as me...

http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/dominions_ii/default.asp

If you're looking for glitzy state-of-art graphics, you'll be disappointed...

If you desire a deep strategy game w/the best in TBS MP that I've seen to date, that goes even beyond Civ/HOMM series, this is the game.

Hopefully, the clunky UI, game setup, and lack of professional artist quality will be addressed in Dominions 3… …there are lots of reasons not to like the game but if you like TBS, this game can draw you in…

[JMQ]

Have you tried the Combat Mission games?  A lot of grognards seem like them:

http://www.battlefront.com/index.htm

[Riggswolfe]

Looks interesting. I like the big deep stuff. Umm..hex based, stacks of units, takes forever to plan your moves. I also used to love Empire way back when. Simple graphics, fun game.

[JMQ]

CMAK and CMBB (the two that I own) are isometric 3d.  Don't expect eye-candy, though.

I understand CMBO is 2d tiles, but I've never played it.

Dunno about the other ones.

[Lum]

I enjoyed RTS at one time but now I can't think of an RTS I have finished in the last few years. Even the highly rated ones (Warcraft 3) just bore me eventually and I put them away.

I'm longing for a true, turn-based strategy game. I used to play alot of wargames (of the boardgame variety) and would love to see some of these.

Is Dominion 2 a turnbased game?

Yes, but it's pretty different, and hard to get into. However it has a rabid fan following. You can download the demo from here:

http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/index.html

Be sure to read the walkthrough as it tells you how to play the demo. It's an acquired taste and one I never acquired, but others swear by it.

Probably the best classic "counters and hexes" games right now are the Korsun Pocket series (in addition to its namesake, two other games in the series cover the Ardennes and Normandy). You can get info on KP here:

http://www.korsunpocket.com/features.asp

And it's not strictly turn-based (although you can hit the pause button whenever) but I'm currently going gaga over Hearts of Iron 2. I spewed a lot of words about it here:

http://www.brokentoys.org/index.php?p=6634

[Ray]

I enjoyed RTS at one time but now I can't think of an RTS I have finished in the last few years. Even the highly rated ones (Warcraft 3) just bore me eventually and I put them away.

I'm longing for a true, turn-based strategy game. I used to play alot of wargames (of the boardgame variety) and would love to see some of these.

Is Dominion 2 a turnbased game?

Yes, but it's pretty different, and hard to get into. However it has a rabid fan following. You can download the demo from here:

http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/index.html

Be sure to read the walkthrough as it tells you how to play the demo. It's an acquired taste and one I never acquired, but others swear by it.

Probably the best classic "counters and hexes" games right now are the Korsun Pocket series (in addition to its namesake, two other games in the series cover the Ardennes and Normandy). You can get info on KP here:

http://www.korsunpocket.com/features.asp

And it's not strictly turn-based (although you can hit the pause button whenever) but I'm currently going gaga over Hearts of Iron 2. I spewed a lot of words about it here:

http://www.brokentoys.org/index.php?p=6634

korsun pocket is the bomb, yo. closest thing to panzer blitz I've played onb the pc. yo.

[schild]

Yo. We don't let other people talk like a jackass. We're not going to let you. Yo.

[Signe]

Yo. We don't let other people talk like a jackass. We're not going to let you. Yo.

I thought I'd save Ray the trip.

[schild]

Yo. We don't let other people talk like a jackass. We're not going to let you. Yo.

[-carfire-]
I thought I'd save Ray the trip.

I like your new ottoman. As far as carfires go, I was driving down I95 about 6 months back and in the oppisite direction was a mack truck doing about 70. As it was going by me, the entire interior of the cab burst into flame. The guy had his windows down, and he pulled off to the side and ran out of the cab on fire. Needless to say, traffic was stopped and everyone and their mom was calling 911.

Why do I know everyone was calling 911? The lady who picked up the phone told me.

"Hi, I'm driving down 95 and there is a truck on the side of the road on fire. Oh, and the guy is flailing about as well. On fire."

"Yes, we've received numerous calls"

I'm going to stop this story. It's not really going anywhere. Point is:

People dying in a carfire is one of the nastiest and saddest of deaths, but also one of the coolest looking deaths a person can go through. Nothing says rubbernecking like a human fireball.

Next time you post image-slang, I'm going to tell an even longer story.

[Signe]

Silly me.  How was I do know that my kindness towards Ray would result in strange wibble from schild.  I'll never do this again.

You can thank Paelos for my avatar.  He punned me into it.

Oh... and image-slang?  You just made that up.  Stop it!

[Comstar]

Looks interesting. I like the big deep stuff. Umm..hex based, stacks of units, takes forever to plan your moves. I also used to love Empire way back when. Simple graphics, fun game.

Perhaps you'd be interested in Empire Deluxe Internet Edition. Just released, has a 40 minute demo you can play that's the full game.  It has helo's, artiallry and nukes now, and can be played over the internet.

[Murgos]

Isn't Empire available gratis on pretty much any linux distro?

[Righ]

Isn't Empire available gratis on pretty much any linux distro?

Maybe some hacked up version. You can have the real thing for free on Windows.

Walter Bright's site

[Murgos]

According to this site a version was released with source code in 1998 under the GPL.

Doesn't look like a hacked up version according to that site.

Considering that the 'original' was written in 1973ish I doubt very much that the one you linked to is the 'real' thing or that Peter Langstrom wrote it for DOS and certainly not for windows.

1987: Walter Bright, author of an early version of Empire, posts a threatening message to rec.games.empire insisting that the name "Empire" not be used. (source, local copy). Walter had sold his rights to the game to Interstel, which is no longer in business. A record exists at the U.S. Copyright Office under document number TX-2-225-307 and under TXu-291-724. The latter document shows this version of Empire to have existed as of 1978. This version developed completely independent of the version of Empire discussed here.

Walter Bright apparently didn't come along until later.

[SurfD]

Where's my Starcraft II bitches!  And no, Ghost doesent count.

[geldonyetich]

It hardly even counts to Blizzard - Ghost was nearly canceled once or twice.

I have to mirror some issues RTS.   The Dune 2 GUI's been overplayed quite a bit, few innovate enough to justify buying the next RTS, and those who have innovated within the genre create games which suck a lot of time and leave me feeling unsatisfied afterwards.

But then, not too many games really leave me feeling satisfied anymore.  Though I've been accused of having poor gaming taste, I think it's just I've played so many games that I end up savoring this or that odd title from a strange idiosyncrasy in the game mechanic.   For example, Neocron may be mediocre, but what it tries to achieve and the unusual way it presents the game is fascinating.    If I'm such a fabulous gaming connoisseur, maybe I should try to make my own or something - put my mods where my mouth is, so to speak.  

I wonder if there's any good titles coming up this year that let us wannabe RPG game designers try our luck.   Neverwinter Nights 2, now there's an anticipated game.   Of 2006, though :P  There's always the original NWN and Morrowind.

[Righ]

Walter Bright apparently didn't come along until later.

Sounds to me like you are talking about what became Netrek, which is a very different game.

Edit: nope, your reference is to the HP2000C Empire (came a year after the PLATO one). There are at least four distinct games by the same name.

[Signe]

If I'm reading this right, there is no reason why I can not name my new 3 piece rock combo Led Zeppelin.

[naum]

Many different incantations of "Empire"… …some similar, some totally different…

This is the one I was speaking of, the one that's survived since the 1970s…
http://www.empire.cx/default.htm

It is a strategy wargame played by a number of people (usually between 4 and 100) on the internet connected to an Empire Server. If you've ever seen the game "Civilization", Empire is a lot like it, except it is more detailed, and of course multi-player. As the leader of a nation which consists of certain sectors on a large hexagonal grid, you decide (based on resources) what each sector's "designation" should be. This way, you obtain food, iron, gold, oil, uranium. You distribute these raw materials to factories to convert them into more useful things. You manage a civilian and slave populace for producing goods, and a military populace for defence and conquest. You also have the tricky job of balancing a budget. As the technology level of your country increases, you are able to build more and more advanced units: for example, in a typical game, at tech 0 you can build fishing boats and frigates, at tech 50 you can build planes, cruisers, and infantry, and by tech 300 you can build satellites, jet planes, and nuclear weapons.


NOTE: rec.games.empire has nothing at all to do with the commercial PC
games called "Empire Deluxe", "Ages of Empire", and "Empire Earth", nor the PC version of an old VAX classic called "Empire: Wargame of the Century" which came out in the 80's. The newsgroups microsoft.public.agesofempire alt.games.empire-deluxe and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic concern themselves with games like these. However, people who enjoy those single-user games would certainly enjoy the multi-user kind of empire we play here even more!

I haven't played in a few years, but I do remember there was a Win GUI client (originally you issued commands via telnet connection… …including printing the hexagon map display in raw ASCII…)

Actually have played with the code of this one and the "Empire of the Century" (old VAX game)… …some of the comments in the code are pure hilarity…

[HaemishM]

DNL Stuff.... There is a nice list of games, this one included, that no one really cares about anymore.

I still care about it, in that I really hope they can pull off the stuff they promise. But I don't care enough to follow the development until they give me a beta slot.

[Righ]

Many different incantations of "Empire"… …some similar, some totally different…

After reading more of these sites and downloading a couple of versions, the one I'm most familiar with actually owes more to PSL Empire since it was multi-player and had many of the features in the EmpireClassic/Wolfpack descriptions. I don't see the exact version in the timeline as it was pre-1986 on Unix. However, it did also get clobbered by Bright's name, just as the DECUS game did. Damn you Bright, the whole mess seems like a good reason for observing prior art in trades and service marks.

[schild]

I was going to watch and writeup my response to Gamespot's list of what they're anticipating in 2005, but I suddenly had the craving for a 1lb McGamespot Burger. Subliminal Advertising now'a'days is phenomenal. Anyone have a screencap of McIGN lying around?

[Windurst]

I'm looking forward to....

Xenosaga II
Final Fantasy XII
Dragon Warrior VII

[Aenovae]

I'm looking forward to...

POUND ONE



Ahhh fuck get out of my brain!

[Margalis]

Ha ha I thought that screenshot was a photoshop job at first. I guess gamers a a whole aren't portly enough already.

There's no problem eating a 1 pound McDonald's burger, as long as you don't eat anything else for the next 2 days I suppose...

[Murgos]

I'm curious on the math there.  Isn't a QPC a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?  How does a Double quarter pound suddenly equal a full pound?  Forgive my ignorance if there is a trivial answer but I haven't eaten in Mc'D's in years.

[Alkiera]

the fine print suggests the meat is 8oz before cooking...

I'm guessing the bread and other stuff also weighs 8oz.

Alkiera

[schild]

You don't know how good it is until you've had one.

[MrHat]

You don't know how good it is until you've had one.

Looks dangerous.