Help me buy something by fighting about it!

[Trippy]

WWII: Company of Heroes looks fucking splendid, and I dislike RTS. Anyone know if you can pause-and-issue-orders? If so, I'm all over that when it hits $20-30.

Yup you can pause and give orders. CoH is also a more "deliberate" RTS compared to, say, Dawn of War. CoH encourages you to set up defenses, taking advantage of the buildings and terrain, before moving on to the next objective.

Edit: to not do

[Moaner]

WWII: Company of Heroes looks fucking splendid, and I dislike RTS. Anyone know if you can pause-and-issue-orders? If so, I'm all over that when it hits $20-30.

Yup you can pause and give orders. CoH is also a more "deliberate" RTS compared to, say, Dawn of War. CoH encourages you do set up defenses, taking advantage of the buildings and terrain, before moving on to the next objective.

My favorite part about CoH is the fact your units seemingly act intelligently most of the time.  They dig in, take cover, attack appropriately, and generally follow commands better than in any other RTS I've ever played.  I'm still playing skirmishes pretty regularly and I bought it at release.

[Yegolev]

Riddick kicks the shit out of Resistance, or any other FPS that I can think of.  Maybe not Half-Life.  But we're not here to discuss that.  By the way... NO FUCKING IN THE COURTYARD.

The discussion about peripherals is a good one.  The 360 requires an additional investment if you don't want to run cable, and I don't.  On the other hand, the controller doubles as a PC gamepad... if I buy the dongle.  It also comes with a component cable, unlike any other machine I can think of.  What else can I expect to be nickel-and-dimed with in any of these scenarios?

[stray]

A Gold subscription. Besides that, you're pretty set, I think.

[edit] Headset too. ;)

[Yegolev]

I have a Sennheiser headset already, despite my lack of participation in TS.  I mostly use it with my DS.  Also, the Big 360 comes with one.

[schild]

360.
Games for the 360.
Wireless card for the 360.
Second controller for the 360.
Guitar Hero 2 (again) for the 360.
Gold subscription for the 360.
A good 4000-8000 marketplace points to catch up with everyone else... for the 360.

All told, the 360 is not a cheap investment...

[Yegolev]

Oy-vey caramba!

I'm not getting the HD-DVD unit.

[schild]

I didn't say anything about the HD-DVD unit.

[stray]

All told, the 360 is not a cheap investment...

Yep. Didn't know you go buy points though.


Unrelated: I know people are gonna get pissed at me for saying this: But the PSP, the more I think about it, is looking like the 3rd most compelling system out there (after PS2 and DS). Not the 360. I'm torn (personally speaking....not suggesting anything to Yeg).

[schild]

Eh.

Only from a "hack the planet" standpoint.

I didn't review one of the recent releases because no matter how much I tried to play the game (logged 30 hours), the PSP made it not fun. That fucking system was not made to be enjoyable. Everything played on it seems like less than it is. I don't know how that works either since the screen is amazazing.

[Yegolev]

My opinion is that it is centered on the controls (shocking).  The screen is unparalleled, but the ergonomics of it are Not For Me.

[stray]

I need to borrow someone's for awhile, I guess. But I don't know anyone with many games. And there's actually quite a few titles I want to play on it (can't really say that about other things).

[Sky]

Not putting in full dual shock controls was a huge mistake. I've been tempted by the system (the screen, anyway) a couple times, but it just seems like not having the nub for camera control is a deal-breaker.

[stray]

I'm thinking how cool it could have been to have tilt on a portable. Not for everything, mind you...But some titles would probably kick ass. Like Ace Combat. A Marble Madness type of game would be great too.

[EDIT]

Heh. Then again, that could be a problem. You'd be moving the screen along with everything else. 

[Sky]

Meh, I don't want tilt. I'm an old guy who moves the controller suddenly when I'm hitting buttons. I'd be all over the place.

Then again, I always made those stupid pinball machines tilt.

[Azazel]

Then get softwares for the above. Everyone else seems to put softs at the bottom, but there's no point having a 360 with no games. Wii Sports might be enough to get you by on the Wii to start with, also your wife might enjoy playing it with you...

In my own defense I tend to seperate games from software. When I hear software I think productivity programs and not a DVD you stick into your XBOX. I know, it's weird.

Sure, but considering everything else on the list was gaming-related, I assumed it to be "bunch of gaming software across various platforms".

Also, Riddick is a good FPS? I saw that for the cheap the other day, but you know, movie tie-in and so forth. May have to go back and check it.

[Trippy]

Also, Riddick is a good FPS? I saw that for the cheap the other day, but you know, movie tie-in and so forth. May have to go back and check it.

Yes it's quite good.

[stray]

Yep, Riddick would be one of the few movie based games where the Hollywood side (just Vin Diesel, I think) liked games enough to want it to be something special. So there were good people working on it.

In fact, it was better than the movie. Heh.

It's actually a prequel to Pitch Black though, and has nothing to do with the Riddick film's storyline.


The same guys are working on the Darkness too, which should be out soon.

[Baldrake]

Don't buy a 360 now. There are all these rumours about imminent release of a new HDMI version with 120 GB HD. Even if those don't interest you, it will lower the cost of the current versions...

And no good PC games? All the interesting current and upcoming games are on PC: Spore, Civ 4, Medieval 2: Total War, Pirates of the Burning Sea. I mean, how many console shooters do you really want to own before your eyes glaze from the unremitting sameness of it all?

[stray]

Those rumors are just that.

Besides, they wouldn't announce it at GDC (which would be "imminent"). It's not the place for that kind of consumer news, and Microsoft doesn't exactly have the biggest presence there this year anyways.

[Baldrake]

Agreed. But if you're on the fence about a 360, at this point it seems worth it to wait a few months. If you just have to have one, then sure, go ahead and buy it.

[stray]

I'd agree with that. Though the shooters and action titles that are on it are very tempting.

Personally, I could hold out until Forza 2 and some of the upcoming rpg's.

Then again, it'd suck spending all that money in the following months catching up with the older games. It's not a bad idea to get one now just for that.

[Yegolev]

I'm pretty well-stocked with console shooters.  Who isn't, really?  Lots of them are far less fun than Ratchet & Clank or Timesplitters or even Halo.  For the serious ones, I have the PC.

My TV does not have HDMI inputs, and is HDMI so much better that I would start using it or die a terrible pixelated death?  If I wait too long, my wife will spend the money on things for herself, my son or the family as a whole.

I also think I'm pretty covered in the RTS arena, as well.  Rise of Nations, Dawn of War, StarCraft... that should about cover it.

Spore seems interesting but it's a crapshoot if you ask me.  Pirates of the Burning Sea might be my most-anticipated PC title right now, and Bioshock, but I am trying to keep my expectations low there.  That tactic worked great with Hellgate: London.

I'll be clear and say that I wasn't trying to get you all to help me decide if I should buy Office 2007, or update to the newest OpenOffice build, or if you found any bugs in PuTTY 0.59 that I should know about.  I wasn't intent on excluding non-game software from the discussion, either, but yeah.  Feel free to try to convince me to buy some non-game software, but it had better be entertaining.

[schild]

HDMI isn't so much better than Component. And I frickin hate that it has audio running through it.

[stray]

Only entertaining software applications I can think of need accompanying hardware. If you have a camera or a midi controller, I'll make suggestions :).

Games:

Screw it. Just save your cash, and buy a copy of Motorstorm next week. 

Though I do think Gears, Lost Planet, Dead Rising, or Chromehounds are fresh enough to not play into your shooter apathy.

[Yegolev]

First, Butcher Bay was awesome because Starbreeze already had a super game before Diesel threw money and his face at it.  Better than the movies.

Second, time to lay out what I did.  Thanks to everyone for your help here.  The consensus was that Baby Jesus cried nightly knowing that I did not have a 360.

Have now:
Big 360
Gears
Dead Rising
Wii
Zelda

Coming soon:
Second Wiimote
Component cable
Mario Party 8
other assorted junk

I just walked into Target and picked up a Wii, which explains why I don't have all of the bits and pieces.  I think the 360 wireless is on the list, too.  As expected, my wife thinks the Wii is awesome.  Me, I'm impressed with how far the GameCube has come.  Still getting used to the controls, but since I had Zelda-dreams all last night, I think it must be a winner.  Holy crap, does it remind me of Okami, though.

The 360, it has some great games.  Dead Rising is much better than I had thought it would be.  Gears is growing on me; apparently grey is the new brown.  The Dashboard doesn't make the impression on me that XMB does.  I have decided that the idea-theft between these three consoles wasn't taken far enough.

Again, thanks for playing.  Feel free to keep arguing, though.

[stray]

XMB is about to get better, I think.

But as it is now, I think it's a lot more elegant. Dashboard looks like something out of ESPN.


All that being said, Baby Jesus is still crying. I'm like the only one left on this site without a 360.

[Trippy]

All that being said, Baby Jesus is still crying. I'm like the only one left on this site without a 360.

I don't got one.

[Yegolev]

What do you got, Cat Sandwich?  I think you have a PC.

[Trippy]

PC, PS2, DS, GC, Xbox (on loan to a friend). I don't have any of the latest gen consoles, yet.

[Signe]

I don't have any of the new stuff either.  I'm saving my money for a face transplant.

[Sky]

I don't have any of the new consoles, and given my experience with the last round, I won't be buying any. I'd haul it out to play a new game, finish it and away it would go while I played pc games between interesting console launches. If my father hadn't given me over a dozen games (of which I've played two because he likes console shooters), I'd have a half-dozen xbox games. I think the Cube was worth buying, but barely. It was cheap, I didn't need any extra stuff with it, and the games were solid and exclusives (Zelda, RE remake and zero, mostly). But still, three games? Meh.

I waver with the 360 for stuff like fight night and dead rising, but it's still buying a dedicated non-upgradeable machine for a couple games. Just doesn't make sense. I'd rather miss out on a few titles now and again and spend the money on another guitar ;)

[Yegolev]

Eternal Darkness, but yes the Cube library is small.  As usual, I'm not coming down on your for not liking console games, but avoiding lots of good games because you have a problem with the hardware is silly.  But choices must be made and I cannot fault you, really.  Guitars last much longer than game platforms.

I don't have any of the new stuff either.  I'm saving my money for a face transplant.

Can't you just put a bag over his head?

[Furiously]

I'd be careful. Righ might have a gun.

[Yegolev]

He will never penetrate the Liechtenstein border.